Software Engineer Assistant

Jonathan Ito

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CV

Research

Publications

Jonathan Y. Ito

Curriculum Vitae1360 Pebble Vale St.

Monterey Park, CA 91754 USA

***@***.***.***

WWW:

http://people.ict.usc.edu/~ito

Research Interests

Artificial Intelligence

Affective Computing

Computational Models of Appraisal, Emotion, & Coping

Decision Theory & Game Theory

Human Judgment and Decision Making

Automated Decision Aids & Decision Support Systems

Preference Elicitation & Representation

Education

University of Southern California

Ph.D. in progress, Computer Science, December 2012

Thesis:

Context Dependent Utility: An Appraisal-Based Approach for Modeling Deci-

sions, Context, and Framing

Advisor:

Professor Stacy Marsella

Committee:

Professor Jonathan Gratch,

Professor Milind Tambe,

Professor Richard John,

Professor Antoine Bechara

University of Southern California

M.S., Computer Science, May 2005

University of California at Irvine

B.S., Computer Science, September 2000

Research Experience

Thesis Work

Computational Model of Context and Framing in Decision Making

Thesis work focuses on developing a computational model of the human decision process

which

is sensitive to context and framing effects. The model integrates both Appraisal Theory

and

Decision-Theoretic models of risk-based decision making to account for context and

framing ef-

fects in a general, highly flexible, and extensible manner. Designed, administered, and

analyzed

several empirical studies conducted via Amazon Mechanical Turk which support this

framework.

Self Deception as a Rational Strategy

Developed and implemented a framework for updating agent-based beliefs which allows for

self deception. The framework updates the probabilistic beliefs of an agent by maximizing

the beliefs of the agent relative to its goals. Furthermore, identified several

computational and

game-theoretic scenarios in which self-deceptive behavior may be more adaptive than

purely

rational behavior. For instance, in game-theoretic scenarios similar to the classic

battle of the

sexes, adopting a self-deceptive strategy can outperform a purely rational one.

Defining Measures of Message Consistency

Addresses the problem of determining whether to believe and ultimately accept information

received from other agents. Developed a mechanism which allows an agent to adopt a what

if mentality whereby the consistency of a proposed belief is evaluated by whether it

provides a

better explanation for the history of observed actions in the world. Implemented this

mechanism

in PsychSim, a multi-agent social simulation tool which allows for extremely rich and

detailed

modeling of agents and their associated belief states.

Grants and Awards

2010

International Summer School in Affective Sciences

Applied to and attended a multi-disciplinary seminar and workshop series for affective

science

hosted by the Swiss National Center of Competence in Research

2009NSF East Asian and Pacific Summer Institute Fellowship

Awarded a summer grant for independent research abroad at the University of Melbourne in

Australia in collaboration with Professor Liz Sonenberg. As Principal Investigator, gave

invited

talks at several different universities and conducted research into the potentially

normative

aspects of self-deception ultimately leading to the publication of a short paper.

Teaching Experience

2005

University of Southern California, Assisted in redesigning the curriculum for CSCI 201:

Software

Engineering

Developed an agent-based Java program to help students learn about concurrency,

asynchronous

communication, sound user interface design, and database integration.

2004-2005University of Southern California, Teaching Assistant for CSCI 201: Software Engineering

CSCI 201 focuses on agent-based programming, concurrency, and team-based programming

methodologies. Led discussion and lab sections where course material relevant to the

various

course projects and assignments was reviewed and discussed.

1999-2000University of California at Irvine, Teaching Assistant for ICS 1A: Introductory Course to

Com-

puter Science (non-majors)

Oversaw laboratory sessions twice a week and provided assistance to 20 to 40 students in

cre-

ating web pages, interacting with databases, and designing complex spreadsheets.

Security Clearance

US Top Secret Clearance, expired 2005Professional Experience

2005-PresentInstitute for Creative Technologies, Graduate Research Assistant

Member of the social simulation lab and emotion group. Pursued independent research

related

to affective computing, self-deception, computational models of appraisals and emotion,

and

contextually-sensitive decision methods, under the mentorship of Professor Stacy

Marsella.

2009-2011

Reading to Kids, Cochair, Information Technology Committee

Volunteer Cochair of the Information Technology Committee of Reading to Kids, a nonprofit

organization dedicated to promoting reading among children grades K-5 by organizing

monthly

reading clubs consisting of approximately 1000 volunteers across 7 different schools in

the Los

Angeles area. Duties included recruiting volunteers, maintenance of technology

infrastructure

at organization office, and ongoing development of website. The

Reading to Kids website

is a dy-

namic database-driven web application responsible for recording volunteer attendance,

school

assignments, and other vital statistics related to managing the monthly reading clubs.

2003-2004KSVentures, Software Engineer

Assisted in development of the Halo project. The goal of the project was to create a

general

reasoning and inference engine capable of answering domain-specific questions by

utilizing

ontologies, a database of common-sense knowledge, and information gleaned from scientific

texts. Primarily contributed to the development of a domain-specific ontology and its

associated

logical inference rules.

2001-2003ISX, Software Engineer

Developed agent-based technologies using ontologies, logical inference engines, and rule-

based

planning systems.

Situational Awareness Training: Lead developer for a Java-based, distributed training

tool used for evaluating and enhancing the situational awareness of US Army Sergeants,

who typically command 8 to 13 soldiers in the field. Implemented the training tool as a

collaborative simulation and successfully field-tested it at the Quantico Marine Corps

base

over an extremely slow communications link.

Effects Based Operations Planning System: One of the primary developers for a graphical

planning system based on an effects-based planning paradigm. This paradigm allows the

user to focus on the desired effects of a plan rather than on a relatively constrained

set

of alternatives. Primary responsibilities included the development of a domain-specific

planning ontology coupled with a logical inference engine which partially automated the

creation of complex plans.

2000-2001Sapient, Consultant & Software Engineer

Developed, deployed, and maintained web-based technologies in a multi-disciplinary team

set-

ting.

1999-2000Unisys, Student Intern

Assisted in developing and migrating existing legacy mainframe operating system into a

modern,

Windows environment.

Technical Skills

Programming Languages

Java, R, C, C++, Haskell, LISP, Scheme, Python, PHP, HTML, CSS, Javascript, AJAX, Ruby,

Perl

Experimental Tools

Amazon Mechanical Turk, Qualtrics

Productivity Tools

L

A

TEX, Microsoft Office, gnuplot, Graphviz, MetaPost

Operating Systems

Unix/Linux, Microsoft Windows

Publications

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