International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling, 2009:  Co-teacher of tutorial titled "Practical Planning".

Ground Systems Architecture Workshops, 2004, 2005 and 2006:  Co-teacher of invited tutorial titled "Using Automated Planning and Scheduling Technology to Automate Spacecraft Operations".

Conferences, NASA centers, other venues, 1996-2007:  Numerous talks, demonstrations and tutorials for technical and non-technical audiences.

Stanford University, 1994 and 1998:  Teaching assistant for Theory of Computing and Compilers classes; each time also gave a few of the lectures.

University of Iceland, 1990-1991:  Teaching assistant for Linear Algebra class; grading assignments and providing weekly problem solving sessions.

Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík, 1990-1991: Taught Introduction to Computers to 16-17 year old students at this junior college.

University of Iceland, 1991:  Developed class material for C++ class.

2008-2009: Principal Investigator for Climate and Utility Operations, a project to investigate the applicability of advanced AI technology and enhanced weather and climate forecast models to improving planning and execution of electrical utility operations.

2005-2007: Principal Investigator for Spacecraft Autonomy – an Exploration Technology Development Program project developing the AI-based software capabilities needed for NASA’s Exploration Vision, supporting Earth-orbit operations, lunar missions, lunar surface operations and intelligent control for lunar surface rovers, habitats and other assets.  Technology areas include planning, execution, decision-making, constraint reasoning, optimization, state estimation, human-computer interactions, and verification.

2005-2006: Principal Investigator for Verification and Validation for Autonomous Systems - an Exploration Systems Mission project aimed at developing a core autonomy architecture that is adaptable, reconfigurable, and verifiable.  This effort involved researchers and developers from RIACS, NASA Ames, JPL, Adventium Inc., and Sandia National Laboratories.

2004-now: Principal Investigator for Universal Decision-Layer Executive; a Mars Technology Program project to develop a language for describing executable plans and an accompanying universal execution system.  The effort involves researchers from USRA, JPL, CMU and QSS Group Inc.

2004-2005: Co-investigator for a design study for a future Antarctic rover mission (LORAX).  Done in collaboration with CMU.

2004-2005: Co-investigator on Mixed-Initiative Tactical Mission Planning project; a collaboration between researchers at NASA and SRI International.

2001-2004: Co-investigator and Development Lead for MAPGEN, an interactive plan building tool used by the Mars Exploration Rover mission.  The work involved identifying requirements, designing software, developing new algorithms, and leading the implementation of the system, as well as participating in testing, delivery and support of the software. 

1998-2003:  Principal Designer and Principal Investigator for development of constraint-based technology framework called EUROPA.  The planning framework provides representation and reasoning capabilities for complex planning problems.  The work involved theoretical research, algorithm development, and software design, development and testing.   EUROPA was designed to be flexible and adaptable, and has been used in a number of other research efforts and applications.

2000-2002:  Co-investigator for developing techniques for automated scheduling for Earth-orbiting satellites.

2000:  Co-investigator for a study to develop technologies applicable to airport surface movement scheduling.

1997-1999: Worked on various scheduling technologies, including general cyclic scheduling methods, and constraint optimization for satellites.

1997-1999:  Participation in Remote Agent Experiment development.  In particular, contributed to underlying planning technology, and worked on a plan visualization tool.  The Remote Agent operated the Deep Space One spacecraft autonomously for one week in May 1999, the first time an artificial intelligence system controlled a spacecraft.

1994-1997: Research assistant and student, working on research in advanced constraint reasoning, planning and scheduling, at Stanford University and Computational Intelligence Research Laboratory (CIRL).  The work involved algorithm development for scheduling and constraint reasoning, framework definition for advanced constraint reasoning, and experimental evaluations in constraint reasoning and planning.

Leiðtogastörf

2007-now:  Dean of School of Computer Science at Reykjavik University.  Have operational and financial responsibility for education, research and international ties in areas of computer science, software engineering and mathematics.  The School has over 400 students, 20 full-time faculty, 6 active research groups and multiple adjunct teachers and assistants, with degree programs from BSc to PhD.

2008-now:  Active participation in efforts to foster innovation and startup companies.  Board member in two incubation companies:  Hugmyndahúsið (The Idea House) and Klak ehf (Incubation).  Board member in a startup company Eff Square.

