Richard Neapolitan, PhD - Northeastern Illinois University, Illinois

Richard Neapolitan has been a researcher in the area of uncertainty in artificial intelligence, in particular Bayesian networks, since the mid 1980's. In 1990 he wrote the seminal text Probabilistic Reasoning in Expert Systems, which helped to unify the field of Bayesian network. Dr. Neapolitan established the field further with his book Learning Bayesian Network, which appeared in 2003. Besides authoring books, Dr. Neapolitan has published numerous cross-disciplinary articles spanning the fields of computer science, mathematics, philosophy of science, and psychology. His current research interests includes the comparison of human reasoning to normative models and the development of hybrid models. Presently, he is professor and chair of Computer Science at Northeastern Illinois University, while also serving as a visiting scholar at Monash University in Australia.

Kumarss Naimipour - Northeastern Illinois University, Illinois

Kumarss Naimipour is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at Northeastern Illinois University.    In 1992, he received his Ph.D. in Computer Science/Applied Mathematics from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he taught courses in computer science and mathematics. Since joining Northeastern Illinois University in 1988, he has published several articles in professional journals and conference proceedings, and has taught different topics in computer science and mathematics. Dr. Naimipour received the Faculty Excellence Award from Northeastern Illinois University in 1994, and was also selected for inclusion in the Seventh Edition of Who's Who Among America's Teachers in 2002.