Biography

Tony studied Cognitive Psychology as an undergraduate and minored in Speech and Linguistics at Lehman College where he worked as a research assistant with Professor Michael Dorman studying Speech Perception. As his Honors Research Project worked closely with Prof. Dorman on the study of the role of release bursts in Stop-consonant recognition. This opportunity and kind mentoring provided by Professor Dorman afforded him the experience of the excitement of research, which he has pursued since.

As a graduate student at the University of Connecticut he focused on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, studying with advisors Mallory Selfridge, Myron Krueger, and Richard Cullingford. He completed a Masters Thesis entitled "Teaching Robots Assembly Plans By Example". During this time he had the opportunity on several occasions to meet and discuss his thesis work with Tomas Lozano Perez who suggested the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center as an exciting place to pursue Robotics research. He also had the opportunity to work at Haskins Labs as a research assistant to Ignatius Mattingly for several years during graduate school working on Speech Synthesis. Here again, the kindness and support provided by his mentors along with the stimulating environment at the University of Connecticut and Haskins Lab resulted in an experience for which he is forever grateful.

For the past 24 years the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center has provided him the opportunity to work in many areas in an exciting and diverse environment that balances research in science and technology with the needs of the IT industry. He is currently working in the area of Unstructured & Structured Information Management - exploring architectures, frameworks and full cycle development environments that support rapid development, integration, and evaluation of advanced search techniques.