Asa B. Simmons received the B.S. degree in physics from the University of Texas (Austin) in 1951 and the M.A. degree in linguistics from California State University (Fullerton) in 1975.He has had extensive experience in all aspects of system and software engineering, from mission analysis to acceptance tests in the field. His work includes pioneering efforts in system definition and software design for phased-array radars and for trainers. He also has experience in system manage ment, as head of a system design section, overseeing both hardware and software design, and in the field as on-site supervisor for installation and test of air defense ground environment systems for the NATO alliance. He also has extensive experience in system analysis, modeling, and simulation, including event-driven models of systems such as SUBACS. He has received commendations for excellence for software designs he has generated for various sonar trainers. At present, he is occupied with a project to incorporate AI methods in an existing command and control system, with the introduction of neural net technology into company products, and with courses in Lisp, AI, and neural nets. His interests include the nature of intelligence and the methodologies which may be useful in emulating it in machines, where the machines and methods may be of conventional types, or may be based on advanced computation models, as in the case of neural nets.
Mr. Simmons has presented papers in linguistics and has participated in workshops on AI. He also serves on the Corporate Committee for AI. He is a member of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, the International Neural Net Society, and the Photographic Society of America.