Dr. Sebastian Thrun stands as a visionary leader in computer science and artificial intelligence, renowned for his transformative contributions across academia and industry. Currently serving as Chairman of Udacity, CEO of Kitty Hawk Corporation, and Adjunct Professor at Stanford University, he has built a distinguished career spanning prestigious academic institutions and innovative technology enterprises. Born in Solingen, Germany in 1967, he completed his educational foundation at the University of Hildesheim and earned both his Diplom and Ph.D. in computer science and statistics from the University of Bonn in 1993 and 1995 respectively. His academic journey began at Carnegie Mellon University where he joined as a research computer scientist in 1995, rising to become assistant professor and co-director of the Robot Learning Laboratory before transitioning to Stanford University in 2003 where he served as director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and full professor of computer science and electrical engineering until 2011.
Dr. Thrun's pioneering research in probabilistic robotics and machine learning has fundamentally reshaped the development of autonomous systems and artificial intelligence applications. His leadership of the Stanford team that won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge with a self-driving vehicle marked a watershed moment in autonomous technology, directly leading to his co-founding of Google's self-driving car program which later became Waymo. At Google, he also co-developed Google Street View and founded Google X, the innovation lab responsible for groundbreaking projects including Google Glass. His scholarly contributions include over 380 scientific papers and 11 books, with Google Scholar ranking his h-index as #14 worldwide among all computer scientists, reflecting the extraordinary impact of his work on robotics, artificial intelligence, and human-computer interaction.
Beyond his technical achievements, Dr. Thrun has profoundly influenced education through his co-founding of Udacity in 2012, pioneering the massive open online course (MOOC) movement alongside Peter Norvig with their groundbreaking artificial intelligence course that enrolled 160,000 students globally. His exceptional contributions have been recognized with numerous prestigious honors including election to the National Academy of Engineering at age 39, the Max Planck Research Award, the IEEE ICRA Milestone Award, and induction into the TIME Best Inventions Hall of Fame for StreetView. Currently leading Kitty Hawk Corporation while maintaining his academic ties at Stanford, Dr. Thrun continues to push the boundaries of innovation in aerial transportation and education technology, cementing his legacy as one of the most influential computer scientists of his generation whose work continues to shape the future of artificial intelligence and its integration into everyday life.