2006-2007:  Project lead for Solar Array Constraint Engine (SACE) – a tool developed to assist International Space Station power system controllers with managing the complexity of Solar Array operations.  Effort includes requirements gathering, design, implementation, testing and mission certification, as well as project oversight and interaction with customers.

2005-2007:  Principal investigator for "Spacecraft Autonomy for Vehicles and Habitats", an Exploration Technology Development project.  The project, which is funded at about $10M per year, involves 4 different NASA centers and 2 subcontractors.  Initial responsibilities included the definition of the project plan, the research goals and role of each center and subcontractor in the project.  With the project under way, the focus is on technical oversight of the project effort, decisions about technology and approach selections, and advocacy, which includes working with other research projects, and NASA project and mission leadership.

2005-now:  Group lead for "Control Agent Architecture Group" within the Autonomous Systems and Robotics Area of the Intelligent Systems Division at NASA Ames Research Center.  Handle finances, personnel, organization and work oversight for a group of 13 researchers and developers. Work on collaborations and application opportunities, pursue funding opportunities, and do general advocacy for the group and its technologies.

2005-2006:  Principal investigator for "Verification and Validation for Autonomous Systems", an Exploration Systems Research and Technology project.  This project, selected in a highly competitive selection process, was awarded $13.6M over a period of 4 years. Responsibilities included leading proposal writing, doing workforce selection, defining project goals, organizing project startup and providing continuing technical and project management guidance.

2004-now:  Principal investigator of "Universal Decision-Layer Executive", a Mars Technology Program (MTP) project.  The project involves NASA Ames Research Center, NASA"s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Carnegie Mellon University, and has annual funding of around $250K. The PI responsibilities range from setting up the project and defining the technical path being taken, to ongoing technical development and implementation guidance, as well as regular reporting to the program.

2001-2004: Development Lead for MAPGEN, an interactive plan-building tool used by the Mars Exploration Rover mission.  Responsibilities included identifying requirements, designing software, developing new algorithms, and leading the implementation of the system, as well as participating in testing, delivery and support of the software.  The system has been used each day during the mission to construct activity plans for the rovers.

1998-2003:  Principal Designer and Principal Investigator for development of constraint-based technology framework called EUROPA.  This effort, which involved around 4-6 researchers and developers at any given time, was funded by a number of different technology development programs within NASA.  Responsibilities included driving the underlying theoretical research, guiding the group of researchers and developers that worked on algorithms and software development, as well as oversight of software testing, deliveries and support for a number of applications, which include the MER mission, upcoming Mars missions (Phoenix and MSL), ISS space station operations, numerous field tests and multiple research efforts.
 

2009: Space Act Award for part in Johnson Space Center Mission Operations Directive´s Inter-center Technical Agreement, which centered on developing and delivering and AI-based tool called SACE, for operating the International Space Station Solar Panels.

2008: Recipient of the Icelandic "Encouragement Award", the highest honor bestowed upon young Icelandic scientists.

2007: NASA Group Achievement Award for Mars Exploration Rover extended mission team, 2007.

2004: Space Act Award for part in MAPGEN: Mixed-Initiative Activity Plan Generation: A Tool For Generation Complex Activity Plans For Spacecraft Missions, Including Mars Exploration Rover Mission

2004: NASA Administrator´s Award - Turning Goals Into Reality, for part in Advanced Information Technology Infusion Team for the Mars Exploration Rovers 2003 Mission

2004: RIACS Performance Award for successful deployment and utilization of MAPGEN during the MER mission

2003: NASA Ames Research Center Honor Award for part in Code I MER Technology Infusion Team for Group/Team effort

2000: "Outstanding Applied Research Paper Award" at the 5th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Planning and Scheduling (AIPS-2000)

1998: NASA Ames Research Center Honor Award, for part in the Ames Deep Space One Remote Agent team

Sudhakar Y. Reddy, Mitchell Ai-Chang, Michael J. Iatauro, Elif Kurklu, Matthew E. Boyce, Jeremy D. Frank, and Ari K. Jónsson, "Planning and Monitoring Solar Array Operations on the ISS", in workshop "Scheduling and Planning Appliations", at the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS), 2008.

Ari Jónsson, Robert Morris and Liam Pedersen, “Autonomy in Space: Current Capabilities and Future Challenges”, in AI Magazine, Vol. 27, Issue 4, 2008.

