jlk@gatech.UUCP (Janet Kolodner) (01/28/85)
Faculty Positions at Georgia Tech The School of Information and Computer Science (ICS) at Georgia Institute of Technology has made a major commitment to hiring in Artificial Intelligence and the Cognitive Sciences. We are looking for outstanding applicants at all levels. Georgia Tech offers a unique opportunity for researchers in all areas of AI. Faculty in several of our engineering departments manage large materials handling, robotics, and flexible manufacturing centers with well-equipped labs, and have considerable expertise in robotics and manufacturing that they are anxious to share with AI researchers interested in working on AI problems in their areas. The Center for Man-Machine Systems, based in our School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, studies cognitive factors in the design of man-machine systems and training simulators, and wants to include an AI component in some of their projects. ICS is a participant, with six other departments, in the Computer In- tegrated Manufacturing Systems (CIMS) graduate program, which provides additional collaborative opportunities and potential support for students. Researchers in the Georgia Tech Research Institute, a contracting arm of Georgia Tech, are doing research in image analysis and meta-expert reasoning. Our administration and psychology departments have recently made a commitment to hiring first-rate faculty in psychology who have already shown an interest in Cognitive Science. Co-operation throughout Georgia Tech in making this happen supports the prediction that there will be considerable opportunity for AI researchers to interact with first-rate psychologists interested in similar problems. Artificial Intelligence has been well-supported by the ad- ministration in the past, and the current commitment to new hiring in computer science and psychology is a recent example of the support the administration means to give to AI on campus. Though the current AI group in the School of Information and Com- puter Science includes only one faculty member (and, of course, more students than can be handled by one person), the administra- tion has bought two Symbolics LISP machines for the group. We expect to see additional substantial support from the administra- tion in getting a larger AI group going here. Our current faculty member in AI is Prof. Janet Kolodner. Her research group is composed of approximately 10 students. The theme of their work is the role of experience in expert and common-sense reasoning. They are concentrating on two roles ex- perience plays in reasoning -- it contributes to and drives lear- ning processes, and it provides exemplars for use in reasoning about later similar cases. An understanding of the roles of ex- perience in reasoning will allow the development of reasoning systems which can use the cases they have worked on to enhance, refine, or adapt the knowledge they initially had to new and novel situations. It will also allow better explanations of novice/expert distinctions, will contribute towards the develop- ment of intelligent instructional systems that can keep track of the knowledge state of any student they are tutoring and tailor exercises to individuals, and may contribute to the development of better hands-on teaching strategies. Projects in several different task domains address the problems involved in unders- tanding and implementing the processes involved in using ex- perience in reasoning. SHRINK, a psychiatric diagnostician, uses previous cases to suggest diagnoses and symptoms to watch for in novel cases of several different depressive disorders. The MEDIATOR resolves everyday disputes and makes predictions about the results of disputes read about in the newspaper by referring to previous disputes it has encountered and dealt with. The PER- SUADER uses precedent cases in labor mediation to suggest sol- utions during collective bargaining, the help resolve impasses in collective bargaining, and to attempt to persuade each side in the argument of the utility of a suggestion when there is disagreement. The School of Information and Computer Science, as a whole, is experiencing substantial growth which is well-supported by the Institute. Faculty research interests include distributed sys- tems, programming languages, data-base management, theory, human factors, architecture, networking, and graphics. Currently there are 26 faculty and over 200 Masters and Ph.D. students. The School has well-equipped computing facilities which support comp- uter science research and education. All major computers on campus are interconnected by a high-speed local area network, which provides access to CSNet and other national networks. Georgia Tech is located in Atlanta, which experiences a mild sunbelt climate. It is the center of commerce in the Southeast, offering a diverse economy and good employment opportunities in all professional areas. Atlanta offers good cultural and recreational opportunities, extremely attractive residential neighborhoods, and affordable housing. For more information, please call Prof. Janet Kolodner at 404-894-3285 or leave a message at 404-894-3152, or write to Prof. Janet Kolodner, School of Information and Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332. Interested candidates should send complete resumes and names of at least three references to Professor Richard J. LeBlanc; Chairman, Faculty Search Committee; School of Information and Computer Science; Georgia Institute of Technology; Atlanta, Georgia 30332. -- Janet Kolodner School of Information & Computer Science, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332 CSNet: jlk @ GATech ARPA: jlk%GATech.CSNet @ CSNet-Relay.ARPA uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,seismo,ulysses}!gatech!jlk