Tom pictured as his clown - named "Difficult" - from the Sydney Morning Herald, Aug 21, 2003. The story is onlined here.
Aside
My PhD title was "Protein Folding" (finished 1983). At 14 letter, it is possibly the shortest PhD title in the known universe.
Update: Another Tom - Dr T E Forster (Lecturer in Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics at Cambrige) - wrote a PhD with a title of only two letters ("N.F.") and asserts on his web page here , or more curiously on his personal page, "'ere, 'ere!" THAT his is the shortest title on records.
However, Forster's title refers to that branch of axiomatic set theory founded by Quine who called it "New Foundations". Precisely 14 letters as well.
Return from frivolity...
My current position is Director of Customer Analytics and Marketing Metrics (job title and role are subject to revision) at The Leading Edge (as of Sept 10, 2007).
History: Since completing formal studies,I have worked in mathematical modelling, computer science, problem analysis and machine learning at UTS/NSWIT, and earlier, UNSW, Newcastle Uni and NCAE. Since 1998 I've been in the "real world", including marketing research, data and text mining, consumer behaviour prediction, data strategy, campaign optimisation and innovation (product, process, positioning).
My favoured approach is "to reason from first principles" for problem analysis, and solution design. This complements a habit of using "best practice", which won't stay best for too long in a competitive market.
Recent consulting projects included marketing services and advertising: Wunderman, iGoDirect, Brand Finance, GYPR (Y&R), DIS, Salmat and shareholder and investor rights (ISS, Proxy Australia), and several years in computer forensics with NUIX Pty Ltd. The Nuix work involved large scale application of AI, social network analysis, natural language processing, and ontologies. Earlier I wasDirector of Modelling at Nelson Taylor Fox, notes here.
If you want to would like to discuss anything, including innovative marketing, quant stuff, predictive modelling, natural language and AI applications, please contact me by email".
All the older stuff (was on my original web page) is: here including: formative years, influence, irreverences, interests, stories and philosophies. As an academic for 13 years, I specialised in Machine Learning, Modelling, Natural Language Understanding, formal system and AI. And before that was an applied mathematician and physicist at the University of Newcastle with an interest in complex system, and more briefly a Post-Doc at UNSW (high dimensional integration). Probably originally I was a number theorist and geometer.
Some comments about martial arts teachers: Assessing a Martial Art and the teacher - making a long journey worthwhile.
Comments and observations about CULTs and COVERT NETWORKS: Here .
An article published by WIRED (I wrote it in aus.flame, and it appeared in HotWired's "Net Soup" after they discovered it) in 1995 - about McDonalds. HERE. NB: It is spelt "MacDonalds" in the article for fairly obvious evasive and legal reasons.
Academic Spring was something that was declared at UTS in 1998. I had forgotten about it until recently. Here is its declaration.
Verisim (ABN: 20 901 705 005, Bus Reg No: BN97856946) is the Registered Business Name for the predictive modelling and custom solutions consultancy we run.
UTS email address:
"Dear Tom..."