Ari Jónsson, Robert Morris and Liam Pedersen, “Autonomy in Space Exploration: Current Capabilities and Future Challenges”, in Proceedings of IEEE Aerospace Conference, 2007.

Jeremy Frank and Ari Jónsson, "Approximation Algorithms and Heuristics for Classical Planning", to appear in Handbook on Approximation Algorithms and Metaheuristics, ed: Teofilo F. Gonzalez, 2007.

Vandi Verma, Ari Jónsson, Corina Paserenau and Michael Iatauro, "Universal Executive and PLEXIL: Engine and Language for Robust Spacecraft Control and Operations", in Proceedings of Space 2006.

Steve Chien, Rich Doyle, Ari Jónsson, Ashley Davies and Ralph Lorenz, "The Future of AI in Space", in IEEE Intelligent Systems, Volume 21(4), pp 64-69, 2006.

Guillaume Brat, Ewen Denney, Dimitra Giannakopoulou and Ari Jónsson, "Verification of Autonomous Systems for Space Applications", in Proceedings of IEEE Aerospace Conference, 2006.

Guillaume Brat, Ewen Denney, Kimberley Farrell, Dimitra Giannakopoulou, Ari Jónsson, Jeremy Frank, Mark Boddy, Todd Carpenter, Tara Estlin and Mihail Pivtoraiko, "A Robust Compositional Architecture for Autonomous Systems", in Proceedings of IEEE Aerospace Conference, 2006.

David Joslin, Jeremy Frank, Ari Jónsson and David Smith, "Simulation-based Planning for Planetary Rover Experiments", in Proceedings of the 2005 Winter Simulation Conference, 2005.

Ari Jónsson, Conor McGann, Liam Pedersen, Michael Iatauro, Srikanth Rajagopalan, "Autonomy Software Architecture for LORAX (Life on Ice Robotic Antarctic Explorer), in Proceedings of the Int"l Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space (iSAIRAS), 2005.

Vandi Verma, Tara Estlin, Ari Jónsson, Corina Pasareanu, Reid Simmons, Kam Tso, "Plan Execution Interchange Language (PLEXIL) for executable plans and command sequences", in Proceedings of the international Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space (iSAIRAS), 2005.

John Bresina, Ari Jónsson, Paul Morris and Kanna Rajan, "Mixed-Initiative Planning in MAPGEN: Capabilities and Shortcomings", in workshop on Mixed Initiative Planning and Scheduling at the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS), 2005.

Vandi Verma, Ari Jónsson, Reid Simmons, Tara Estlin, Rich Levinson, "Survey of Plan Execution Systems", in workshop "Plan execution: A reality check", at the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS), 2005.

John Bresina, Ari Jónsson, Paul Morris, and Kanna Rajan, "Mixed-Initiative Activity Planning for Mars Rovers", Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), 2005.

Guillaume Brat and Ari Jónsson, "Challenges in verification and validation of autonomous systems for   space exploration", Proceedings of International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, 2005.

John Bresina, Ari Jónsson, Paul Morris, and Kanna Rajan, "Activity Planning for Mars Exploration Rovers", in Proceedings of 15th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling  (ICAPS), 2005.

Mitchell Ai-Chang, John L. Bresina, Leonard Charest, Adam Chase, Jennifer Cheng-jung Hsu, Ari Jónsson, Bob Kanefsky, Paul Morris, Kanna Rajan, Jeffrey Yglesias, Brian Chafin, William Dias, Pierre Maldague, "MAPGEN: Mixed-Initiative Planning and Scheduling for the Mars Exploration Rover Mission", IEEE Intelligent Systems 19(1): 8-12, 2004.

John Bresina, Ari Jónsson, Paul Morris, and Kanna Rajan, "Mixed-initiative constraint-based activity planning for Mars Exploration Rovers", in Proceedings of 4th International Workshop on Planning and Scheduling for Space (IWPSS), 2004.

John Bresina, Ari Jónsson, Paul Morris, and Kanna Rajan, "Constraint Maintenance with Preferences and Underlying Flexible Solution", in Workshop on Online Constraint Solving: Handling Change and Uncertainty, at Ninth Int"l Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP), 2003.

