Jay Allen Sears

Corporation for National Research Initiatives

Photo of Allen Sears

Jay Allen Sears

Dr. Jay Allen Sears is a Vice-President at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives. His current work includes developing human language processing techniques and procedure to enable computers to hear and read, and to understand what they hear and read. In addition, he is involved in implementing the Digital Object Architecture (DOA) concepts developed by Robert E. Kahn at CNRI. The objective is to support information sharing across agencies and legacy systems while managing privacy rights for the information sharing.

His work at CNRI focuses developing national research initiatives that can be transitioned to users. For example, he helped coordinate the integration and implementation of a language processing system that would automatically convert Arabic into English. The system is being used operationally by the US Central Command's Open Source Cell to produce their Foreign Media Perceptions product. In addition, Sears is using the Digital Object Architecture framework as the basis for developing and implementing digital object registry capability. Digital object registry deployment units will be implemented with Homeland Security sponsored groups in the Southwest US. Experiments using techniques for information sharing with managed privacy will be evaluated with respect to their ability to help secure the nation's defense.

Dr. Sears served as a DARPA Program Manager and Assistant Director for Technology Transfer in the Information Technology Office from 1995 to 1999 on assignment from CNRI. He managed DARPA's human language technology research (including both speech and text), as well as system architecture and integration issues. The objective of the work was to improve the human language skills of computers. For example, the DARPA Communicator program was started in 1997 to develop dialog interaction technology that enables users to talk with computers using a goal driven conversation style, without ever having to touch a keyboard. In addition, he managed research projects in computer science and intelligent systems that sought out new and unique opportunities for advanced computing. The goal of the work was to create a new generation of machine intelligence technology, and to demonstrate applications of this technology to solve critical problems facing our nation. During his 4 years at DARPA he was responsible for the management and prototype implementation of over 35 research projects.

From 1990 to 1994, Dr. Sears was with the MITRE Corporation. He was Director for the Software Engineering Center for two years where he directed work on developing and implementing methods to reduce cost and risk in the acquisition of large software systems for the Government. Primary issues included prototyping methodologies, real time software, software maturity assessments, and metrics required to enable effective software engineering.

From 1988 to 1990 he was Director for the Center for Advanced Information Technology with the UNISYS Corporation. He was responsible for technical, managerial, and strategic direction of 40 highly skilled research scientists in areas of software engineering and artificial intelligence.

Dr. Sears was a Program Manager at DARPA from 1982 to 1988 where he assisted in implementing the DARPA "Strategic Computing" program which produced adaptive, intelligent systems, and applied the capability to complex DoD problem areas.

Dr. Sears was awarded the following academic degrees: Ph.D. in Information Systems Management from the University of Arizona; M.S. in Computer Science from the Naval Postgraduate School; M.S. in Business Administration from The George Washington University; B.S. from the United States Naval Academy. In addition, he was an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the US Naval Academy from 1976-1979. He was awarded the "Clements Award" as the Outstanding Military Instructor at the US Naval Academy in 1979.

Dr. Sears served in the US Navy from 1966 to 1987 as a carrier-based Naval Aviator. His flying experiences including over 90 combat missions in A-4 aircraft over Viet Nam during the early 1970s. He was awarded the Navy Meritorious Service Medal, and the Navy Air Medal among other citations.

Updated: 31 July 2007