2025 Stibitz-Wilson Honorees
Serge Belongie and Pietro Perona are leaders of the effort to build Visipedia, a network of people and machines that harvests and organizes visual information from expertly-curated data sets and makes it accessible to anyone anywhere. This “visual encyclopedia”underpins the wildly popular iNaturalist and Merlin Bird ID apps, which have been downloaded over 30 million times.
Lorrie Cranor is a leading researcher in both online privacy and usable privacy and security, and has co-authored over 200 research papers in these areas. Cranor has appeared on the Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, CNN Financial News, NPR’s Morning Edition, Science Friday, and All Things Considered. Her TED talk on passwords has been viewed over 1.6 million times!
Yasmin Kafai develops tools, projects, and communities that foster coding, critical thinking, and creativity. Her current research explores algorithm auditing in machine learning applications. Additionally, through the nationwide Exploring Computer Science curriculum, she launched the use of electronic textiles to introduce computing, engineering, and machine learning in high school classrooms.
Mitchel Resnick is the LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research at the MIT Media Lab, where he develops new technologies and activities to engage people (particularly children) in creative learning experiences. His Lifelong Kindergarten research group developed the Scratch programming software and online community, which is used by millions of young people around the world.