Machine Learning Scientist
Adknowledge Inc.
wkerr [at] adknowledge [dot] com
wesley [dot] n [dot] kerr [at] gmail [dot] com
Research Interests
I am currently learning and building recommender systems on top of Hadoop and MapReduce.
I am actively interested in all aspects of video game design and research. There are many research projects that fall into these categories. For example, over the summer I worked with several undergraduate students developing AI opponents for Blizzards Starcraft. With further work, we hope to participate in the AIIDE Starcraft AI Competition. I also work with students in independent studies designing and implementing new video games that flesh out potentially new game mechanics.
Most of my research lies at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science. My dissertation research explored a developmental approach to activity recognition, laying the foundations for verb learning in a situated environment. A large portion of the research was based on data gathered from the Wubble World and Wubble World 2D virtual environments. Wubble World is an interactive world for 10-12 year olds, wherein children interact with each other and their pet wubble. These interactions provide learning experiences for the wubble and over time children can see their wubble learning more and more language. Wubble World 2D followed the Wubble World project and focused on developing an environment that afforded more autonomous behaviors for the wubbles and yielded more extensive data collection.
A secondary interest of mine is war simulation. Work is always slowly progressing on a war simulation game that will hopefully demonstrate different physical traits of ancient battlefields. The tactics needed to successfully operate in this environment should be those outlined in Clausewitz's classic "On War".
I am also interested in different forms of swarm intelligence and multiagent systems. The idea that complex interactions can arise from simple rules has always intrigued me.
Education
- PhD in Computer Science, 2010, Computer Science, University of Arizona, Tucson AZ
- 2005-2008, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
- MS in Computer Science, 2005, University of Wyoming, Laramie
- BS in Computer Science, 2001, Kansas State University, Manhattan