Dr. David J. Atkinson is a Senior Research Scientist at Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. His current area of research targets applications of intelligent, autonomous agents as partners to humans in joint activity, with an emphasis on dynamic interdependency, shared awareness, smooth exchange of control and variable autonomy. Challenges in human-machine trust and social interaction figure prominently in his recent research. He is also interested in emerging fault modes and cyber-security vulnerabilities of intelligent, autonomous systems.
Dr. Atkinson is presently on temporary assignment to NASA at Ames Research Center as Senior Scientist for Autonomy in the Director’s Office of Research and Technology. In this role he has been working to formulate a framework for NASA Ames to expand capabilities in autonomous systems including cooperative research with nearby industry research labs in Silicon Valley. Earlier, he served as program manager at U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) in Tokyo where he established and led an international research program in information sciences, robotics and artiificial intelligence.
Dr. Atkinson previously worked 20 years at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the lead NASA center responsible for robotic space exploration missions. He managed JPL’s Information Technologies and Software Systems Division, several research and technology programs, and was responsible for JPL's early systems engineering contributions to NASA's Constellation Program to explore the Moon and Mars. He led a cross-agency NASA team of computer scientists that provided engineering studies, requirements development and core engineering processes for Constellation. Atkinson also served a temporary assignment at NASA Headquarters in Washington, where he was Deputy Program Executive of the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program, overseeing the successfully LRO and LCROSS lunar missions and working to formulate plans for robotic activities on the Moon in advance of future human missions.
While at Caltech/JPL, Dr. Atkinson helped establish and run NASA's basic research programs in artificial intelligence, systems autonomy and related programs. He participated in these programs in multiple roles, including program manager, principal investigator, contributing investigator and others. His research spanned artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and robotics with applications to robotic spacecraft, control center automation, and science data analysis. Successful transition to development and operations of this research research included applications to deep space explorations such as the Voyager, Galileo, Magellan and Cassini spacecraft, and the "Spirit" and "Opportunity" Mars Exploration Rovers. A notable early success was the SHINE system for spacecraft and ground system integrated health management, an invention now used commercially in the aerospace, financial, health and security industries. Dr. Atkinson was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for this record of sustained achievement and numerous other awards.
During a break from his career in space exploration, in 1995 Atkinson founded a successful startup, later acquired by IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS) in 2008. PCNAlert.com became the leading provider to the electronics industry of Internet-based solutions for supply-chain managment of crucial component change event data such as Product Change Notices.
Dr. Atkinson received the Doctor of Technology in Computer Systems Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden, and was named a Docent. He was awarded the Master of Science and Master of Philosophy degrees in Computer Science from Yale University, and the Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Michigan.