David Marr (psychologist)
| David Courtnay Marr | |
|---|---|
| Born |
19 January 1945 Woodford, London |
| Died | 17 November 1980 (aged 35) Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| Fields |
Computational neuroscience Artificial intelligence Psychology |
| Institutions | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Thesis | A general theory for cerebral cortex (1972) |
| Doctoral advisor | Giles Brindley |
| Doctoral students |
Shimon Ullman Eric Grimson John M. Hollerbach |
| Notable awards | IJCAI Computers and Thought Award |
David Courtnay Marr (19 January 1945 – 17 November 1980) was a British neuroscientist and physiologist. Marr integrated results from psychology, artificial intelligence, and neurophysiology into new models of visual processing. His work was very influential in computational neuroscience and led to a resurgence of interest in the discipline.
Born in Woodford, Essex, and educated at Rugby School; he was admitted at Trinity College, Cambridge on 1 October 1963 (having been awarded the Lees Knowles Rugby Exhibition).
He was awarded the Coutts Trotter Scholarship in 1966 and obtained his BA in mathematics the same year and got his PhD in physiology under Giles Brindley in 1972. His interest turned from general brain theory to visual processing. His doctoral dissertation was submitted in 1969 and described his model of the function of the cerebellum based mainly on anatomical and physiological data garnered from a book by J.C. Eccles. Subsequently he worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he took on a faculty appointment in the Department of Psychology in 1977 and was subsequently made a tenured full professor in 1980. Marr proposed that understanding the brain requires an understanding of the problems it faces and the solutions it finds. He emphasised the need to avoid general theoretical debates and instead focus on understanding specific problems.
Marr died of leukaemia in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the age of 35. His findings are collected in the book Vision: A computational investigation into the human representation and processing of visual information, which was finished mainly on 1979 summer, was published in 1982 after his death and re-issued in 2010 by The MIT Press. This book had a key role in the beginning and rapid growth of computational neuroscience field. He was married to Lucia M. Vaina of Boston University's Department of Biomedical Engineering and Neurology. The Marr Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in computer vision, is named in his honour. The Cognitive Science Society also awards a Marr Prize for the best student paper at its annual conference.
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