Roger Carl Schank (March 12, 1946 – January 29, 2023) was an American artificial intelligence theorist, cognitive psychologist, learning scientist, educational reformer, and entrepreneur.
In 1989, Schank was granted $30 million in a ten-year commitment to his research and development by Andersen Consulting, through which he founded the Institute for the Learning Sciences (ILS) at Northwestern University in Chicago.
When Carnegie Mellon University's Silicon Valley campus was established in 2002, Schank came to serve as Chief Educational Officer at the institution.
[11] While at Yale in 1979, Schank was among the first to "capitalize on the expected boom"[12] in AI when he founded Cognitive Systems, a company that went public in 1986.
[15] Schank believed that the educational system is fundamentally broken and that software will need to replace conventional teaching methods.
[16] To serve this purpose, he founded Engines for Education in 2001, a not-for-profit organization which designs and implements curricula for primary and secondary schools[9] and hosts the Virtual International Science and Technology Academy (VISTA).
[3] After a period of failing health, Schank died from heart failure under hospice care in Shelburne, Vermont, on January 29, 2023, at the age of 76.