Janet Kolodner
Professor, computer science, Georgia Institute of Technology

As one of the coinventors of case-based reasoning (and a recently elected AAAI fellow), Janet Kolodner is applying her research in several real domains. Most importantly, she wants to make case-based reasoning do something; that is, make it work in real situations.

First, she is asking what it means for computers or people to be creative. She and her students have worked on a program that plans meals for people with dietary restrictions. Such software must remember cases, suggest nutritious but not boring meals, be aware of correct textures and how real food should taste, and come up with various possibilities. The program was able to come up with breakfasts that matched what human dieticians were doing, but the meals were not very creative. In another program, Kolodner and her group added brainstorming and evaluative components and got far more creative solutions. They are now looking at creative problem solving across several different design domains: lesson plan creation, meal planning, software design, and architecture.

Kolodner is also using what she's learned about case- based problem solving to build interactive systems that can help people solve problems. The systems provide three major services:

1. They help people identify what they should be paying attention to as they solve problems.

2. They point out the challenges that people are likely to encounter when they try to carry out solutions in the world.

3. They suggest solutions to problems posed by the user.

They do this by presenting cases (collected from experts) that teach an appropriate lesson and that the user has probably never seen before. The systems augment the memories of people, allowing them to do case-based reasoning even though they themselves don't have a store of their own cases.

One part of this project aims at helping elementary- school teachers teach science. Kolodner's group is collecting the experiences and lesson plans of experienced and novice teachers. With help from the novices, they are identifying the sorts of problems teachers need help with; from experienced teachers, they are collecting solutions to those problems. This information is then made available to the teachers who need it. She is also looking at the use of this technology in design, and in particular, architecture.

As a senior woman in her field and on her campus, Kolodner is asked to take on a lot of extra responsibilities. There are more senior men to share similar requests, so each one's burden is less. Kolodner said it will greatly help the current batch of female scientists to have more women around.

Suggestions:

1. If you're not sure of yourself, pretend! Act self-confident.
2. Go to conferences, get on panels; create your own new forum, start a new journal.
3. More than just a few people need to suggest names for speakers, panels, and committees, so that a broad range of candidates are considered.
4. Grit your teeth and go after funding. To open doors, invoke the name of someone known in your field.
5. If you are one of those known researchers, tell your junior colleagues to use your name to help them get funding.