Former Grads Return as Visiting Faculty for 2005
AI Professor Juan Flores replaces mentor in sabbatical switch
While Dr. Art Farley spends his sabbatical abroad, Dr. Juan Flores is using his own sabbatical to return to the University of Oregon for the 2005-2006 school year. Dr. Flores earned his doctorate in 1997 under Dr. Farley's tutelage, and now sits on the faculty of the University of Michoacan in Mexico as a full professor. His research work deals with applications of Artificial Intelligence to Electrical Engineering and Financial Analysis. He studies qualitative reasoning, evolutionary computation, and artificial neural networks with applications to electrical engineering, modelling dynamic systems, and financial analysis. He is a member of the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores, the Mexican President's council of distinguished scholars. He is an active member of several international research groups, most notably he sits on the annual workshop scientific committee for the Qualitative Reasoning Group.
While at the UO, Dr. Flores will be teaching the undergraduate Computer Organization class as well as providing mentorship in Artificial Intellegence and Evolutionary Algorithms. More information about Dr. Flores is available on his website at University of Michoacan.
Visiting Professor Keith Downing Returns for Fall 2005
Dr. Keith Downing has returned to the UO after a 15 year absence. Dr. Downing graduated with a PhD in CIS in 1990. Since that time, he was first at Linkoping University in Sweden and then at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. This fall, however, he is spending his sabbatical back in Eugene as visiting faculty. Dr. Downing will be collaborating with the UO faculty, and has already given a provocative talk entitled "Of Mice and Minsky: what neuroscience can tell us about the prospects of artificial intelligence". His research areas include artificial life, artificial intelligence, evolutionary computation, artificial neural networks, and computational neuroscience. In particular, he is researching the use of evolutionary algorithms to evolve topologies and local behaviors for artificial neural networks.
About his stay here, Dr. Downing says "Of all the places that I've lived, Eugene is still my favorite. It's great fun to walk my kids to school, watch them play soccer games, etc., in the same neighborhood that I used to live as a grad student." More information about Dr. Downing can be found on his Norwegian website.