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Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Chair of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Michigan (UM). In 1982, with Allen Newell and Paul Rosenbloom, Dr. Laird developed Soar as a computational unified theory of human cognition at Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to joining the UM faculty in 1986, he served as a member of the research staff at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). As Director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (1994-1999) at the University of Michigan, he led the DARPA-funded development of computer-generated pilots for large-scale distributed simulation that became TacAir-Soar. His primary research interests are in the nature of the architecture underlying artificial and natural intelligence. Within AI, his work has included research in general problem solving, the genesis of the weak methods, the origins of subgoals, general learning mechanism, interacting with external environments, learning by experience and by instruction, and integrating reactivity, planning, and learning -- all in the service of constructing complete autonomous intelligent agents. Within cognitive science, his research has concentrated on detailed modeling of human behavior (reaction times and error rates) in visual attention, concept acquisition and dual tasks. A co-founder of Soar Technology, Inc. and a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), he earned a BS from the University of Michigan, and MS and PhD degrees from Carnegie Mellon. | 