2024 UofM Alumni Association Distinguished Research, Creative Achievement & Excellence in Engaged Scholarship Awards

The Alumni Association may make up to five awards annually to faculty who have brought honor and recognition to the University through their research or creative activities. Candidates must have been employed full-time by the University of Memphis for at least five academic years prior to the semester of their application or nomination.

Distinguished Research in the Social Sciences, Business & Law

Andrew Olney, professor in the Institute for Intelligent Systems and Department of Psychology

Dr. Olney presently serves as Professor in both the Institute for Intelligent Systems and Department of Psychology at the University of Memphis. Dr. Olney received a B.A. in Linguistics with Cognitive Science from University College London in 1998, an M.S. in Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems from the University of Sussex in 2001, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Memphis in 2006. He is the former editor of the Journal of Educational Data Mining (2017-2022) and former Director/Associate Director of the Institute for Intelligent Systems at the University of Memphis (2006-2017), where he oversaw tenure track faculty, staff, and approximately 40 faculty affiliates.

Dr. Olney has over 100 publications in the fields of artificial intelligence, education, and psychology, with a particular focus on using natural language processing to assess and enhance learning from text and learning through conversation. He has been an investigator on $18M in federal grants ($6M as PI) in these fields. His primary research interests are in natural language interfaces.

Specific interests include language and knowledge acquisition (both human and AI) with applications in learning and performance support systems.