| 68 Bailey Street
Dorchester, MA 02124 +1(617)436-8341 |
beingmeta, inc
68 Bailey Street Boston, MA 02124 +1(617)512-6867 |
| What Excites Me | I want to enable communitities to think together better by giving them computationally active media where rich machine-usable representations are integral to the processes of production, search, organization, and transmission. |
|---|---|
| Some Things I've Done | Artifical intelligence, database and knowledge base technology, natural language processing, machine learning and discovery, knowledge representation, information retrieval, programming language design and development, intelligent multimedia databases, expert system development, environments for children's game design |
| Some Career Highlights | Completed MIT PhD at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in computational models of scientific creativity, supervised by Marvin Minsky and advised by Patrick Winston and Thomas Kuhn. |
| Associate Professor at the MIT Media Laboratory, executing and supervising research in knowledge representation, intelligent information retrieval, and natural language understanding, advanced multimedia databases, augmented news systems, and visualization of very large scale conversations. | |
| Founder & President of beingmeta, inc., developing products and capabilities for advanced content and knowledge management. | |
| Founder, manager, and guru for a variety of advanced R&D activities around Europe, particularly in Germany, Brussels, Finland and Ireland. |
| Doctor of Philosophy ``Exploration and Invention in Discovery'' Dissertation Director: Marvin L. Minsky |
Massachussetts Institute of Technology
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science |
| Master of Science in Computer Science ``TYPICAL: An Implemented Approach to Type Specification and Inference'' |
Massachussetts Institute of Technology Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science |
| Bachelor of Science in Philosophy ``ARLO: Another Representation Language Offer'' |
Massachussetts Institute of Technology Department of Linguistics and Philosophy |
| August 2001 to Present | Founder & President | beingmeta, inc |
|---|---|---|
| Founded beingmeta to commercialize the research work begun at MIT. Involved in business planning and operations, marketing and fund-raising, and product development. | ||
| March 2006 to Present | Consulting Software Architect | Clear Methods, inc |
| Consulted on design, implementation, and integration issues for an XML-based programming language (Water) and prototyping and delivery environment (Steam XML). Contributions included updating development practices and practical enterprise integration of their existing infrastructure. | ||
| February 1998 to February 2005 | Professor | University of Tampere |
| Working in the Department of Journalism & Mass Communication, I help design and advise on research programs in media technology as well as helping to shape undergraduate and graduate activities toward new technologies and philosophies of communication. | ||
| October 2003 to September 2004 | Senior Research Scientist | Media Lab Europe (Dublin) |
| Led and executed research in common sense reasoning, especially focused on using analogy to provide robust adaptability to knowledge systems. | ||
| November 2002 to October 2003 | Acting Director | Media Lab Europe (Dublin) |
| Served as acting director of a joint research venture between MIT and the Irish government. In addition to overall operational and fundraising responsbility (assisted by a strong team), I was responsible for scientific direction and vision as well as instituting structures for research evaluation and critique. | ||
| September 1998 to August 2001 | Visiting Associate Professor | MIT Media Laboratory |
| Visiting Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences exploring issues in large-scale knowledge bases, intelligent multi-media systems, and computer understanding of unrestricted natural language text. | ||
| December 1997 to June 1999 | Consultant | StarLab (Brussels) |
| Consulted on the establishment of a new multi-disciplinary laboratory --- the StarLab --- chartered as a long-term research laboratory by the European Commission. During most of 1997 and 1998, I was based in Brussels, assisting in the creation of the StarLab, while continuing a consulting relationship with the MIT Media Laboratory. | ||
| October 1997 to August 1998 | Consultant | MIT Media Laboratory |
| Consulted on European initiatives and research in Machine Understanding, continuing work described below. | ||
| June 1997 to October 1997 | Acting Scientific Director | Klaus Tschira Foundation (Stiftung) |
| Founder and initial scientific director of the "European Media Laboratory" for the Klaus Tschira Foundation in Heidelberg, Germany. Work involved establishing structures and mission for the laboratory, making affiliations with local universities, and meetings with prospective industrial sponsors. | ||
| July 1996 to June 1997 | Associate Professor | MIT Media Laboratory |
| Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences exploring issues in large-scale knowledge bases, intelligent multi-media systems, and computer understanding of unrestricted natural language text. Teaching included courses in Artificial Intelligence programming, the content-based description and manipulation of media, and storytelling in new media. Co-architect of prototype undergraduate curriculum in Media Arts and Sciences. | ||
| June 1991 to June 1997 | Project Leader | News In the Future Program |
| Project leader for News In the Future program, responsible for managing $500,000-$700,000 of research (out of approximately $2,000,000) for a consortium of publishers and technology companies interested in future news and information systems. Responsibilities included fundraising, sponsor presentations and workshops, managing graduate student research, and numerous other tasks. | ||
| January 1990 to June 1996 | Assistant Professor | MIT Media Laboratory |
| Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences. See above for description. | ||
