Stuart Russell received his BA with first-class honors in Physics from Oxford in 1982, his PhD in Computer Science from Stanford in 1986, and then joined the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley. He is a Professor (and former Chair) of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and holds the Smith--Zadeh Chair in Engineering. He is a fellow of AAAI, ACM, and AAAS; winner of the Computers and Thought Award, the Outstanding Educator Award from both ACM and AAAI, and the World Technology Award; and holder from 2012 to 2014 of the Chaires Blaise Pascal in Paris.

His book "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach" (with Peter Norvig) is the standard text in AI, used in over 1,300 universities in 116 countries. His research covers many areas of artificial intelligence, with a particular focus on machine learning, probabilistic modeling and inference, theoretical foundations of rationality, and planning under uncertainty. He also works for the United Nations, developing a new global seismic monitoring system for the nuclear-test-ban treaty. His current concerns include the threat of autonomous weapons and the long-term

future of artificial intelligence and its relation to humanity.