The USC Information
Science Institute's Yolanda Gil has been has been appointed
to the Advisory Committee of the Computer and Information
Sciences and Engineering Directorate of the National Science
Foundation.
The advisory committee "provides advice on the impact of
NSF support policies and programs on the CISE community;
provides oversight on program management and
performance; and provides advice to the CISE Assistant
Director on special issues, forming ad hoc subcommittees to
carry out needed studies as necessary," according to its
mission statement.
"Needless to say, a position on this
committee is an important one, with the potential for great
impact on the computer science research community and on
the future direction of computer science in the United States,
if not the whole world," commented ISI Executive Director
Herbert Schorr, in a statement congratulating
Gil.Besides her post as associate director of the
Institute's Intelligent Systems Division, one of the largest
centers of AI research in the country, Gil is also a research
associate professor in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering
department of computer science. She came to ISI in 1992,
after earning her Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie-
Mellon University.
While not connected with it, the announcement follows
closely on Gil's recent standout performance as co-chair of
the
Twenty-First National Conference on Artificial Intelligence
in Boston in mid-July. Sponsored
by the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, the
annual meeting is the premier conference in its subject, but
had been suffering declining attendance in recent years as
the subject of AI has spawned numerous specialty
gatherings. Gil and co-chair Ray Mooney of the
University of
Texas- Austin made a concerted effort to reverse the trend
-- with a remarkable result. Attendance for AAAI 21 was up
more than 50 percent vis-a-vis AAAI 20. ISI participation
and leadership of AAAI has been a hallmark of the
organization since its inception. Robert Balzer of ISI chaired
the very first AAAI conference, in 1980,
Interest in AI has heightened because 2006 is the 50th
anniversary of the coining of the term, "artificial
intelligence," at a now-legendary conference that included
Claude Shannon, Marvin Minsky, and John McCarthy. Gil
and Mooney's innovations included new tracks for emerging
themes (including integrated cognitive architectures),
"nectar" tracks for reports from specialist conferences, a
track for senior members to write more philosophically than
would ordinarily be allowed, a new kind of poster session,
and new professional development opportunities for grad
students. The conference continued the usual robot
competitions (including a robot beauty contest), invited talks,
grad student forum, tutorials, and other proven draws. A
highlight was a poker tournament among poker-playing
artificial intelligences.
The consensus at the conference was that the latest entry
was livelier and more rewarding than any in recent memory,
and many people credited the efforts of the co-chairs for the
result. Implementing these innovations went far beyond
the ordinary conference chair duties of managing hundreds
of reviews coordination the activity of a huge program
committee.
Gil is a widely known researcher in AI and other areas of
computer science. She is principal investigator and project
leader of ISI's Interactive Knowledge Capture research
group, focusing on
intelligent interfaces for projects
concerning knowledge-based planning and problem solving,
information analysis and assessment of trust, semantic
annotation tools, agent and software choreography, and
community-wide development of knowledge bases.
A recent focus is assisting scientists with large-scale
applications throught the design of workflows and their
distributed execution and the use of AI techniques to support
large-scale science. | 
