Research Interests: Instructable agents, multistrategy learning, mixed-initiative reasoning, modeling and knowledge acquisition, ontologies, knowledge engineering
Teaching Interests: Artificial intelligence, intelligent agents, machine learning, knowledge acquisition and problem solving, knowledge engineering, applications of artificial intelligence
Education: Gheorghe Tecuci received his M.S. degree in Computer
Science from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest in 1979, graduating first
among all the Computer Science students at the Polytechnic Universities of
Romania. He received two Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science, one from the
University of Paris-South, in July 1988, and the other one from the Polytechnic
Institute of Bucharest, in December 1988.
Positions: Between 1979 and 1989 G.Tecuci was a researcher at the Romanian Institute for Informatics. He joined the faculty of George Mason University in 1990 as an Assistant Professor, became Associate Professor in 1993, and Professor in 1996. Between 1994 and 1999, G.Tecuci was also Coordinating director of the Center for Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing and Conceptual Modeling of the Romanian Academy. In 1995 he established the Learning Agent Laboratory at George Mason University which became Learning Agents Center in 2004. He was Chair of Artificial Intelligence at the US Army War College, between 2001 and 2003, and is visiting professor since 2001.
Publications: Tecuci has published over 150 papers (http://lac.gmu.edu/publications/), including 6 books, and has contributed to the development of two new research areas in Artificial Intelligence. One is Multistrategy Learning, in which he has co-edited (with R.Michaslski) “Machine Learning: A Multistrategy Approach,” which is the first comprehensive book on this topic, as well as the forth volume in the series of classical books "Machine Learning". The other area is Instructable Agents, in which he has authored the first book “Building Intelligent Agents: A Theory, Methodology, Tool and Case Studies.” Both these areas are viewed as key technologies for the development of intelligent systems, and for the generalized application of artificial intelligence to complex real-world problems. The papers of G.Tecuci are referred in the scientific literature and are also presented in artificial intelligence courses at several universities.
Research: The research of G.Tecuci is focused on creating a theory for the development of knowledge-based agents by typical users who do not have knowledge engineering experience. The envisioned theory will allow these typical users to develop intelligent assistants that incorporate their problem solving expertise, and will thus contribute to a new revolution in the use of computers (where typical users will no longer be just users of programs developed by others, but agent developers themselves). As part of this long-term research effort, G. Tecuci has originated or contributed to several important concepts in intelligent agents, machine learning and knowledge acquisition, including: multistrategy learning, learning agent shell, plausible explanations, plausible version spaces, plausible justification trees, understanding-based knowledge extension, consistency-driven knowledge elicitation, integrated teaching and learning, and mixed-initiative reasoning. These contributions have led to the “Disciple” agent development approach where a subject matter expert teaches a Disciple learning agent to become a knowledge-based assistant, in a way that is similar to how the expert would teach a human apprentice, through specific problem solving examples and explanations, and by supervising and correcting agent’s problem solving behavior. The Disciple approach has been successfully used to develop experimental knowledge-based agents for a wide variety of domains, including: assessment and tutoring agents for higher-order thinking skills in history and statistics, engineering design assistant, workaround planner, course of action critiquer, assistant for military center of gravity analysis, team of collaborative agents for emergency response planning, assistant for intelligence analysis; assistant for selecting a Ph.D. advisor.
Support: Since joining George Mason University, in 1990, G. Tecuci has been awarded, as Principal Investigator / Program Director, grants and contracts totaling over 6 million dollars. The awards were made by prestigious funding organizations such as Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Air Force Research Lab, National Science Foundation, US Army, National Research Council, Office of Naval Research, and European Community.
Recognitions: Tecuci was elected corresponding member of the Romanian Academy in 1991 and full member in 1993, and is Honorary Director of Institute for Artificial Intelligence of the Romanian Academy. He was Chair of Artificial Intelligence at the US Army War College and received the US Army Outstanding Civilian Service Medal. He also received the IT&E Outstanding Research Faculty Award, the Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems, the Innovative Application Award from the American Association of Artificial Intelligence, and the Romanian Academy Award for Research Excellence on Learning Systems. G. Tecuci has been a guest editor or on the editorial board of 11 journals, and acted as chairman, organizer, or program committee member of 55 conferences and workshops.
Learning Agents Center: In 1995 Dr. Tecuci has founded the Learning Agents Laboratory which became Learning Agents Center in 2004. The mission of the center is to conduct research on the theory and practice of agents development for complex real-world problems, based on learning agent technology, and to support teaching in the areas of intelligent agents, machine learning, knowledge acquisition, knowledge representation, collaborative problem solving, natural language processing, intelligent tutoring systems, expert systems, and artificial intelligence. The Learning Agents Center has received significant research support and is a leader in the area of instructable agents, with important accomplishments (see http://lac.gmu.edu/).