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Research
Research Areas
Artificial intelligence, intelligent tutoring systems, computational linguistics, intelligent user interfaces
Research Interests
I’m keenly interested in devising intelligent computational systems that can adaptively support human-computer interaction and communication. For many years I’ve also had a long-standing interest in applying basic AI research on computational linguistics and intelligent user interfaces to educational software. For example, my students and I have investigated issues in animated pedagogical agents, explanation generation (both natural language and multimodal), virtual cinematography, and narrative prose generation. For more information, please visit the IntelliMedia Center for Intelligent Systems site and see our publications.
In collaboration with colleagues from NC State’s William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, for several years now our work has focused on advanced learning technologies with an emphasis on intelligent tutoring systems, game-based learning environments, and tutorial dialogue. We’re investigating narrative-centered learning environments (interactive narrative planning, character dialogue generation), affective computing (self-efficacy modeling, frustration detection, empathetic virtual agents), student modeling (goal recognition, plan recognition), and natural language tutorial dialogue (corpus-based dialogue studies, tutorial strategy modeling). We’re currently embarking on a new project to study the role of multiple representations in creativity via the Narrative Theatre, a narrative-centered creativity enhancement environment.
Awards and Honors
Recent Professional Service
Courses
Professional Bio
After earning a B.A. in History from Baylor University in 1983, I headed (slightly) south and earned a B.A. in 1986 and an M.S.C.S. in 1988, both in Computer Science, from the University of Texas at Austin. Despite spending an inordinate amount of time at the Texas Juggling Society, UT Austin nevertheless saw fit to award me a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1994. My research focused on a natural language generator (KNIGHT) that dynamically generated multi-paragraph explanations from a large-scale knowledge base. After a dissertation’s worth of work, it was satisfying when, in a formal evaluation, KNIGHT’s performance was judged to be comparable to humans’.
Moments after receiving the Ph.D., I joined the Department of Computer Science at NC State where I’ve served on the faculty ever since. It’s been great fun working with wonderful colleagues and students on a number of projects in computational linguistics and intelligent user interfaces over the years. These include intelligent tutoring systems with pedagogical agents (Design-a-Plant, Internet Protocol Advisor), multimedia explanation generation and pedagogical planning (PhysViz), legal document generation (Docu-Planner), narrative prose generation (Author), narrative-centered learning environments (Crystal Island, Narrative Theatre), and natural language tutorial dialogue (JavaTutor).
Beginning in 2001, I took a multi-year sojourn to industry to experience first-hand the beguiling practicalities of real-world problems. NC State colleagues accompanied me in founding LiveWire Logic, a venture-backed enterprise software start-up. At LiveWire Logic, where I served as Chief Scientist, we leveraged corpus-based computational linguistics techniques to create RealDialog™, an automated customer service solution for Fortune 500 companies. LiveWire Logic was acquired by Astute Solutions in 2006.
