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C00002 00002	(a) Professor Janet Kolodner's research has already demonstrated the  deep
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(a) Professor Janet Kolodner's research has already demonstrated the  deep
connections that exist between the way information is organized in  memory
and the modes in which its retrievals are and are not efficient.  She  has
carried this out not with a  purely theoretical model, but rather with  an
operational one, a  computer model which  can be used  as an  experimental
vehicle on which to perform experiements.  Her results to date should have
an  impact  on  data  base  organization  and  searching,  on  aritificial
intelligence, and on cognitive psychology.

(b) Dr. Kolodner emerged from the Yale University Cognitive Science group,
a group strongly dominated by  one particular research programme.  To  her
credit, she independently discovered,  developed, and used a  hierarchical
frame-like representation scheme in her research, and convinced the  other
members of  that  group of  its  utility.  This  scheme  -- which  is  now
referred to as MOPS at Yale  -- enabled synergy between the "scripts"  and
"frames" methodologies.  As  a second case,  let me remark  upon the  work
Kolodner performed as  a summer  student two  years ago,  at IBM  Yorktown
heights, New York.   She was  alone in  an environment  which was  largely
ignorant of  Artificial Intelligence  and  Cognitive Science  research  to
date, and skeptical or outright hostile to what parts of it they had  been
exposed to.   Kolodner  managed  to  convince the  key  personnel  of  the
importance of trying to  understand what the user  of their system  meant,
rather than focusing on superficial but more concentional approaches.   At
the end of the summer, the head of that project, Dr. Maurice Karnaugh  (of
Karnaugh maps) took a semester off from IBM, to spend studying AI at Yale.
He was made  the head  of a  tiny -- but  novel --  AI group  at IBM.   In
summary, I  believe  Kolodner  to be  capable  of  extremely  independent,
creative acitivities, and her  research to date leads  us to expect  great
things from her in the coming years.  This brings us to:

(c) The intended research  is precisely the right  thing for her to  carry
out at the present time:  experimentation upon the system she built as her
doctoral dissertation.  By  experimenting with it,  she will hopefully  be
led to the next great  breakthrough in memory organization.  Kolodner  has
avoided the temptation  to weave a  theory out of  midair and then  fumble
about trying  to  verify  it;  rather,  she  is  willing  to  exploit  the
experimental vehicle  she has  -- and  others  to come  -- and  be  guided
dynamically by the empirical data that  results.  This is the hallmark  of
great science, and I am waiting eagerly to hear how it progresses.