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Benjamin Kuipers

computer scientist

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ4888930 ↗
Source-derived summary

Benjamin Kuipers (born 7 April 1949) is an American computer scientist at the University of Michigan, known for his research in qualitative simulation.

Biography

Kuipers graduated from Swarthmore College in 1970 with a B.A. in Mathematics. He then did two years of alternate service as a conscientious objector to military service, working in the Psychology Department at Harvard University. He began his doctoral studies in pure mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He soon discovered the field of Artificial Intelligence, and spent most of his time at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, where his advisor was Marvin Minsky. He received his PhD in Mathematics from MIT in 1977. He spent a post-doctoral year as a research associate at the MIT Division for Study and Research in Education, funded by a DARPA grant to support collaborative research with BBN psychologist Albert Stevens.

Kuipers joined the Computer Science Department at the University of Texas at Austin in 1985 and became department chair in 1997. In January 2009, he moved to the University of Michigan, where he is now a professor of Computer Science and Engineering.

Kuipers is an elected fellow of the AAAI and the AAAS.

Personal stance on military funding

Kuipers is also well known for his personal stance against accepting military funding for his research.

Editorial summary

“Benjamin Kuipers” enters the record as computer scientist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Benjamin, Kuipers and computer can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1949, 1970, 1977, 1985—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1949-04-07. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Benjamin, Kuipers and computer.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Benjamin Kuipers” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Benjamin, Kuipers and computer provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4888930. VIAF identifies the subject as 44399068. The Library of Congress control number is n94022004. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1949, 1970, 1977 and 1985.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Benjamin Kuipers” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.