Attendee: Craig Stanfill

Craig Stanfill got his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland in 1983, studying Artificial Intelligence under Dr. Charles Rieger III. Upon graduation he went to work for Thinking Machines Corporation in Cambridge, MA where he joined in pioneering efforts in massively parallel computing. His best known work from that period included parallel information retrieval and his co-invention, with David Waltz, of Memory Based Reasoning. He also did work on parallel non-numerical algorithms, parallel databases, and the application of AI techniques to large enterprise data sets.

In 1994, with Thinking Machines having declared bankruptcy, he co-founded Ab Initio Software to continue his work in parallel computing, particularly as it pertained to business computing. Out of this came Ab Initio's Co>Operating System, a high-performance parallel computing framework which continues to serve as the key infrastructure for a wide variety of information-intensive Fortune-500 companies, including many of the world's largest banks, telecommunications companies, and credit card processors. He continues to work at Ab Initio, where he is currently serving as corporate fellow and leading advanced architectural projects within the company as well as helping customers understand how to best use the company's technology.