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Summary Sentence: Steve Cross, Georgia Tech’s Executive Vice President for Research, discusses strengthening Georgia Tech’s Thought Leadership Platform in Cognitive Systems
Full Summary: No summary paragraph submitted.
Stephen CrossAbstract: For those that expect a talk on cognitive systems, my apology. But to think boldly, are we not a complex system composed of many complex parts where the outputs are at times unpredictable? Are there ideas from how cognitive systems research has been supported over the past 40 years that we can apply more effectively at Georgia Tech? Two such ideas, I suggest, are the role of grand challenges and shared computational test beds as means to “crowd source” across the university. I was privileged to witness, and in some small way support, this in the research of Simon, Newel, Reddy, and many others through my time with them at Carnegie Mellon.
Herb Simon said the following in his book “Models of My Life.”
“The greatest asset of the university has been its capacity for innovation. That capacity, in turn, rests partly on its traditions of small size, weak interdepartmental boundaries, and solid administrative support (or at least hunting licenses) for entrepreneurial undertakings.” and
“We measure our success not only by the quality of teaching and research on our own campus, but by our influence on intellectual and educational trends in the nation and internationally.”
How does this relate to Georgia Tech? I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. I decided in 1989 that my role was to support great research and my own research since then has been how to provide this support. I think it safe to say that we have a shared desire that we want Georgia Tech to be a place of true thought leadership in cognitive science and related fields of scholarly pursuit. Equally important is the translation of such scholarly pursuit into societal benefit. In keeping with what Simon taught us and how he pursued his own research over a remarkable career, can these two objectives really be decoupled? In the talk, I will review a period of time that I suggest was a renaissance in support for research in cognitive science, machine intelligence, and related areas of computer science. From 1983-1993, and to a lesser extent until the early 2000s, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) supported the Strategic Computing Program and programs that were derived from it. A review of these programs will first be presented and then the key ideas inherent in the research methodology practiced by DARPA will be examined. Lastly, the influence on our overall Georgia Tech research strategy will be discussed. In this it is expected that seminar participants will have good ideas that will help improve the overall approach to research here at Georgia Tech. Our collective goal should be in keeping with our stated strategic vision – what does Georgia Tech think.
Bio: Steve Cross is Georgia Tech’s Executive Vice President for Research, a professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and also serves as an adjunct professor in the College of Computing and the Ernest J. Scheller College of Business. He was Vice President and Director of the Georgia Tech Research Institute from 2003 to 2010, a position he is currently filling as Interim Director. He also serves as the President of the Georgia Tech Research Corporation, the Georgia Applied Research Corporation, and the Georgia Technology Advanced Ventures. Previously, Steve was at Carnegie Mellon University as a research faculty member in computer science and Director and CEO of the Software Engineering Institute. Earlier, he was a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and a faculty member at the Air Force Institute of Technology. A retired military officer, he received the Defense Superior Service Medal and the Air Force Research Award.
