In Memoriam: Roger C. Schank, 1946–2023

A summary of Roger Schank's career might initially appear fairly typical for an eminent academic. Following a PhD in linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin in 1969, Roger held faculty positions in linguistics and computer science at Stanford, computer science and psychology at Yale, and computer science and education at Northwestern. He served terms as chair of computer science at both Yale and Northwestern. After Northwestern, he was Chief Educational Officer for Carnegie Mellon's Silicon Valley campus. He authored over 30 books spanning AI, cognitive science, psychology and education. He advised nearly 50 PhD students. He was a Fellow of AAAI.

But the hundreds of people who worked or interacted with Roger over the years know there was nothing typical about him. Roger was a force of nature. He questioned everything, especially (and gleefully) focusing on topics that were supposed to be canon.  He came in, broke things apart, and built new things in their place. In linguistics, he rejected the Chomskyian approach to divorce the study of language from the study of meaning, with his seminal work on semantic primitives. In AI, where language processing focused on the propositions, he argued for the importance of much larger memory structures such as scripts and plans, and for memory processes, such as remindings, for modeling understanding. He argued for examples, that is, cases, rather than logical rules, for modeling human reasoning. Much of his work elicited initial pushback, which then transitioned to wary toleration, and finally arrived at such widespread acceptance that now his ideas are often assumed without attribution.

Roger relished debate, and engaged avidly in ongoing discourse on the issues he studied.  Where many labs have weekly “discussions” or “chats”, Roger fashioned weekly “Friday fights” and an “Indefensible position” seminar. One facet of these was the Socratic investigation of complex topics; another was as a crucible for the courage to make bold claims and the skills to distill, defend, and question them.  He questioned loudly. But under the disputative bearing, to those who knew and worked with him he had abundant loyalty and good will.

He was an explorer of the mind and of the world, an astute observer of humans and human nature: an intuitive psychologist. He had a knack for identifying key questions, always noticing customs, behaviors, and anomalies to explain, gathering data and categorizing to generate theories. His travels and knowledge of wine and food were a rich source of examples for his work and camaraderie.  He did things in a big way, from academic passions like studying how language and the mind work and how people learn, to personal passions like food and football. Many stories about Roger occur at restaurants because meals were events. Many fans watch weekend football, but Roger created a room with half a dozen separate TVs, most with picture in picture, to monitor a dozen games simultaneously.

Roger believed strongly in developing communities, not only in research labs and departments, but at the national and international level. He founded new fields in order to create lasting communities of like minds, in cognitive science and education. His studies of human memory led to launching the field of case-based reasoning, holding its 31st international conference this year. He was a co-founder of the field of Cognitive Science, the Cognitive Science Society, and the journal Cognitive Science. His PhD students at Stanford, Yale, and Northwestern, along with many developers, artists, and content creators at his companies and the Institute for the Learning Sciences will attest to the communities and cultural traditions he established over and over. For example, it is not unusual to hold a party when a PhD student finishes their dissertation, but Roger's parties had an extra. Every student with a PhD (prior and current) had to present a talent (real, imagined, feigned, or facetious) to the group, culminating with the new PhD revealing their secret talent. This ritual created a human connection among students beyond the academic.

As his passion shifted to education, he led establishment of the field of the Learning Sciences, combining education, cognitive science, and computer science. In 1989 at Northwestern, he formed the Institute for the Learning Sciences and created the first Learning Sciences MS and PhD programs in the School of Education. He pioneered the study of stories in AI, spurring development of innovative story-based educational environments. He was himself a great story-teller; he used stories to connect, illuminate, and educate, both in his personal life and in his books.

Finally, Roger cared deeply about impact. Long before the startup culture arose as a way for faculty to commercialize their ideas, Roger started companies because he believed that changes in how people should interact with technology, and how education should be done, would mainly happen through the business world. While at Yale, he started Cognitive Systems for building knowledge-rich intelligent systems, and Compu-Teach for building K-12 educational systems for personal computers. While at Northwestern he started Cognitive Arts and later Socratic Arts to develop learn-by-doing systems for training and education. In 2000 he left academics to focus on nothing less than transforming education with systems to support hands-on project-based teaching.

His website lists some of the topics he cared about: “Making school less miserable for kids”, “fixing corporate training”, “getting the right information to people at the right time” “building the right kind of artificial intelligence systems”, “empowering people to develop effective learning experiences”, and, always and most importantly, “understanding how the human mind works”.

Roger will be missed, but he also will still be here: his work continues to have a persistent and profound impact on a range of fields that are focused on the scientific study of the human mind.

The authors declare that there is no conflict.