H. Van Dyke Parunak
1027 Ferdon Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 996-1384

Research Interests

Applications of complex adaptive systems, with special emphasis on fine-grained agent software architectures for modeling, control, and collaboration. Artificial intelligence, particularly knowledge representation and distributed planning and scheduling, in the domains of manufacturing automation and the discourse structure of natural language; hypermedia technology and its application to information management; tools for structured thinking and group work.

Employment History

2007-Present Chief Scientist, Vector Research Center, Tech Team Government Solutions, Inc. Formulates technical strategy for the Emerging Markets Group, the research arm of TTGSI. Technical lead on agent-based projects, with special expertise in natural language and stigmergic cognition. Initiates and develops new research opportunities with a wide range of clients, including DARPA, NIST, IARPA, ONR, and commercial vendors.

2000-2007 Chief Scientist, Altarum Institute (formerly called ERIM). Formulation and coordination of Altarum's overall technical strategy. Senior technical direction of marketing initiatives and projects in my own technical domain.

1990-1999 Scientific Fellow, ITI (effective 8/1/1998, ERIM). Senior technical direction of marketing initiatives and projects in my own technical domain. Developed and executed a strategy for coherent identification, development, and marketing of ITI tools. Together with three other senior technical staff, responsible for marketing to the research community.

1990-1992 Manager, Technology Acquisition and Deployment, ITI. Line manager for the leaders of six domain-oriented technical groups encompassing the entire technical staff of the Institute. Responsible for formulation and execution of the Institute's technology acquisition strategy and for deployment of technologies and technical staff across projects.

1988-1990 Manager, Computer and Information Sciences Center, ITI. Responsible for technology acquisition in all areas of computer and information sciences, and for deploying technology and technical staff across projects in a matrix-managed organization. Initiated and directed research activities in distributed AI, hypermedia, and applications of chaos theory to distributed systems.

1984-1988 Manager of Distributed Factory Software Group, Communications and Distributed Systems Laboratory, Industrial Technology Institute, Ann Arbor, MI (ITI). Founded and recruited the group, which was the focal point of AI expertise at ITI; marketed its technologies to programs and projects throughout the Institute; helped other groups plan how to benefit from AI and distributed computing technologies. Monitored academic activity in AI, identified relevant developments, and promoted their transition into ITI. Directed research in applied artificial intelligence for manufacturing control. Originated technologies such as the fractal actor architecture for negotiated distributed control, symmetric closed knowledge representation systems, and a neural net model for material handling and factory scheduling. Participated in standards definition for factory models and data management.

1982-1984 Computer Scientist, Comshare, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI. Designed distributed decision support architectures; developed environments for data flow and object oriented programming; conceived, designed, and implemented a hypermedia front-end to integrate different information resources.

1979-1982 Assistant Professor, Department of Near Eastern Studies; and Postdoctoral Scholar, Michigan Society of Fellows, University of Michigan. Directed the Michigan Project for Computer-Assisted Biblical Studies, a text archive and consulting service at the University of Michigan. Conducted research on knowledge representation of natural language texts, and discourse and semantic analysis of dead languages.

1978-1979 Associate Investigator, Research Project on "Computer Methods for Studying Structure in Biblical Hebrew," Divinity School, Harvard University. Conducted research on computerized display of the discourse structure of natural language.

Education


PhD Nov. 78 Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Harvard University
MS Aug. 82 Computer and Communication Sciences University of Michigan
AM June 78 Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Harvard University
MA Nov. 78 Palestinian Archaeology and Geography Institute of Holy Land Studies (Jerusalem)
ThM May 73 Old Testament Dallas Theological Seminary
AB June 69 Physics Princeton University

Professional Activities

Affiliations

Director, International Foundation for Multi-Agent Systems, 1999-2004

Member: Association for Computing Machinery, American Association for Artificial Intelligence.

Editorial Boards

Swarm Intelligence

ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems

Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems

Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing

International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing

AI EDAM (Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing)

Organizing Committees

Workshop on Environments for Multi-Agent Systems (E4MAS, 2004, 2005)

Tutorial on Engineering Self-Organizing Agent Systems at AAMAS (2004, 2005)

Sponsorship Chair, AAMAS 2003

Quantum Applications Symposium, 2001

Workshop on Industrial Agents (WINA), 1998

DAI Workshop (1992)

Advisory Panel, International Conference on Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Engineering, AIENG 89, Cambridge, UK, 1989; AIENG 90, Boston, MA, 1990; AIENG 91, Oxford, UK,1991.

Arrangements Committee, Eleventh International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, August 1989.

Organizing Committee, Society for Machine Intelligence, 1987 (Detroit area industrially-oriented society)

Expert Systems Conference, Spring 1987 (Engineering Society of Detroit and Society for Machine Intelligence).

Invited Talks

European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI) 2000

Second European Agent Systems Summer School (EASSS 2000, Saarbruecken, Germany)

Modelling Autonomous Agents in a Multi-Agent World (MAAMAW) 1989, 1999

International Conference on the Practical Application of Intelligent Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (PAAM) 1999

International Workshop on Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (IMS) 1999

Program Committees (selected)

International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (member, Senior Program Committee, 2004 and 2005)

Workshop on Engineering Self-Organising Agent Systems (ESOA, 2004-2005)

International Conference on Multi-Agent Systems (ICMAS) (1995-2000)

Workshop on Agent-Based Software Engineering (ABSE)

International Conference on the Practical Application of Intelligent Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (PAAM) (since 1996)

DAI Workshop (1990).

"Organizational Structures," AAAI SIGMan Workshop on Integrated Architectures for Manufacturing, IJCAI '89.

International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems in Manufacturing, West Berlin, 10-11 October 1989.

IEEE Conference on AI Applications, Spring 1989.

Reviewer Positions

National Science Foundation.

International Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems

ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems

Swarm Intelligence

International Journal of Production Research

Software Experience and Practice

Computer Reviews

International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing

Journal of Biblical Literature

Academic Honors

1979-1982 Postdoctoral Scholar, Michigan Society of Fellows, University of Michigan.

1974-1975 Fellowship from Rotary, International, for study in Israel.

1973 Dallas: Jennie Solomon Prize in Old Testament; W.H. Griffith Thomas Scholarship Award; degree With Highest Honor.

1972 Dallas: Jennie Solomon Prize in Old Testament.

1969 Princeton: Phi Beta Kappa; Sigma Xi; Shuichi Kusaka Memorial Prize in Physics; degree Summa cum laude.

Computer Publications

Chronological List
Topical list with abstracts