Senior Research Scientist

Michael joined IHMC in July 2025 as a Senior Research Scientist. He served as an External Research Scholar at IHMC for over 20 years. Emory University (both the Goizueta Business School and the Rollins School of Public Health) recently granted him Professor Emeritus status.

Michael studies collective intelligence—how people, organizations, and artificial intelligence systems gain, share, and coordinate knowledge to solve complex problems. His interdisciplinary research spans cognitive science, artificial intelligence (AI), organizational behavior, and public health, with a career devoted to understanding how intelligent systems can augment human capabilities in ways that are cooperative, meritorious, and ethical. He serves on key standards-oversight committees that address AI and ethics within the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the American Public Health Association (APHA).

At IHMC, Michael’s research focuses on trustworthy human-AI collaboration, policy-governed intelligent agents, ethical AI, and multi-agent systems for public health and other high-consequence domains. His work seeks to develop collaborative AI systems that are explainable, adaptive, and effective at working with people while operating within ethical, organizational, and regulatory constraints.

Michael holds a Ph.D. in Information Systems, with minors in Computer Science and Psychology, from the University of Minnesota, a Masters in Instructional Design from Florida State University, and a Master’s in Public Health (MPH) from the University of Florida. As a graduate student at Minnesota, he was on a team that developed the first AI program capable of diagnosing pediatric cardiology cases. Also, as a graduate student, he collaborated with the Center for Advanced Engineering Studies at MIT (led by Myron Tribus) to design “intelligent” computational tutors to help practicing engineers update their knowledge and skills. As a research scientist at Honeywell’s Aerospace and Defense Group, he studied applications of human-AI design, such as situational awareness in combat information centers. Michael has been on the faculty of Dartmouth College (where he developed AI agents for medical diagnosis and teaching) and Carnegie Mellon University (where he conducted numerous AI projects, including collaborations with Allen Newell and Herbert Simon). He was also on the faculty at the University of Florida and the Johns Hopkins University (where he served as department chair and worked with their School of Nursing to develop Business of Nursing courses). Michael has been a visiting faculty member at Oxford University and the University of Cambridge.

Across four decades of research, a central question has remained the same: How can human and machine intelligence be combined to create collaborative systems that are more capable, trustworthy, effective, and ethical than either alone?

As a final note, Michael has served as a stage manager and member of the Board of Directors for a community theater company. He is a co-developer (with a distinguished drama professor) of a highly successful theatrical-based series of courses and leadership workshops at Carnegie Mellon (the first degree-granting drama institution in the United States), with an upcoming book based on these experiences. He is a former blues-rock drummer (now a member of a fluid blues-rock collective of faculty & friends) and a certified PADI scuba diving instructor and PADI medic first-aid instructor.