The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has recognized USC’s Sam Gustman for his extensive contributions over a thirty-one-year period to the field of cultural heritage preservation, digital access technologies, and education. Gustman will be inducted as a senior member of the NAI, joining a distinguished body of 945 senior members worldwide.
In his dual roles as associate dean for IT for the USC Libraries and chief technology officer and senior director of collections for the USC Shoah Foundation, Gustman leads the technology strategy of both units and guides their efforts to preserve and make accessible USC’s most significant and enduring digital cultural heritage collections.
The USC Office of Research and Innovation assisted Gustman and 11 other USC inventors with their nominations and selections for the honor. They will be formally inducted with the NAI class of 2026 senior members at the 15th annual NAI Conference, which will be hosted by USC from June 1 to 4.
Gustman is an inventor on seventeen U.S. patents covering foundational technologies in digital libraries, multimedia systems, secure communications, and AI-powered conversational storytelling. His contributions to cultural heritage began with his work for the Shoah Foundation creating the digital systems for the digitization, cataloging, and preservation of 52,000 video testimonies from survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust.
His other significant contributions to the field include work with applications of natural-language processing technologies to create interactive experiences that allow you to have conversations and ask questions of witnesses to history and hear—in their own words—directly from them about their experiences and perspectives.
Gustman's latest patent application is titled "Quantum Library System," a technology that will enable searching and simultaneous cross comparisons among multimedia assets in very large multimedia digital collections using AI tools and quantum computing. Once deployed, it will open up massive digital cultural heritage collections like those created and sustained by the USC Libraries and the USC Shoah Foundation for even more detailed analysis and use in interactive educational platforms. Gustman works in close partnership with the USC Stevens Center for Innovation on advancing applications of AI, quantum computing, and other emerging technologies for cultural heritage.
His pioneering innovations with conversational storytelling can be seen in the Interactive Interviews created by his team at the USC Digital Repository. These include interviews with civil rights leaders, survivors of the Holocaust and the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and other witnesses to history through collaborative projects with the USC Charlotta Bass Journalism and Justice Lab at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the Illinois Holocaust Memorial and Education Center, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and the USC Shoah Foundation.