Education: BA in Computer Science, University of Kansas, Dec 1995.

Current Position:(Oct 1997 - current) vRep architect, Nativeminds Inc.

Current Work: (Dec 1998 to present) Developing reusable libraries to enable web robots (virtual representatives, or "vReps") with natural language interfaces to be built using our product, Neuroserver. I love my job!
Earlier Work: (Oct 1997-Dec 1998) I did most of the construction and finetuning work on our own company's vRep, then known as "Shallow Red" and "Red". This vRep is now known as "Nicole", and is now maintained and updated by others.

Professional Experience: Software Developer for 1 year at Brightware, Inc of Novato CA, a leading developer of expert systems. Head of Quality Assurance for last three months there. Used ARTscript programming language (a LISP variant), Windows NT, and UNIX extensively. Developed a dynamic HTML generation module and did extensive work on an object-oriented web interface for ARTScript systems. Also developed several minor rule-based applications.

Prior to Graduation: Contract Programmer for 5 months at Accountants Data Systems of Wichita KS. Used BASIC language to update payroll program.

Other experience: Full-time Data Entry Typist for 2 years at Woodward Publications, Inc of Lawrence, KS, a publisher of telephone directories, ending in March 1996. Many other jobs in Lawrence, while attending school.

Programming Languages: Fluent: Neuroscript (the in-house language used for vRep development at NativeMinds, which is somewhat prolog-like), Scheme, ARTScript (both of these are LISP variants), Pascal, C, Prolog
Rusty/marginal/subject to review:Common LISP, C++, Perl, BASIC, OPS5, OPS83 (Ops5 and OPS3 are LISP-based and C-based inference systems, respectively), and Prolog.

Specialized skills: I have 3 years of experience working with state-of-the-art text natural-language recognition software, and several years of experience working with both "formal" and "fuzzy" AI and learning systems: I have formed a strong opinion that the separation between the "formal" and "fuzzy" camps in AI is largely a mistake and that greater results in terms of "intelligence" can generally be achieved by a synthesis of elements from both camps. Accordingly, I've sought out hands-on experience with formal systems, including Bayesian and Fuzzy Logic-based as well as Classical Inference Engines and Knowledge Engineering, and also with approaches based on the idea of intelligence as an emergent property, such as Artificial Neural Networks (ANN's), Genetic Algorithms, Genetic Programming, Adaptive Learning and ART networks.

I also, of necessity, have mastered the mathematical background to understand all of these things, including Statistics, Automata Theory, Game Theory, and Formal Language Theory, as well as applications such as Data Mining, Device Control, Expert System Implementation, Game AI, and, most recently, Natural Language Processing.

Personal: My hobbies include writing (both prose and poetry), usenet, history, recreational programming (natural language projects, games with AI oppononts, language interpreters & compilers), linguistics and some activist activities. I enjoy discussion, debate and public speaking. I also make stained glass art occasionally.