| January 1995 to March 1995 | Consultant | "The Agency" |
| Consulted with a new startup company on development and evaluation of technologies for natural language processing and information extraction. | ||
| October 1980 to January 1990 | Researcher | MIT AI Laboratory |
| Worked under the supervision of Professor Marvin Minsky on a range of research areas including automated discovery systems, agent-based approaches to reasoning, massively parallel decision networks. robot learning, and self-referential description languages. | ||
| Spring 1986 to January 1990 | Consultant | Norton Corporation |
| Consulted for Norton Corporation (a multinational manufacturing support company based in Worcester, Massachusetts) on developing an expert system providing product engineering advice about Norton's product line. | ||
| August 1988 to January 1990 | Consultant | Bank of Boston |
| Consulted on the development of advisory systems for anticipating fluctuations and significant events in a trading market. Implemented system was taught as a `case' by the Harvard Business School. | ||
| January and Autumn 1987 | Visiting Lecturer | Vrije Universiteit Brussel |
| Visiting Lecturer at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (the Dutch-speaking Free University in Brussels, Belgium), teaching courses in knowledge representation and Artificial Intelligence. | ||
| 1984 to 1985 | Consultant | MCC
(Microelectronics and Computer Consortium) |
| Consulted with Doug Lenat and the CYC project at MCC (the Microelectronics and Computer Consortium) on very large knowledge bases. Helped design and develop early versions of the CYCL language. | ||
| June 1984 to November 1984 | Consultant | Thinking Machines Corporation |
| Worked with David Waltz and Doug Lenat at Thinking Machines Corporation, extending the `representation language language' ARLO for application to encyclopedic knowledge bases and automated discovery. | ||
| 1982 to 1984 | Researcher | Atari, Inc. |
| Worked for Alan Kay and Cynthia Solomon at ATARI's research labs in Sunnyvale, California and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Developed systems and languages for describing computer animation and synchronizing music (using symbolic descriptions of musical events) to computer generated animation. Also developed a gestural user interface to operating systems and AI languages (called the `information waldo'), environments for teaching object oriented programming (in the experimental language QLOGO), and applied the knowledge representation language ARLO to representing encyclopedia level knowledge. | ||
| Spring 1983 | Co-Organizer | Cambridge Computer Animation Workshop |
| While at ATARI, I conceived and organized, together with Ann Marion, the Cambridge Computer Animation Workshop, bringing together traditional animators, workers in computer animation, and Artificial Intelligence researchers in a discussion of what the future of animated movie-making --- in the home and in the studio --- might look like. | ||
| Summer 1980 and January 1981 | Researcher | National Bureau of Standards |
| Worked for Dr. James Albus on computational models of cerebellar activity for robot control. My work consisted of constructing simple mathematical models and computer simulations based on an explanation of cerebellar activity developed by Dr. James Albus. The model --- called CMAC (for Cerebellar Model Arithmetic Computer) --- specified a system that could be trained to produce smooth continuous functions of the sort needed for controlling robot motion. My work involved experimenting with and analyzing various training algorithms. | ||
| 1978 to 1980 | University of Maryland | |
| Worked with Professor Charles Rieger at the University of Maryland on simulation and analysis of parallel neural networks. With the ZMOB parallel processor project, developed MICRONIVER, an assembly language package for multi-processing and continuation passing on the Z-80 processor. Also explored highly parallel semantic network implementations which supported propositional inference and multiple worlds reasoning. | ||
| August 1990 to June 1991 | Clerk, Committee on Ministry and Counsel | New England Yearly Meeting |
|---|---|---|
| Clerked the New England-wide committee on Ministry and Counsel of Friends' meetings. Responsibilities included leading meetings, organizing activities, and helping identify and set agendas. | ||
| August 1987 to June 1991 | Committee on Ministry and Counsel | New England Yearly Meeting |
| Served as a member of the New England-wide committee on Ministry and Counsel of Friends' meetings, having oversight for spiritual and corporate life of both individual meetings and New England Yearly Meeting as a whole. | ||
| June 1986 to June 1990 | Board of Directors | Beacon Hill Friends House |
| Served as a member of the Board of Directors of Beacon Hill Friends' House, a rooming house --- primarily for Boston-area students --- on Boston's Beacon Hill. | ||
| March 1985 to April 1990 | Senior Staff | The Haley House Storefront |
| Served as a "shift-head'" at Haley House, a soup kitchen storefront in Boston's South End. Responsibilities involved organizing (or co-organizing) the storefront for one day a week, including preparing food, lending a listening ear, or calming difficult guests. | ||
| April 1988 to February 1989 | Live-in Staff | The Haley House Storefront |
| Live-in staff at `Haley House.' As a member of the live-in staff, I took responsibility (together with others) for maintaining the general operation of the storefront and the broader scope of Haley House's activities. | ||
| September 1986 to September 1989 | Committee on Ministry and Counsel | Beacon Hill Friends Meeting |
| Served as a member of the Committee on Ministry and Counsel, a group within the Friends' Meeting which provides pastoral care for the Meeting and its members. | ||
| September 1985 to September 1987 | Treasurer | Beacon Hill Friends Meeting |
| Served as Treasurer for Beacon Hill Friends Meeting, responsible for budget planning and bookkeeping. | ||