Selena Phillips-Boyle

CHECKMATE The man who solved checkers is setting his sights on the Faculty of Science

Artificial intelligence has been the focus of Jonathan Schaeffers research during his past 28 years at the University of Alberta, but his new role as Dean of Science will rely solely on his own intelligence.

The Board of Governors appointed Schaeffer to the position last week, which will commence July 1 for a five-year term.

Schaeffer succeeds Gregory Taylor, who had held the position since 2003. The incoming dean has been heavily involved in the Department of Computing Science, where he has served as both professor and chair of the department. For the past four years, he has also held the positions of Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President (Information Technology) at the U of A.

Schaeffer said he developed a strong appreciation for the Faculty of Science as a whole during his term as the Chair of Computing Science in 2005. When he became a part of the annual faculty evaluation process, he was able to see more of the work being done by a variety of scientists, ranging from physicists to psychologists.

You just started reading their annual reports and went, Wow, look what this guy is doing, and My god, this guy if he does that, he could change the world, Schaeffer said.

It was all just really exciting and it made me appreciate what a fabulous faculty we have here in sciences.

His own research in the area of computer science has earned him international recognition, as well as numerous awards.

One accomplishment that broke the Guinness Book of World Records was Chinook: first computer to win a game of checkers in a human world championship.

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