K. Suzanne Barber
Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering
AT&T Foundation Endowed Professor in Engineering
Phone: (512) 471-6152
Fax: (512) 471-3652
Email: barber@mail.utexas.edu
Dr. Suzanne Barber earned her Ph.D. in electrical engineering from The University of Texas at Arlington in 1992. She joined the faculty of The University of Texas at Austin that same year. Dr. Barber is director of the Center for Excellence in Distributed Global Environments.
Dr. Barber also conducts research as director of the Laboratory for Intelligent Processes and System Research where she studies distributed agent-based software systems--multiple agents, or autonomous bits of software that activate themselves based on environmental stimuli and complete programmed tasks. The multiple agents communicate and work together, forming complex behaviors that one agent could not achieve alone. Barber studies how to plan and control agent-based systems and allow individual agents to automatically adjust and coordinate their interactions, which can improve the system’s ability to handle unforeseen events and solve problems. She develops methods and tools to help software designers create and test multi-agent systems, and also researches technologies to improve individual agents’ resilience and decision-making performance.
Research Interests:
- Software engineering, design and architectures
- Distributed artificial intelligence
- Information assurance, trust and security
- Multi-agent systems