Faculty Directory

Nau, Dana

Nau, Dana

Professor Emeritus
Computer Science
The Institute for Systems Research
Maryland Robotics Center
4158 Iribe Center
Website(s):

Dana Nau is a Professor at the University of Maryland, in the Department of Computer Science and the Institute for Systems Research. He received a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from Missouri S&T (then University of Missouri-Rolla) in 1974, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Duke University in 1979.

Dr. Nau does research in artificial intelligence, especially in the areas of automated planning and game theory. He has more than 300 refereed technical publications, has chaired ICAPS and several other conferences, and has been on the editorial boards of JAIR, ACM TIST, and several other journals. Some of his accomplishments include:

Dr. Nau is an AAAI Fellow and an ACM Fellow.

Artificial intelligence; computer integrated design and manufacturing; planning; search


A list of Dr. Nau's publications can be found here.

New Research Suggests Gossip “Not Always a Bad Thing”

A study by UMD and Stanford researchers suggests the behavior may have an adaptive function.

Congratulations May 2023 ISR graduates!

Here's a list of May graduates with ISR ties---at all degree levels.

Dana Nau elected to AAAS Fellow

Nau is well known for his expertise in artificial intelligence and its subfields of automated planning and game theory.

ISR-affiliated graduates, December 2022

ISR congratulates these students, all advised by ISR faculty!

Congratulations, May 2021 ISR graduates!

Institute for Systems Research faculty advised PhD, MS, BS and 12 MSSE students who graduated in May 2021.

‘Tight’ cultures had fewer cases, deaths from COVID-19, new Gelfand research shows

ISR/CS game theorist Dana Nau part of study published in The Lancet Planetary Health.

Planning and learning algorithms developed for refinement acting engine

New paper continues the long research partnership of Dana Nau (CS/ISR), Malik Ghallab and Paolo Traverso.

Nau and colleagues develop APE, an integrated acting-and-planning system

The decisionmaking system maintains consistency between descriptive and operational models, a longstanding problem in AI.

Oct. 4 event features Michele Gelfand, research colleague of Dana Nau

Gelfand will talk with Thomas Friedman about her book on tight and loose cultures.

Five recipients of ISR Graduate Student Travel Award announced

Eight graduate students have received funding through the award since 2017.

Dana Nau to be inducted into Duke alumni society

Nau is being recognized for his distinguished career.

Nau, Gelfand, Goldstein part of MURI developing the potential of mean-field game theory

The AFOSR initiative funds researchers from Maryland, UCLA, the University of Houston, and Princeton.

William Regli named sixth director of ISR

Regli, an ISR alumnus, will begin his appointment in January 2018.

Nau and colleagues publish new AI Planning book

Automated Planning and Acting introduces complex computational techniques for planning and performing actions.

Moving matters: Ethnocentric behavior decreases when societal mobility rises

New study suggests that a society’s level of mobility influences whether its members treat outsiders as individuals

Alum Amnon Lotem wins EATCS/ACM SIGACT Gödel Prize

Prizewinning paper introduced the “threshold algorithm” used in applications and systems that gather multi-sourced information.

ICAPS best paper award for Dana Nau, Vikas Shivashankar and colleagues

"Optimal Planning with Global Numerical State Constraints" won the best student paper award.

Crime and punishment: interdisciplinary researchers explain ‘third party’ evolution

Nau, Gelfand, Roos and Carr use powerful mathematical models to explain social behavior.

Dana Nau named ACM Fellow

Professor is honored "for contributions to automated search and planning."

Dana Nau's impact celebrated with birthday symposium

Nau honored for contributions to automated planning, diagnostic inference, adversarial and game theoretic reasoning, and automated manufacturing.

Alum Kiran Hebbar promoted at Valhalla Partners

Earned M.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 1996.

Alum Amnon Lotem promoted to Chief Technology Officer at Skybox Security

Lotem earned his Ph.D. in 2000; was advised by Dana Nau.

Work of Erol, Nau, Hendler earns honorable mention for ICAPS Influential Paper Award

The 1994 paper was pioneering work in hierarchical task-network (HTN) planning systems.

Dana Nau will be keynote speaker at KI-2009

The 33rd Annual Conference on Artificial Intelligence is the annual German conference on AI.

Alumnus Qiang Yang named IEEE Fellow

Former student of Dana Nau honored for work in intelligent planning, learning and data mining.

'RFF' wins 2008 International Planning Competition

Former ISR visitor Florent Teichteil-Königsbuch was among the developers.

Nau invited speaker at ProMas 2008

ISR professor spoke on autonomous agent planning.

Dana Nau interviewed about Texas Hold'em computer program

Professor helped develop award-winning program that plays contract bridge.

Automated Kriegspiel Chess Player (ISR IP)

This IP is available to license.

Nau, Subrahmanian are principal investigators for $3.4 million MURI

"Cognitive Architecture for Reasoning about Adversaries" team also includes ISR's Michael Fu

Dana Nau one of three authors of Automated Planning

June 2004—Book offers a comprehensive, up-to-date resource on both the theory and practice of automated planning.

Dana Nau is PI for 'Pushing the Boundaries of AI Planning'

June 2004—Research in the $140,000 NSF will develop planner-generalization techniques.

DARPA awards Nau contract for AcT program

Research will develop an easy-to-use planning tool for Special Operations Forces

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

  • Fellow, 2013

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

  • Fellow, 2023

American Association for Artificial Intelligence

  • Fellow, 1996