I am a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Kentucky.

My bio.

My research papers by topic.
My research papers by date.

This Spring (2018) I am teaching CS 585, Science Fiction and Computer Ethics and CS 575, Introduction to the Theory of Computing.

Don't be that dude.Handy tips for the male academic,from the blog Tenure She Wrote.

Another reason to discourage laptop use in the classroom.

My office hours for Spring 2018 are TBA, in 311 Marksbury Building. My phone number there is 859-257-4245, BUT I IGNORE VOICEMAIL. You're much much more likely to reach me by email.

My research interests include decision making under uncertainty; computational social choice; automation of information elicitation; preference elicitation, representation, and aggregation; computational learning theory, and computational complexity. Note the heavy concentration on decision making! And computer ethics, and the pedagogy thereof.

Article about women in CS with numbers that I'm not sure I believe.

I was conference chair for the 2015 Algorithmic Decision Theory Conference. I received one of the first CRA Undergraduate Research Mentoring Awards in 2016. I was on sabbatical in 2013-14. I was on the senior PC for AAAI '13, and am for IJCAI '16. I co-organized a special track on computational social choice for ISAIM '12, the NSF-sponsored Broader Impacts for Research and Discovery Summit 2010, the first Comparative Decision Making Studies Conference in '11, the IJCAI Doctoral Consortium in '11, the UAI Workshop on Bayesian Applications in '07, and the AAAI Workshop on Preference Handling in AI in '07. I have been on a lot of program committees (see my bio for more details).

In 2013, I married Andy Klapper.

I was involved with the Cognitive Science program here at UK. There is an undergraduate minor and a graduate certificate available.

A calendar of upcoming religious holidays.


I spent the academic year '06-'07 on sabbatical. I visited Bob Sloan at the University of Illinois-Chicago, Michael Littman and Eric Allender at Rutgers University, and then the Cork Center for Constraint Computation, in Ireland; friends in England; Joerg Rothe in Duesseldorf, Germany; Linda van der Gaag in Utrecht, Netherlands; Martin Mundhenk, Jena, Germany; Patrice Perny, Paris, France. I have posted many pictures from my travels.

I didn't post any from academic year '13-'14.


My paper, ``The Computational Complexity of Probabilistic Plan Existence and Evaluation," M. Littman, J. Goldsmith, and M. Mundhenk, The Journal of AI Research, volume 9, pages 1--36, 1998, received honorable mention for the The Annual IJCAI-JAIR Best Paper Prize

In February 1998, I was awarded the American Association for the Advancement of Science (junior) mentoring award, in recognition of the support I have given to people in categories underrepresented in science: women, people of color, people with learning disabilities and physical handicaps, and people choosing alternative lifestyles. It was very nice to get official recognition of my ongoing mentoring work.


I dance with Squash Beetle Morris, I bicycle, and I contra dance. I also call contra dances, which means I teach the dances, and then prompt the dancers as they dance. The local dances in Lexington are at ArtsPlace at N. Mill and Church Streets; beginners should show up around 7:30 for the beginners' workshop. No partner or experience needed. The music is always live.


Students

PhD Students

Dave Mobley

William Bailey

Jacob Schlueter

MS Students

Austin Taing

Kshitija Taywade

Johnny Xu

Former Students and Postdocs

John Fike

Cory Siler, MS 2017

Sam Saarinen BSE 2016

Thomas Allen, PhD 2016

Matthew Spradling, PhD 2015

Radu Paul Mihail, PhD 2014

Josiah Hanna, BSE 2014

Libby Knouse, BSE 2013

James Forshee, BSE 2013

Nicholas Mattei, PhD 2012

Joshua Guerin, PhD 2012

Tom Dodson, BS 2012

Art Hall III, MS 2011

Robert Crawford, BSE 2011

Liangrong Yi, PhD 2010

Renee Gehlbach Jylkka, BS

Krol Kevin Mathias, PhD 2008

Peng Dai, MS 2008

Derek Williams, MS 2005ish

Kiran Bhuma, MS

Stephen Christensen

Lucas Cockerham, MS

Tong Li, MS

James Royalty

Shelia Sittinger, MS

Christopher Wells, BS

Wenzhong Zhao, PhD

Chris Lusena, PhD

Postdocs

Martin Mundhenk

Stephen Bloch


Links

On plastic bags

WEB pages for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science

Citeseer, a great research tool.

NP-optimization problems

Klein Bottles

An amusing article about my late grandmother, may she rest in peace.


Personal Stuff


Citizens ruled by fear are citizens primed for manipulation. We cannot allow the very real threats to our safety to rule our lives. We must live and act based on our deepest convictions.




As the US war machine continues to grind, as people the world over continue killing each other in the name of peace or justice, it is difficult for tree huggers and peaceniks to maintain their equilibrium. The work of trying to change the world is difficult and tiring, but we must, must allow ourselves time to stop and breathe, time to play and dance, as well as to mourn. Or else, what are we working for?