Shlomo Zilberstein Featured as October Spotlight Scholar

Shlomo Zilberstein, professor of computer science in the Manning College of Information & Computer Sciences, has been named a Spotlight Scholar for October 2025.

As director of the Resource-Bounded Reasoning Lab, Zilberstein conducts research on the computational foundations of automated reasoning and action. He studies how intelligent systems can operate independently given uncertainty in the environment, missing information, and limited computational resources. Over the past three decades of his career, Zilberstein has made significant contributions to his field. His research has been recognized with numerous prestigious awards, including the 2025 ACM/SIGAI Autonomous Agents Research Award and the 2019 IFAAMAS Influential Paper Award. He is a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and a recipient of the 2019 UMass Chancellor's Medal.

In recent years, Zilberstein's research has expanded to consider how AI systems can make intelligent decisions when interacting with people and machines, given the inevitable uncertainties in any "open world," whether physical or virtual. And though he began by exploring theoretical ideas, his research has been translated into real-world applications. Zilberstein often partners with industry on research and has had more than a dozen U.S. patents granted, along with many in other countries. Applications of his research include autonomous vehicles, which he has worked on in a partnership with Nissan, and space exploration systems like the Mars rover, which he worked on for NASA. Zilberstein has also collaborated with UMass colleagues on research on mobile robotics systems, such as robots that can deliver packages in an office or help clear items from the floor. And as AI becomes increasingly more powerful, Zilberstein's research has focused on safety considerations.

To read more about Zilberstein and previous Spotlight Scholars, or to learn more about the nomination process, visit the Spotlight Scholars website.

Nominations for the 2025-26 Spotlight Scholar award program are open through Oct. 16.