William Swartout

Board Member

Bill is Chief Technology Officer at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies. He is also a research professor at USC’s Computer Science Department.   Prior to helping found the ICT in 1999, Swartout was the Director of the Intelligent Systems Division at USC’s Information Sciences Institute.   Swartout was the Principle Investigator for the ICT’s New Dimensions in Testimony Project which recorded Holocaust survivors in an interactive, conversational format, preserving their stories for future generations.

He is currently leading the ONR-funded Personal Assistant for Lifelong Learning project, which is developing a learning coach to help service members with career transitions and knowledge decay.  Swartout is a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), and in 2009,  received AAAI’s Robert Engelmore Award  for his contributions to knowledge-based systems, groundbreaking research on virtual human technologies and outstanding service to the artificial intelligence community.

He has served as a member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, the Board on Army Science and Technology of the National Academies and the JFCOM Transformation Advisory Group.  Swartout received his Ph.D. and M.S. in computer science from MIT and his bachelor’s degree from Stanford University.  A 30-year resident of Malibu, Swartout has volunteered for over 20 years with LA County’s Disaster Communications Service, serving Malibu and surrounding areas.