I'm recent graduate of the MSIN program in the Information Networking Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. This unique interdisciplinary program combines engineering and computer science studies in networking and distributed systems with business administration, strategy, and telecommunications policy. It is a cooperative endeavor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the School of Computer Science, the Graduate School of Industrial Administration and the Heinz School of Public Policy.

In June 2003, we moved to the Boston area. We bought a lovely little house in Natick, built in 1900, near the center of town.  We wanted something that was within walking distance of most life, public transportation and had a strong sense of community. We found it!  I've joined Softricity as a lead software architect for a team developing a virtualized application environment for Windows 2000/XP.  Trudi teaches part time with the Audubon Society and has joined the Concord Consortium as a researcher in educational software.

I have been a software engineer, technical leader and project manager specializing in networked and distributed systems for over 12 years. I have developed carrier-class networked storage systems at the former Cereva, embedded and fault-tolerant systems at Marathon, Internet search and indexing software at AltaVista, and networking software and protocol drivers for Windows NT, OS/2 and DOS at the former Digital Equipment Corporation . My experience includes market research, requirements analysis, design, modeling, simulation, software development, performance analysis, and project management. I am versed in a variety of languages, tools, environments, and methodologies. My resume [HTML, PDF, Word, Text] is available describing my background and experience in detail.  I enjoy to contributing in a strategic leadership role in technology that combines the attributes of a visionary, a pioneer, an evangelist, and an architect with entrepreneurial pace and passion. 

I am interested in networking as a pervasive multidisciplinary theme, one that offers insight into new technical and business opportunities.  I study social, organizational, neural, and immune networks with a particular emphasis on emergent and self-organizing properties.

I joined David Fisher and his research team in the Software Engineering Institute to study unbounded complex systems and emergent algorithms.  Dr. Fisher has spearheaded the development of a new modeling language and simulation environment (Easel) for exploring these systems, their properties and how they contribute to survivability.  My work involves modeling emergent systems, and investigating techniques to create emergent algorithms.

My thesis, An Emergent Model of Immune Cognition, examines, models, and simulates some of the dynamics of the adaptive humoral immune system with the intent to produce reinforcement learning and associative memory. An agent-based conceptual model is developed based on the clonal selection theory of immune function and several mechanisms of immune regulation. Using a paradigm of property-based types, this model is described in terms of actor types, properties, behaviors, and interactions. The computational model is implemented using Easel.

Simulations were conducted to determine scale, performance, and parameter sensitivity. Simulations were also used to validate the model against the characteristics of primary and secondary immune responses, cross-reactive responses, and affinity maturation. It is shown that the global behavior observed in these simulations is consistent with the qualitative predictions of immunology. The results also demonstrate that the model exhibits the desired emergent properties of learning and memory. Possible applications of these findings to survivability in unbounded systems are considered.

The final report [PDF], presentation [PDF], and sources [ZIP] are available.

I am an advocate for adult literacy, an ESL tutor, and an active participant in student and local government. Prior to coming to Pittsburgh, I served on the board for Literacy Volunteers of the Montachusett Area, an affiliate of Literacy Volunteers of America. I was also a member of the Princeton Advisory Board (the town's finance committee) and Wage Study Committee. At Carnegie Mellon, I am the Information Networking Institute's representative to the Graduate Student Assembly where I serve on the Office of Technology in Education Advisory Council and on the Vice President's Student Advisory Council.

I'm a chili head. I love hot, spicy food and good beer (life's too short to drink cheap beer). I enjoy playing outside, especially hiking and snowboarding.  And I have a lovely wife, Trudi, who makes everything more fun.  Our wedding was on July 2002 at the top of Snow's Mountain in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. See www.chrisandtrudi.com for updates and pictures from our wedding adventure and honeymoon in Costa Rica. I'm currently reading Jacob's The Death and Life of Great American Cities and Robinson and Stern's Corporate Creativity. Other recent reads include Dennett's The Intentional Stance, Cohens's Tending Adam's Garden, Johnson's Emergence, and Adler's Some Questions about Language.

Chris Lord [vCard] Softricity, Inc. 27 Melcher Street Boston, MA 02210

Email: chris.lord[at]computer.org http://www.chrisandtrudi.com/Chris Phone: 617-896-5611 FAX: 617-338-7769

"In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments--there are consequences"
                 Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)

All material on this site is copyright (c) 2002-2003 by Christopher C. Lord and may not be used or republished without the author's permission.
Last Updated: November 11, 2003 .