Robert Engelmore, 68; Scientist Expert on Uses of Artificial Intelligence

Robert Engelmore, 68, a Stanford University computer scientist who was an expert on uses of artificial intelligence in medicine and the military, died Tuesday of an apparent heart attack.

Engelmore was stricken after helping to rescue a 5-year-old grandson while swimming at Kauai, Hawaii, during a family vacation.

Engelmore saved the child after they were overwhelmed by large waves, but then he was pulled out to sea by the currents.

When lifeguards reached him a few minutes later, they found his heart had stopped.

Engelmore, who lived in Menlo Park, Calif., was the longtime executive director of the Heuristic Programming Project in Stanford’s Computer Science Department.

He also was an editor of AI (Artificial Intelligence) magazine and the author of more than two dozen articles.

A New York native, he received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.