Marvin Minsky, one of the fathers of modern computer science and co-founder of the country's first Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will deliver the first Iris S. Wolstein Lecture on Management Design at 4 p.m. April 14 in the Peter B. Lewis Building.

The lecture is sponsored by the department of information systems at the Weatherhead School of Management.

The Iris S. Wolstein Lecture on Management Design is given by a prominent scholar or business leader whose work illustrates the importance of design for creating new enterprises and opening new ways of organizing. The basis of the lecture for students to recognize the importance of design as a critical and creative moment in managerial action and to explore the relation of information to processes of organizing-from telephones to supercomputers to the Internet.

Minsky is the Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences and professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. A philosopher and scientist, he is regarded as one of the leading authorities in the field of artificial intelligence, having made fundamental contributions in the sectors of robotics and computer-aided learning technologies. He also was one of the pioneers of intelligence-based mechanical robotics and telepresence. He designed and built some of the first mechanical hands with tactile sensors, visual scanners and their software and computer interfaces.

His long tenure as co-director of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory placed his imprint upon the entire field of artificial intelligence.

In recent years he has worked chiefly on imparting to machines the human capacity for common sense reasoning.

In the 1970s, Minsky and a colleague began formulating a theory called "The Society of Mind," which combined insights from developmental child psychology and their experience with research on artificial intelligence.

In 1985, Minsky published The Society of Mind, a book in which 270 interconnected one-page ideas reflect the structure of the theory itself. Each page either proposes one such mechanism, to account for some psychological phenomena, or addresses a problem introduced by some proposed solution on another page.

Since the publication of "The Society of Mind," Minsky has continued to develop the theory in several directions. He is currently working on a new book, The Emotion Machine, describing the role played by feelings, goals, emotions and conscious thoughts in terms of processes that motivate and regulate the activities within our personal societies of mind.

Last August, Bert L. and Iris S. Wolstein provided a gift of $2.5 million to the Weatherhead School of Management for the renovation of Sycamore Hall on Bellflower Road. The facility was renamed Iris S. and Bert L.Wolstein Hall. Funds from the gift also were designated to establish the Iris S. Wolstein Professorship in Management Design.