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Raj Reddy
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Raj Reddy

Indian-American AI pioneer and the first Asian-born winner of the Turing Award

13 June 1937 United States Verified by our editors
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Age
89 yrs
Birthday in 220 days
Works listed
2
Speech understanding system, Project
Honours
4
Most recent 2004
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Raj Reddy is an Indian-American computer scientist who pioneered speech recognition and large-scale AI systems at Carnegie Mellon University, where he founded the Robotics Institute. In 1994 he became the first person of Asian origin to win the Turing Award, which he shared with Edward Feigenbaum.

Biography

Early life

Reddy was born in a farming family in Katur, in present-day Andhra Pradesh. He studied civil engineering at Guindy Engineering College in Madras, then at the University of New South Wales, and earned a PhD in computer science at Stanford in 1966 under John McCarthy.

Speech and AI

At Carnegie Mellon from 1969 his group built Hearsay, Harpy and other early systems that could understand continuous spoken language. Many of today’s speech-recognition techniques trace back to researchers he trained.

Robotics Institute

In 1979 he founded CMU’s Robotics Institute, one of the world’s leading robotics research centres, and later served as dean of the School of Computer Science.

Technology for all

Reddy has campaigned to use technology for the poor and illiterate. He helped found the Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies in Andhra Pradesh and the Universal Digital Library. He received the Padma Bhushan in 2001.

Timeline

  1. 1937

    Born in Katur, Andhra Pradesh, India

  2. 1966

    PhD from Stanford

  3. 1969

    Joins Carnegie Mellon

  4. 1976

    Harpy speech system

  5. 1979

    Founds the Robotics Institute

  6. 1991

    Dean of CMU School of Computer Science

  7. 1994

    Turing Award

  8. 2001

    Padma Bhushan

Notable works

  • 1976

    Hearsay-II Speech understanding system

  • 2001

    Universal Digital Library Project

Awards and honours

  • Légion d’honneur

    1984

  • Turing Award

    1994

  • Padma Bhushan

    2001

  • Okawa Prize

    2004

Did you know?

  1. 1

    He was one of John McCarthy’s first doctoral students.

  2. 2

    He chaired the US President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee.

  3. 3

    He was the first person of Asian origin to receive the Turing Award.

Connections

Related people

Also born on 13 June

Frequently asked

Who is Raj Reddy?

Raj Reddy is an Indian-American computer scientist who pioneered speech recognition and large-scale AI systems at Carnegie Mellon University, where he founded the Robotics Institute. In 1994 he became the first person of Asian origin to win the Turing Award, which he shared with Edward Feigenbaum.

How old is Raj Reddy?

Raj Reddy is 89 years old, born on 13 June 1937 in Katur, Andhra Pradesh, India.

Where is Raj Reddy from?

Raj Reddy was born in Katur, Andhra Pradesh, India.

What is Raj Reddy known for?

Raj Reddy is best known for Speech recognition; robotics; Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute; Turing Award 1994.

What awards has Raj Reddy received?

Notable honours include Légion d’honneur (1984), Turing Award (1994), Padma Bhushan (2001), Okawa Prize (2004).

References

  1. Raj Reddy — Wikipedia. Wikipedia. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
  2. Raj Reddy — Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
  3. Raj Reddy — Hindi Wikipedia. Wikipedia (Hindi). Retrieved 4 November 2026.
  4. Official website. www.rr.cs.cmu.edu. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
  5. Raj Reddy (Q92820) — structured data. Wikidata. Retrieved 4 November 2026.

Includes material from the Wikipedia article “Raj Reddy”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. That text is available under the same licence. Learn more

External links

Official website Website Wikipedia
Filed under Artificial intelligenceCarnegie Mellon UniversityPadma BhushanTuring Award Computer ScientistProfessor

About this profile

Cite this page

“Raj Reddy.” TrackFame, last updated 5 November 2026. https://trackfame.com/person/raj-reddy

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