Dr. Keith Wiley

Keith Wiley, Ph.D. is Research Scientist at the Department of Astronomy, University of Washington and author of A Taxonomy and Metaphysics of Mind-Uploading.
 
Keith hails from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, actually a small town next to Chapel Hill called Carrboro which you probably haven’t heard of. He earned a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Maryland in December, 1997, focusing on biopsychology and other neuro-related aspects of Psychology. After graduating he worked as a Mac programmer for The Institute for Genomic Research and soon thereafter moved to New Mexico to pursue a Ph.D. in Computer Science. He completed an M.S. in 2003 and a Ph.D. in July, 2006. He currently lives in Seattle where he works in the astronomy department at the University of Washington. His work focuses on the development of data processing methods for SDSS with future applications to LSST.
 
Keith is interested in several areas of computer science. First, he is fascinated by artificial life, genetic algorithms, emergent behavior, collective behavior, distributed agents, evolutionary simulations, and behavioral robotics. Second, he is interested in image processing, frequency domain processing (Fourier and wavelets), and CCD image acquisition and processing. Third, he is interested in computer-assisted art software and efficient human computer interfaces, both of which were the subject of his Ph.D. research.
 
His Ph.D. research focused on the intersection of his artistic and computer programming interests. His research develops a new kind of vector drawing program, like Adobe Illustrator or CorelDRAW. His program however, called Druid, makes it easy to construct and manipulate images of interwoven surfaces. Celtic knots are a common example, but Druid can represent any arrangement of surfaces, only a subset of which are knots. It is traditionally very difficult to construct images of interwoven surfaces with conventional drawing programs because they represent surfaces in distinct layers which prevent interweaving. In addition to being capable of naturally representing interwoven surfaces, Druid also provides an extremely efficient user interface for working with any scene of surfaces, including, clearly, scenes of interwoven surfaces.
 
Keith is an avid, if not prolific, artist. He has been known to draw in copious quantities, paint a little bit, render 3D computer images, and do a little photography. From a musical perspective, he plays piano, and writes both electronic and piano music. Of the pen he has dabbled in poetry and have written a number full novels … to various degrees of completion.
 
Learn about his debut album Solo Pno. Learn more about his music. Read his Implications of Computerized Intelligence on Interstellar Travel. Read his LinkedIn profile. Visit his site and his Facebook page.