Henry A. Kautz (also known as Henry Kautz; born 1956 in Youngstown, Ohio) is a computer scientist and a professor of computer science at the University of Virginia.^[8] He formerly served as the Founding Director of the Institute for Data Science and Professor at the University of Rochester, and has held affiliations with Kodak Research Laboratories, the University of Washington, AT&T Laboratories, and Bell Labs.^[8] His research focuses on knowledge representation, artificial intelligence, data science, and pervasive computing.^[5]

Kautz studied at the Case Institute of Technology from 1974 to 1975, earned an AB from Cornell University in 1978, an MA from Johns Hopkins University in 1980, an MS from the University of Toronto in 1982 under master supervisor C. Raymond Perrault, and completed his PhD in 1987 at the University of Rochester. His 1987 doctoral dissertation, supervised by James F. Allen, was titled "A Formal Theory of Plan Recognition." His honors and recognitions include the IJCAI Computers and Thought Award (1989), AAAI Fellow (1997), AAAS Fellow (2006), and ACM Fellow (2013).^[2,3,4]

Kautz was born in 1956 in Youngstown, Ohio.^[6,3] He entered the Case Institute of Technology in 1974, transferred a year later to Cornell University, and earned his B.A. in English and mathematics there in 1978.^[6] He wrote plays during a one-year fellowship creative writing program at Johns Hopkins University and received an M.A. from the Writing Seminars in 1980.^[6] As a foreign student supported by the Connaught Fellowship, he enrolled at the University of Toronto in 1980.^[6] Under the supervision of C. Raymond Perrault, Kautz completed his master's thesis, "A First-Order Dynamic Logic for Planning", and received his M.S. in computer science in 1982.^[6] Before receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester in 1987 with a dissertation titled "A Formal Theory of Plan Recognition", he was a teaching assistant for Patrick Hayes as well as a teaching assistant and research assistant for his advisor James F. Allen.^[6]

After working at AT&T Bell Labs and AT&T Laboratories, Kautz served as a professor of computer science at the University of Washington from 2000 to 2006. After working as director of Intelligent Systems at Kodak Research Laboratories from 2006 to 2007, he became a professor at the University of Rochester in 2007 and the Founding Director of the Institute for Data Science. In 2024, he moved to the University of Virginia, where he is a professor of computer science.

Early recognitions include Best Paper awards from the Canadian Society for Computational Studies of Intelligence (CSCSI) in 1988 and the International Conference on Knowledge Representation & Reasoning (KRR) in 1989. At the Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), Notable Paper recognitions were received in 1993 and 2012, alongside Best Paper awards in 1996 and 2004. Further achievements include taking 1st Place in the ICAPS Planning Competition (Optimal Track) in 2004 and 2006, as well as receiving a Best Paper award at the IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC) in 2005. Later honors include a Best Paper award at the Fifth ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM) in 2012, a Notable Paper recognition at the First AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing (HCOMP) in 2013, and the 10-Year Impact Award at the ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing in 2013.

In November 1993, a US patent was issued for "Optimization of Information Bases". Subsequently, in April 1997, a US patent was issued for "Message Filtering Techniques". In June 1997, another US patent was issued for "Mechanism for Constraint Satisfaction".

In 1989, they received the IJCAI Computers and Thought Award, the premier award for artificial intelligence researchers under the age of 35. They were elected an AAAI Fellow in 1991, "[f]or contributions to many areas of artificial intelligence, from plan recognition to knowledge representation to software agents." In 2006, they were named an AAAS Fellow, and they later served as President of AAAI from 2010 to 2012. In 2013, they became an ACM Fellow "[f]or contributions to artificial intelligence and pervasive computing with applications to assistive technology and health," and received the 10-Year Impact Award of the ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing. They were subsequently honored with the ACM-AAAI Allen Newell Award in 2018.