Jacob Beal

Scientist
BBN Technologies
10 Moulton Street
Cambridge, MA, USA 02138

I am also a Research Affiliate of MIT CSAIL.
Primary E-mail: jakebeal@mit.edu
Official E-mail: jakebeal@bbn.com
Warning: email to my BBN address is sometimes randomly
destroyed or delayed by the Evil IT Gremlins of Raytheon.

Phone: (617) 873-7676
CV (last updated March 16th, 2012)
This page last updated on April 10th, 2012. If you want to automatically receive updates regarding my work, subscribe to my blog. This page is mirrored at MIT and BBN

Ongoing Projects

Other Important Links

About Me

I am a scientist at BBN Technologies, and a research affiliate of MIT CSAIL (formerly the AI lab), where I did my graduate and postdoctoral work. I am also a fellow of Science Commons.

The uniting theme of my research is "engineered self-organization"---the production of predictable aggregate behavior from locally interacting elements.  At present, my investigations of mainly in the domain of spatial computing (an extension of amorphous computing)---the description and control of systems of many devices distributed to fill a space, where the difficulty of moving information between devices is strongly dependent on the distance between them.  Previously, I have also done research on building human-like intelligence via collaborative communication.  I also dabble in a number of other things on the side that attract my interest or appear as obstacles in my path. At BBN, I am a member of the Information and Knowledge Technologies business unit. When at MIT, I work with Project MAC and the Weiss Lab.

I don't plan to post my non-professional life on this web page.


Spatial Computing (Tutorials/Publications/Talks)   |   Human-Level Intelligence (Publications/Talks)   |   Other Engineered Self-Organization   |   Miscellaneous   |   Professional Activities  |   Students

Research Publications & Talks

Publications and talks most likely to be of interest are marked with a star. This is a fairly complete list, including some early and obsolete work.

Spatial Computing/Amorphous Computing/Synthetic Biology

Tutorials and Survey Talks

I have, at this point, given a number of different tutorials and survey talks on spatial computing, of varying different lengths and focus. Typically, these talks break to demonstration in Proto partway through, using a sequence of examples. This collection of demonstration code is may be used to execute the examples.

Publications

Talks The reader is advised that most spatial computing talks also involve a live demo that is usually at least indicated in the PDF slides.

Human-Level Intelligence

Publications

Talks

Engineered Self-Organization

Publications

Talks

Miscellaneous Work

This is where interesting things that aren't in the main stream of my research go. Some of it may be dead ends or re-inventions of the wheel.

Publications

Talks

Professional Service Activities

In addition, I am serving / have recently served on numerous program committees, and as a reviewer for a number of journals and granting agencies.  Details are in my CV.

Supervised Theses:

Rants & Ramblings

These are old and written informally, impolitely, and imprecisely, with the arrogance of a young grad student. Don't take them seriously unless they happen to inspire you...