Wheeler Ruml

Picture of Wheeler Ruml as of 2004 Greetings!

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of New Hampshire. Before joining UNH in 2007, I managed the Embedded Reasoning Area and was a member of the research staff at the Palo Alto Research Center (formerly Xerox PARC). I received my PhD from Harvard University in 2002. A full CV is available here, although it is likely not current.

Research Interests

My main research is in artificial intelligence, although I also have interests in robotics, cognitive science, operations research, and information visualization. Very broadly, my goal is to understand how to build autonomous systems - for example, how to decide what a robot should do next. I'm also interested in learning from natural examples, such as human cognition. My current focus is on methods for combinatorial optimization, heuristic search, and planning. In particular, I am interested in solving problems quickly (rational time-bounded decision-making) and in how on-line learning can inform optimization algorithms.

Many of my papers are available on-line. Please help yourself!

I'm always happy to collaborate with people inside and outside of UNH on topics involving my research interests. Just send me email to set up a time to talk. If you are at UNH, you might want to check out the UNH AI Group wiki and join the group.

If you are considering applying to UNH for graduate school or an internship, please consult my information for prospective students.

Advertising

I'm on the editorial board of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research. I encourage you to submit your research to open access journals that serve the public interest by disseminating peer-reviewed science freely to all.

David Furcy, Sven Koenig, Rong Zhou, and I are organizing the First International Symposium on Search Techniques in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (STAIR-08), to be held just before AAAI-08 in Chicago. Check it out!

Ian Miguel and I organized the Seventh International Symposium on Abstraction, Reformulation, and Approximation (SARA-07).

Frank Hutter and I organized the AAAI-06 Workshop on Learning for Search.

Current Teaching

Spring 2009: CS 730/730W/830 Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (website).

Fall 2008: CS 980 Combinatorial Search and Heuristic Optimization (website).

If you're looking for an informal way to learn about AI, feel free to drop in at the UNH AI Group meetings.

Contact Information

Wheeler Ruml's UNH address
Skype is also an option, but confirm with me first to ensure I'm signed in.

UNH CS on Google Maps.

If you're on campus, my office is Kingsbury W233. I don't hold specific office hours during the summer - feel free to stop by or contact me for an appointment.

If you're not on campus but wish you were, this webcam captures a tiny corner of UNH. (Here's another UNH webcam and a nearby UNH weather observing station.)

Personal

Here is a list of things I would recommend.

In the distant past, I toyed with the idea of having a separate personal web page.

My last name is pronounced `RUM-uhl' (rhymes with `pummel').