Jeremy Frank, and Ari Jónsson, "Constraint-based Attribute and Interval Planning", in Constraints, 8(4), p 339-364, 2003.

Alan Baba, John Bresina, Len Charest, Will Edgington, Ari Jónsson, Adans Ko, Bob Kanefsky, Pierre Maldague, Paul Morris, Nicola Muscettola, and Kanna Rajan, "MAPGEN: Mixed Initiative Planning and Scheduling for the Mars03 MER Mission", in Proc. of AAAI Spring Symposium on Human Interaction with Autonomous Systems in Complex Environments, 2003.

Jeremy Frank, Keith Golden, and Ari Jónsson, "The Loyal Opposition Comments on Plan Domain Description Languages", in Workshop on PDDL, at 13th Int"l Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS), 2003.

Tania Bedrax-Weiss, Jeremy Frank, Ari Jónsson, and Conor McGann, "Identifying Executable Plans", in Workshop on Plan Execution, at 13th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS), 2003.

Mitchell Ai-Chang, John Bresina, Len Charest, Ari Jónsson, Jennifer Hsu, Bob Kanefsky, Pierre Maldague, Paul Morris, Kanna Rajan, Jeffrey Yglesias, "MAPGEN: Mixed Initiative Planning and Scheduling for the Mars "03 MER Mission", in Proceedings of the seventh International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Automation in Space (iSAIRAS), 2003.

John Dowding, Jeremy Frank, Beth-Ann Hockey, Ari Jónsson, Gregory Aist, and Jim Hieronymus, "A Spoken Dialogue Interface to the EUROPA Planner", in Proceedings of the 3rd International NASA Planning and Scheduling Workshop,ÿ 2002.

John Dowding, Jeremy Frank, Beth-Ann Hockey, Ari Jónsson and Gregory Aist.  "Demonstration of a Spoken Language Interface for Planning Activities of a Semi-Autonomous Robot. (Demonstration)." Proceedings of the Conference on Human Language Technology, 2002

David Smith, and Ari Jónsson, "The Logic of Reachability", in Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Planning and Scheduling (AIPS), 2002.

Jeremy Frank, Ari Jónsson, Robert Morris, and David Smith, "Planning and Scheduling for Fleets of Earth Observing Satellites", in Proceedings of the sixth International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Automation in Space (iSAIRAS), 2001.

Ari Jónsson, and Jeremy Frank, "A Framework for Dynamic Constraint Reasoning using Procedural Constraints", in Proceedings of the Fourteenth European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI), 2000.

Jeremy Frank, Ari Jónsson, and Paul H. Morris, "On Reformulating Planning as Dynamic Constraint Satisfaction", in Proceedings of Symposium on Abstraction, Reformulation and Approximation (SARA), 2000.

Ari Jónsson, Paul H. Morris, Nicola Muscettola, Kanna Rajan, and Ben Smith, "Planning in Interplanetary Space: Theory and Practice", in Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Planning Systems (AIPS), 2000.

David Smith, Jeremy Frank, and Ari Jónsson, "Bridging the Gap Between Planning and Scheduling", Knowledge Engineering Review, 15(1), 2000.

Denise Draper, Ari Jónsson, David Clements, and David Joslin, "Cyclic Scheduling", in Proceedings of the 16th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), 1999.

Ari Jónsson, Paul Morris, Nicola Muscettola, and Kanna Rajan, "Next Generation Remote Agent Planner".  In the Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space (iSAIRAS), 1999.

Christian Plaunt, Ari Jónsson, and Jeremy Frank, "Run-Time Satellite Tele-Communications Scheduling as Dynamic Constraint Satisfaction".  In the Proceedings of the IEEE Aerospace Conference, 1999.

Ari Jónsson, and David Smith, "STRIPS Planning and Temporal CSPs", in workshop on Planning as Combinatorial Search, part of Fourth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Planning Systems (AIPS), 1998.

Ari Jónsson, "Procedural Reasoning in Constraint Satisfaction", Ph.D. Thesis, Stanford University, 1997.

Ari Jónsson, and Matthew Ginsberg, "Procedural Reasoning in Constraint Satisfaction", Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on the Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR), 1996

Ari Jónsson, and Matthew Ginsberg, "Experimenting with New Systematic and Nonsystematic Search Techniques", in Proceedings of AAAI Spring Symposium, 1993.