William J. Clancey (born 1952) is an American computer scientist who specializes in cognitive science and artificial intelligence. He has worked in computing in a wide range of sectors, including medicine, education, and finance, and had performed research that brings together cognitive and social science to study work practices and examine the design of agent systems. Clancey has been described as having developed “some of the earliest artificial intelligence programs for explanation, the critiquing method of consultation, tutorial discourse, and student modeling,” and his research has been described as including “work practice modeling, distributed multiagent systems, and the ethnography of field science.” He has also participated in Mars Exploration Rover mission operations, “simulation of a day-in-the-life of the ISS, knowledge management for future launch vehicles, and developing flight systems that make automation more transparent.” Clancey’s work on "heuristic classification" and "model construction operators" is regarded as having been influential in the design of expert systems and instructional programs. Clancey was chief scientist for Human-Centered Computing at NASA Ames Research Center, Intelligent Systems Division from 1998-2013, where he managed the Work Systems Design & Evaluation Group. During this intergovernmental personnel assignment as a civil servant, he was also employed at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition in Pensacola, where he holds the title of senior research scientist.
Early life and education William J. Clancey was born and grew up in New Jersey. He was a Boy Scout and rose to the rank of Eagle Scout. In an eighth-grade commencement address entitled “Humanity's Next Great Adventure,” given at a school in San Mateo, California, in 2002, Clancey recalled his own school years, when he “always got extra credit in eighth grade science, answering quiz questions about the latest Gemini two-person launches, getting us ready for the first trip to the moon in three years. I used to read these stories in the New York Times--absorbing every word. And of course when Star Trek began on TV in September, I watched the first episode and haven't missed any in 36 years. So space travel was on my mind as I sat at MY eighth grade graduation, and it's probably no coincidence that I work for NASA today.” He graduating as valedictorian from East Brunswick High School, earning honors in biology. He majored in Mathematical Sciences at Rice University in Houston, where in connection with his interest in cognition he took courses in a range of fields, including philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, religion, and sociology. He has said that at Rice “I went through the catalog and took every course that mentioned 'knowledge' or 'cognition,' regardless of the department.” He would later write that “The courses that had the greatest influence on my later work were 'The philosophy of knowledge' (Konstantin Kolenda), 'Language, thought, and culture' (Stephen Tyler), and 'The radical sociology of knowledge' (Kenneth Leiter). My advisor was Ken Kennedy, who taught a fantastic course on compilers. Altogether, I took 40 courses in 13 departments, including six anthropology and three philosophy courses. Rice's teachers were wonderful lecturers who inspired you with their own enthusiasm and the clarity of their thought.” He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received a B.A. summa cum laude in 1974. He then went to Stanford University, where he was engaged in expert systems research.[1] He received a Ph.D. in computer science from that institution in 1979, specifically in the area of Artificial Intelligence, He has said that at Stanford, “I focused on Artificial Intelligence, but again combined different areas by developing a computer program to teach medical students how to diagnose a patient (combining computer science, education, psychology, and medicine).” His dissertation project, he has said, “was the first attempt to use an expert system for instruction.” He describes himself as having been “a member of the 'Mycin Gang' in the Heuristic Programming Project, which became the Knowledge Systems Laboratory in the late 1970s. These projects were directed by Bruce G. Buchanan.”
Career
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