Personal interests: parent-of-teenagers stuff, plus (time permitting) general western mountain outdoors stuff like running, hiking, fishing, hunting, archery, backpacking, cross-country skiing, etc.

Research Activity ( Distributed Applications and Systems Lab )

• Research interests: Distributed information systems, scientific visualization, interdisciplinery applications such as algorithms for automating landscape image analysis.
• Active research support: Department of Energy, US Forest Service
• Research grants pending with: National Science Foundation
• Other recent support from: National Science Foundation, US Geological Survey, IBM - Visualization Group, DOE, USFS

Administrative Distractions:

• Associate Vice President for Information Technology, beginning March 2000 on a term tentatively designed to end June 2002 - a full time appointment that precludes "normal" CS faculty duties
• Chair of the Faculty Senate, 6/1999-5/2000
• Chair of the University's Strategic and Budget Planning Committee, 1/1999 - 6/1999, member 6/1999 - 6/2000
• Special advisor to the Provost on information technology, 9/1999 - 6/2000

Education:

• BS - Applied Mathematics (honors), University of Missouri - Rolla, 1970.
• MS - Computer Science, University of Missouri - Rolla, 1972.
• PhD - Computer Science, University of Pittsburgh, 1980.

Experience:

• Computer Science Faculty Member
  • Augustana College (Illinois), 1972-76
  • University of Iowa, 1980-88
  • University of Kansas, 1988-90
  • University of Montana, 1990 - present
• Industrial Experience
  • Pontiac Motors - GMC, 1969
  • General Electric - Information Services Division, 1970
  • Argonne National Laboratory, 1980
  • Rockwell-Collins Avionics Division, 1984-88
  • Co-founder, Visualization and Imagery Solutions, 1999

Phone: 406-243-2964
FAX: 406-243-5139
Email: ford@cs.umt.edu