Charles Isbell

Isbell graduated from Georgia Tech in 1990 with a BS in information and computer science.⁠[1]

He then earned his MS and PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AI Lab and, after graduating, worked at AT&TAT&TAT&T (AT&T Inc.) is a telecommunications company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Its predecessor was SBC Communications, a regional holding company created in the 1984 breakup of the Bell System; SBC merged with the original AT&T Corp. in 2005 and adopted its name, and it has since operated a nationwide wireless network and fiber broadband, at one time also owning DIRECTV and WarnerMedia.Open the full entry Labs/Research.⁠[2]

In 2001 Isbell, Christian R. Shelton, Michael KearnsMichael KearnsMichael Kearns is an American computer scientist and University of Pennsylvania professor who works on computational learning theory, algorithmic game theory, and algorithmic fairness and privacy; he formerly headed the AI department at AT&T Bell Labs, co-wrote The Ethical Algorithm with Aaron Roth, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.Open the full entry, Satinder Singh and Peter Stone presented a paper at the Fifth International Conference on Autonomous Agents describing how CobotCollaborative RoboticsCollaborative Robotics, or Cobot, develops Proxie mobile robots and related software for workplace material handling.Open the full entry, a software agent living in the online chat community LambdaMOO, used reinforcement learning to adapt its proactive behavior from 3,171 rewards and punishments given by 254 users; the paper won a best paper award.⁠[3]

In 2002 Isbell returned to Georgia Tech as an assistant professor in the College of Computing.⁠[4]

In May 2013 Georgia Tech and Udacity, with support from AT&T, announced a fully online master’s degree in computer science costing less than $7,000, with a pilot of a couple hundred students planned for fall 2014.⁠[5]

On September 18, 2013, Isbell, then Senior Associate Dean of Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, testified before the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, explaining the origin, intent, structure and implementation of the Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMS CS).⁠[6]

In March 2014 Machine Learning 1: Supervised Learning, part of Georgia Tech’s online computer science master’s program, launched on Udacity, taught by Isbell and Michael LittmanMichael LittmanMichael Littman is an American computer scientist and professor of computer science at Brown University who studies reinforcement learning and decision-making under uncertainty. He served as division director for Information and Intelligent Systems at the US National Science Foundation and since 2025 has been Brown’s first associate provost for artificial intelligence.Open the full entry in a dialogue format.⁠[7]

In April 2019 Georgia Tech announced that Isbell would become dean and John P. Imlay Jr. Chair of the College of Computing on July 1. He had been involved in the college’s ThreadsThreadsThreads is a text-sharing social app from Meta built by the Instagram team; launched on July 5, 2023, it lets users log in with their Instagram account and has gradually connected to the fediverse through the ActivityPub protocol, and in June 2026 Meta announced it had reached 500 million monthly active users.Open the full entry curriculum, its online master’s in computer science and the Constellations Center for Equity in Computing, and his research interests include interactive machine learning and using machine learning to model human behavior.⁠[4]

On November 2, 2020, Isbell appeared as dean of Georgia Tech’s College of Computing on episode 135 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, discussing interactive AI, lifelong machine learning, faculty hiring, university rankings, hip hop and race in America.⁠[8]

On December 26 he appeared with Michael Littman on episode 148, on machine learning and education.⁠[9]

In December 2020 Isbell gave an invited talk at NeurIPS 2020, You Can’t Escape Hyperparameters and Latent Variables: Machine Learning as a Software Engineering Enterprise, using A Christmas Carol as a frame for AI’s past, present and future.⁠[10]

In March 2023 the Computing Research Association gave Isbell its 2023 A. Nico Habermann Award for his impact on diversity, equity and inclusion in computing, including launching the LEAP Alliance to diversify the computing professoriate and advancing a plan for broadening participation in computing on the NSF’s CISE Advisory Committee.⁠[11]

In May 2023 CMD-IT named Isbell the 2023 recipient of the Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science, and Diversifying Computing, noting that he was founding executive director of the Constellations Center for Equity in Computing and his hip-hop persona The Homeboy from hell.⁠[2]

In May 2023 the University of Wisconsin–Madison named Isbell provost, its chief academic officer and second-ranking leader, starting August 1 in succession to Karl Scholz, who left to become president of the University of Oregon. Isbell and his wife, Sheila, have two children.⁠[12]

On June 5, 2025, University of Illinois System President Tim Killeen announced Isbell as chancellor of the Urbana-Champaign campus and vice president of the system, succeeding Robert Jones, who was leaving for the University of Washington. As UW–Madison provost he had helped launch the Wisconsin RISE initiative and advanced a new budgeting approach.⁠[13]

Isbell began serving in a designate capacity on July 16, 2025, and formally became the 11th chancellor of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on August 1.⁠[14]

On December 18, 2025, Isbell launched Illinois Leads, a strategic planning effort that surveyed faculty, staff, students, alumni and community members in spring 2026. He said its theme is leadership and stressed the university’s land-grant public mission.⁠[15]

On June 11, 2026, Isbell discussed the university’s strategic priorities, the Illinois Leads planning initiative, access and affordability, emerging technologies and Illinois’ role in innovation in a University of Illinois Alumni Association conversation.⁠[16]

X: Public account: https://x.com/isbellHFh (opens in a new window)⁠[8]

Georgia Institute of Technology: Official website: https://www.gatech.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[1]

University of Wisconsin–Madison: Official website: https://www.wisc.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[12]