A Chat with Dr. Charles Isbell - from Pac-Man to AI
Charles L. Isbell, Jr., Assistant Professor
Intelligent Systems Group
College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology
December 10 2004
On your GA Tech departmental web page you "claim" that you're from Atlanta. You explain on one of your own web pages that in fact you came to Atlanta at the age of three. What prompted your family to make the move from Chatanooga to Atlanta?

What prompted your family to move to Atlanta when you were three? What sort of a computer science program did Benjamin E.Mays High School have at the time you went there? Why did you become interested in computer science? How did you find yourself at Georgia Tech? What brought you back to Georgia Tech as a researcher? You work on *artificial intelligence.* This sounds very sci-fi. What do you do, exactly? How close are we to turning science fiction into science reality? You do a lot of interesting things outside of work. How do you find the time? What advice would you give to high school students today?
Charles : I don't know. I'd have to actually ask my mother or father that one, but I think it was basically opportunity. My mother was a grad student when I was born and I think all the job opportunities were in Atlanta. This would have been 1971 or so, and Atlanta was a great place at the time for both of their interests. She's always been a part of the educational system in one form or another. She used to run Bankhead Child Development Center as a part of the Atlanta Housing Authoity for many, many years and she's still working at the school system now in some way (although I have to admit I don't quite understand what she does). But she's been doing that forever and I think Atlanta was just a great place to be.