Joshua Brett Tenenbaum is a cognitive science and computing professor at the Institute of Technology in Massachusetts. He is famous for his contributions to mathematical psychology and cognitive bayesian science. Tenenbaum previously taught at Stanford University and from October 2010 to January 2011 he was a Wasow visiting fellow.

In California, Tenenbaum grew up. His mother is a teacher and his father is the internet pioneer Jay Martin Tenenbaum. His research guidelines were influenced strongly by his parents’ interest in teaching and learning and, later, by interaction with cognitive psychologist Roger Shepard, during his years at Yale. His work focuses on the analysis of probabilistic inferences as the engine of human knowledge and the development of machine learning.

At MIT, where he is the director of the Cognitive Science Computing Laboratory in MIT, he is also the director of an AI project called the MIT Quest for intelligence (MIT Quest for Intelligence).

The book Architects of Intelligence: The Truth About AI from the People Building it by American futurist Martin Ford, Tenenbaum contributed a chapter in 2018.