00100	                            March 7, 1973

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00700	          STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF TENURE FOR JEROME FELDMAN
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00900		As a member of the Search Committee and as  Director  of  the
01000	Artificial  Intelligence  Laboratory, I would like to add support for
01100	the Computer Science Department's decision to  recommend  tenure  for
01200	Professor Feldman.  Feldman is an excellent "generalist"--whose ideas
01300	cut across many areas of Computer Science research.  Not withstanding
01400	that,  however, the excellence and importance of his primary research
01500	contribution--developing processes for  computer  vision--has  become
01600	increasingly clear.
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01800		At present, Stanford is the leading place  in  the  world  in
01900	making  computers carry out visual processes.  It is clear to me that
02000	Feldman  rather  than  merely  the  environment  of  the   Artificial
02100	Intelligence  Laboratory  is  mainly  responsible  for this.  Feldman
02200	works mainly through students and  does  not  usually  co-author  the
02300	papers  based  on  their theses, but it is clear that the basic ideas
02400	are his.  This is not only true of the theses produced over the  last
02500	few  years,  but  also  of  the  work  that  newer  students are just
02600	beginning. All this work is part of a  coherent  plan  for  advancing
02700	knowledge of computer vision and applying it to robotics and applying
02800	the robotics to industrial automation.
02900	
03000		Here are some details:
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03200		1.  First of all, there is  the  general  "world-model"  into
03300	which all the separate vision and manipulation packages fit.  This is
03400	almost entirely Feldman's design although it has been implemented  by
03500	various programmers.
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03700		2.   Feldman has specified and is further developing the SAIL
03800	language in which most of these programs are written.
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04000		3.  In my opinion the theses of Sobel, Falk, Tenenbaum, Gill,
04100	Agin, and Paul represent substantial contributions to computer vision
04200	and manipulation and Feldman played a leading role in  all  of  them.
04300	The recent work of Agin and Paul are especially important.
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04500		Beyond  the  area  of vision research, Feldman has a thorough
04600	knowledge  of  all  work  being  done  in  the  area  of   artificial
04700	intelligence  in  the  country.   In my opinion, his understanding of
04800	what is being done everywhere is the best in our department.
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05000		If he leaves Stanford, the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
05100	will  be  severely  handicapped  for  a  long  time.  There is no one
05200	available here or elsewhere who could replace him.  In particular, he
05300	has  done much better than Raj Reddy who left us for Carnegie-Mellon,
05400	and he has done better than Tom Binford, a  Research  Associate,  who
05500	works  here  in  the  same  field.  Feldman is simply unmatchable for
05600	producing good student theses in the vision area.
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06200					John McCarthy
06300					Professor of Computer Science
06400					Director, Artificial Intelligence
06500						Laboratory