STANFORD – Professor Mitchell Eisenberg is one of the world’s top experts in neural networks, but he’s so much more than a brilliant computer scientist. He founded a startup that teaches computer science to impoverished youths. He’s an expert on 20th century American history. And he’s about to get nailed in the face by a football.
Just last year, Eisenberg received the Turing award for his outstanding contributions to the field of computer science. He missed the ceremony, though, because he was too busy playing recreational basketball with underprivileged children in his community. He is a known community leader. His students see him as an inspiring older brother, his peers see him as a genius, and a football sees his face as a place it’s about to hit really hard.
“The thing you have to understand about computers,” Eisenberg says, as a football thrown by a careless fraternity brother hurtles inexorably through the sky in his direction, “is that you can do anything you want with them. A computer is a calculator, but it’s also an easel, a canvas, a WOOAAH OWW!!”
As of press time Eisenberg was slowly turning his head with a big dumb look on his face.
