Jody Daniels

Bachelors degree, Applied Mathematics (Computer Science)(83)
MS & PhD, Computer Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (93 & 97)

What I do:

I talk to my computer, it talks back, and we have a conversation. I can talk to it about making flight reservations (along with hotel and car reservations) or I can pretend to be a Marine and place requests for tactical supplies. I work for Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories (LM ATL) as a Manager of Artificial Intelligence Programs and my largest research area is spoken language understanding. The research paradigm is Listen, Communicate, Show (LCS) and we have developed several conversational domains in this framework. We have taken the Galaxy architecture (from MIT) and integrated it with mobile software agents (EMAA - Extendible Mobile Agent Architecture) for information access. We take the LCS-Marine system out on exercises with the Marines and hook up to their tactical radio network. The system gives the agents an itinerary and then sends them out over the radio link to find the database and then place or check on requests for, say 1000 gallons of diesel or 100 cases of MREs.

For this project I'm the Project Manager, but have also been the Technical Lead. I've customized various portions of the system, but now have a team of 8-10 engineers that develop and support the various domains and system parts. I get to decide what path the research will follow and my crew makes it so.

I also work on developing new business areas and go hunt for funding to support our research. I'm particularly interested in information retrieval, information extraction, and summarization, so we're starting to look at those areas.

How I got here.

I got here in the usual round-about way. I went through CMU on a 4-year ROTC scholarship, so I went into the Army upon graduation. (I avoided that whole job search event.) I spent 7+ years on active duty doing an assortment of positions within the Military Intelligence community. I was an Artificial Intelligence Project Officer as a new Lieutenant and later spent two years over in Korea, spending one year as a Company Commander. After those years I switched to the Reserves and went off to graduate school. I picked up a CS MS and PhD from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. My dissertation was a combination of Case-Based Reasoning and Information Retrieval and was called "Selection of Passages for Information Reduction." While in grad school I got promoted from Captain to Major and worked with a couple of units that were military training schools. I finally did my first job hunt and arrived at ATL as a Lead Member of the Engineering Staff (LMES) in the fall of 97. I also switched to a new Reserve unit that works in Civil Affairs (CA). CA folks are basically those that provide liaison between the military and the host country when we go in to assist with the rebuilding infrastructure, i.e. power, water, medical, banks, police, etc. Due to the activity in the Balkan region, I got called to active duty for most of the summer of '99 spent it living in a tent on a hilltop in Pristina, Kosovo. The good news is that this gave me current insight into NATO and joint military operations and automation needs.

What I like about it.

Much of the work at ATL is to facilitate the transfer of advanced technologies out to the military forces, so the lab is was an excellent combination of my AI and military backgrounds. I get to work with leading edge research and try to solve military operational problems. We work closely with multiple universities so we stay current on technology trends and advances. The folks here are highly creative, coming from diverse backgrounds. It's also quite female friendly as two of us three managers are women. The work hours are roughly a forty hour week (except right before a big exercise) and the engineers are covered by a union. I take advantage of flex-time and periodically work it so that I can take a Friday or Monday off.

How do I like where I live.

We're right across the river from Philadelphia - we view the skyline from our windows - and only a couple of hours from DC and New York. And you can get to any of those places by train. We're also about an hour to the shore or two hours to the ski slopes. Most importantly, we are less than two hours from white water where I can raft. We are even closer to slower water where I'm currently learning how to kayak. On one side of the office is the NJ Aquarium and on the other is a brand new minor league baseball stadium, set to open on 11 May. So, with all those activities around me, I'd have to say that I like it.