Robby Robson

Career Highlights

Academic Career (Through 2000)

  • Worked as a statistician and programmer at the Institute for Cancer Research between high school and college. Wrote code that helped Dr. Baruch Blumberg win Nobel prize for discovery of Hepatitis Associated Antigen.
  • Taught in the Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics program.  Had many future well-known scientists and mathematicians as students and colleagues.
  • Worked as a programmer at the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park. Simulated earthquakes and developed interactive analysis software for an HP Desktop.
  • Proved the fundamental embedding theorem for semi-algebraic spaces. (PhD Thesis)
  • Worked in semi-algebraic geometry and computational number theory at Michigan State University, the University of Regensburg (Germany), the University of Rennes II (France), University of Dortmund (Alexander von Humboldt fellow), the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (Research Professor), and Oregon State University (tenure home).  See publication list.
  • Co-founded one of the first (and still running) National Science Foundation (NSF) funded undergraduate research programs in mathematics. Served on national committees for undergraduate research.
  • Served as Principal Investigator (PI) on a team that first implemented the General Number Field Sieve and set a world factoring record.
  • Co-authored what we believe was the first online Calculus course and was on a team that developed Questwriter – a very early Web-based learning management system (LMS). Paul Allen virtual education award runner-up.
  • Elected to faculty senate multiple times.
  • First faculty member appointed to a newly formed University Honors College.
  • Appointed University Education Reform Coordinator, in charge of introducing outcomes-based education at the University level.
  • Helped write state mathematics proficiencies for the Proficiency-based Admission Standards System (PASS) that was briefly tried in Oregon.
  • Changed fields from math to learning technology in 1996 and started consulting for companies interested in moving training and education online.

Industry Career (2000 – Present)

  • Resigned tenured position in 2000 to move full-time into industry as “standards evangelist” for Saba Software. Became member of the executive council and director of product management. Designed Saba’s content offering and managed OEM relationships.
  • Co-founded Eduworks Corporation in 2001 as a two-person consulting company focused on applications of standards. As CEO, evolved it into a learning technology solutions company with an international reach, substantial US Government R&D funding, and commercial customers ranging from fortune 50 companies to small businesses and not-for-profits. Am PI for the Skillsync project and busily involved in transforming training, education, HR, and workforce development through competency-based approaches and applications of machine learning and natural language understanding.
  • Led teams that researched and developed software in the areas of digital libraries, intelligent tutoring systems, automated content generation and tagging, and competency management.
  • Designed learning systems for large corporations and developed product and market strategies for learning technology vendors.
  • Chaired the Board of  the Oregon Center for Applied Science and helped transform it into a commercially focused company. Participated in and served on executive council of local Angel investor group and have served as an advisor to several tech start-ups. Currently an advisor to Squirrel AI Learning.