Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 02:49:03 GMT Server: Apache/0.6.5 Content-type: text/html John Gallagher's Never Ending Story

John's Never Ending Story Page

Last Modified : November 12, 1996


Who I am

John Gallagher, mild mannered computer science graduate student at Case Western Reserve University who is seemingly unable to decide on any one story, plan, or home page format....


Where I am

Case Western Reserve University
Crawford Hall, Room 505
Cleveland, OH 44106
(216) 368-5506
johng@alpha.ces.cwru.edu


What I do

I'm a Ph.D candidate in the Department of Computer Engineering and Science at Case Western Reserve University and a member of the Autonomous Agents Research Group. I am also the lab instructor for CWRU's Introduction to Engineering Class (only CWRU access for now, sorry)..

I have completed research on the use of genetic algorithms to generate dynamical neural network controllers for both simulated and real hexapod robots..

My current research intrests fall into two catagories:

  1. The use of analog dynamical neural networks to solve classically intractable decision problems.

  2. Exploring the neural basis of cognitive behaviors.


Research Related Web Sites

I know it's mostly lame to put lists of "favorite" sites on a home page. It's sort of egocentric to think that pages I like would be interesting to anyone else -- especially if I don't bother to do anything clever with the list, but who has time for clever? I'm supposed to be burning that on research -- so that I can put up cool pages like these.


My Story

In an effort to counteract my talent to avoid "real work", my thesis advisor often requires I commit to "meeting agendas", "research proposals", or other administrative nonsense. Plans are often nothing more than after the fact rationalizations of behavior. One would look much more together if he could look into the future so tomorrow's mistakes could be rationalized today. For this purpose, I like tarot readings -- as the results are as vague as any good research proposal . In a pinch, I have been known to use a Magic 8-Ball. I never use a ouija board, as I've found that spirits rationalize better than I can, and that's really scarry.

Some of my collegues have gone far beyond the automatic generation of plans, and are into the automatic generation of results. What better way to figure out how to build a control for a walking robot than to crack open the head of a cockroach to see how they do it. Cheating off Ma Nature's test paper. Who says researchers can't have slack?

In my spare time, I perform reconstructive surgery on indigent tubers. Though I'm not the worst, I don't think my skills are quite up to working on dead frogs -- I'm trying, though.

to be continued....


johng@alpha.ces.cwru.edu