Title:	Things that collaborate
Date:	November 9, 2005 (Wednesday)
Time:	2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Venue:	Room 121, 1/F, Ho Sin-hang Engineering Building, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T.
Speaker:	Prof. Liz Sonenberg Professor and Head Department of Information Systems University of Melbourne Australia

ABSTRACT:

My interest is to develop software artifacts that can collaborate with humans in complex problem scenarios. The objective is not to emulate human thought processes, but to endow synthetic participants with the capability to act and interact in ways that appear appropriate and natural and that are helpful to human participants. I will review recent work and describe current challenges.

BIOGRAPHY:

Professor Sonenberg is currently Professor and Head of the Department of Information Systems at the University of Melbourne, Australia, a department engaged with research and education in the human issues associated with information and communication technologies, including technical, organisational, social and end user aspects of IT.

Professor Sonenberg's research interests revolve around the design of reasoning machinery in support of systems that can exhibit "intelligent" behaviours. For some years her major research efforts have been in the foundations and applications of systems within the BDI (Belief, Desire, Intention) agent paradigm, but she has also studied several approaches to non-monotonic reasoning and worked with collaborators in Psychology and Education on studies involving human reasoning. Her current interests are: Multi-agent systems - especially collaboration and teamwork; Automated negotiation and decision support; Context-aware computing; Computational modelling of human problem solving. Recently Professor Sonenberg has begun exploring opportunities for the use of agent technologies to meet the challenges faced by designers of mobile, context aware applications. Her research has been supported by the Australian Research Council. Industry collaborations have included the Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute, Agent Oriented Software P/L, the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Neuragenix P/L, and KESEM P/L.

In professional service, Professor Sonenberg is a member of the Board of the International Foundation for Multiagent Systems a non-profit organisation whose purpose is to promote science and technology in the area of artificial intelligence and multiagent systems; and a coordinating editor of the Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems published by Springer. She was co-chair of the local organising committee for the Second International Joint Conference on Agents and Multi Agent Systems hosted in Melbourne, July 2003, and Program Co-chair for the Third International Joint Conference on Agents and Multi Agent Systems, New York, July 2004.

Enquiries: Miss Temmy So at tel 2609 8444

For more information, please refer to http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/seminar