Benjamin Rosman

Benjamin Rosman is a Professor in the School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, where he leads the Robotics, Autonomous Intelligence and Learning (RAIL) Laboratory — the largest AI research lab in Africa — and serves as Director of the National E-Science Postgraduate Teaching and Training Platform (NEPTTP). In 2024, he became the founding Director of the Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery (MIND) Institute at Wits, dedicated to advancing the fundamental science of intelligence across machines, humans, and animals, and also serves as Chief Science Officer of Lelapa AI, an initiative building AI for Africans, by Africans. He holds a Ph.D. in Informatics and an M.Sc. in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh, alongside dual Honours degrees in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics from the University of the Witwatersrand. His research specializes in reinforcement learning, autonomous decision-making, and knowledge transfer across related tasks. A co-founder of the Deep Learning Indaba machine learning summer school — now active across 47 African countries — Rosman is a 2024 National Geographic Explorer, a 2022 CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar, a 2017 Google Faculty Research Award recipient in machine learning, a 2021 Google Africa Research Award recipient, and a Senior Member of the IEEE. He serves on the Advisory Committee of the Reinforcement Learning Conference, the AAAI Membership Committee, the IEEE Cognitive and Developmental Systems Technical Committee, and the Scientific Committee of the Association of AI Ethicists. With over 120 publications in top-tier machine learning venues, supervision of more than 85 MSc and PhD students, and approximately 200 academic, corporate, and public talks delivered worldwide, Benjamin Rosman stands as one of Africa's most influential voices in artificial intelligence and machine learning research.