I did my graduate work in the area of Artificial Intelligence. (Some day I hope to teach the AI course at Truman. We'll see. . .) My graduate work was in the area of Planning and Scheduling. I am still somewhat interested in those areas and I try to keep up with at least some of the literature.
More recently, developing my Human and Computer Cognition JINS course has increased my interest in the whole area of cognitive science, especially in recent work in embodied cognition. Actually I'm at least as interested in the philosophical ramifications of these ideas on humans and how we function as I am in trying to use the ideas to build intelligent artifacts. Some day I will most likely have the time and inclination to pursue this direction further, especially how to put cool new cognitive science ideas into practice in building intelligent artifacts.
More practically, I expect when I get the time that I will try to write up my experiences with teaching computer science in liberal arts setting. In particular, writing in Computer Science classes is an important topic that I have some ideas about. Also, I am interested in how computer science ideas can become part of the liberal arts curriculum for a larger body of students. I think current computer literacy courses are not terribly useful, but I think there is a body of technical, computer-related knowledge that every educated person graduating from a place like Truman should have. Some day I will write these ideas down, so that everyone can disagree with them more thoroughly and eloquently than they can now.
Finally, if you are a student who is interested in doing a research project, come and talk to me. I would be glad to try to help you sort through ideas and find a project that is large enough to be interesting and small enough to be doable. It doesn't matter if what you are interested in has nothing to do with anything I have mentioned above. This process tends to work much better (from my perspective) if you come in with some inkling of an idea, even just an area that you are interested in.
agarvey@truman.edu