Bill Howell - Personal Background

• Born 25 February 1956, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
• Status Divorced, two daughters: Catherine (11Nov85) and Sarah (10Aug88)

• Viewpoints conservative fiscally, liberal socially, diverse politically

Current Interests

• Two daughters – now out of the nest, but we stay in touch ... (also, big university costs <grin>)
• Genetics, neurology, the brain, and artificial neural networks – casual interests springing from ANNs below, and including:
• "Mindcode" – non-protein coding DNA and the architecture, ontogeny, function, and process in the brain (including more-or-less direct coding of mental capabilities in DNA and epigenetically)
• various forms of brain/hardware systems – eg Multi-Electrode Arrays (MEAs), electrode array insertions into brain and systems for brain/electronic functionality (for disease, brain damage, etc), silicon system inserts (eg Cochlear implants
• Neural networks – takes up a huge portion of my "leisure" time which is contributed as a volunteer
  • active member of INNS and IEEE-CIS (see below), author of recent paper and co-editor of a Special Issue of Neural Networks
  • regular attendee of International Joint Conference on Neural Networks or World Congress on Neural Networks (1992 to present) – this is from my own after-tax wallet, and using my vacation time!!!
• Running – casual runs to stay in shape only now (past marathoner and ultra-marathoner)
• Solar modelling and forecasting – especially related to climate change, pandemics and cancer, major seismic activity, etc. Timesapns from daily through geologic. Mostly acting as an admin/organizational helper for expert scientists, but I follow some of the literature very closely. (I also worked on Climate Change programs in the federal government)
• Toastmasters – 2005-present

Memberships:

• Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum (CIM) #102357 - on&off since 1974
• International Neural Network Society (INNS) #174 since ~1989 to present , was Program Co-Chair of IJCNN05 in Montreal
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Computational Intelligence Society (IEEE-CIS) #41565049 since ~2003 to present
• Ordre des Ingénieurs du Québec (OIQ) #033549 since ~1981 to present
• Ottawa Life Sciences Council and the BioNorth conference in Ottawa - ~2000 to present
• Political parties – member of 3 political parties in Canada (a bit across the spectrum)

Past Interests

• Aircraft Pilot - piloted Cessna 152's in Victoria, B.C. and Alma, Quebec (1978-1981)
  • enjoyed stalls & spins, landing, but I was not an A to B flyer
• Canadian naval reserve ship's diver (~1977-1981) Victoria & Halifax
  • underwater maintenance on ships/ harbour installations
  • a body search outside of Calgary
• Computer Hacker - serious addiction (heavy C, addicted to Q'Nial, spectator Java, neural nets, etc)
• Investments - corporate & market analysis (no time for that now)
• Landlord - Montreal condo in the McGill University ghetto

• Ottawa Hi-Tech Entrepreneurs (~1999-2003) – awesome forum to meet great entrepreneurs from Ottawa area and hear their stories/ lessons
• Ottawa Java Users' Group (~1993-1995) - hard-core programming club, although I never got around to doing Java seriously
• Running
  • Ottawa H3 running club (1993-Aug06)
  • Marathons - approximately 14 to 16 official, 5 or 6 unofficial (including Calgary 1997; Montreal 1995; New York City 1998, Ottawa- 1995/96/97/98/200#? ; Québec City 1998/200#?; Toronto 1997/98;  several more between 1999 &200 & unofficial)
  • Ultramarathons - Sri Chimnoy 24 run Ottawa, 4 times: 1998 (I ran/walked 107,~103, 101, and fially ~97 km, although we were each supposed to run >100 miles in 24 hours, this was NOT a relay!!) unofficial: 47 km during Cabot Trail relay race in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia – I did the Smokey Mountain portan then I ran the next leg and much of the next-next-leg as well. The next morning I did the last of 17 legs with the amulance chasing me in because I was so slow.
  • Labatt 24 hour relays in Ottawa, Cabot Trail Relay in Cabe Breton Nova Scotia, Uttica Boilermaker in New York State
  • triathlons - Meech Lake 1995 (0.75/20/7) and one other time, National Capital (1.5/40/10) Deep River 1998 (1/26/8) etc

• Small Business proprietor - resale of large vocabulary voice dictation systems to doctors & lawyers in Ottawa (1993-1996)
• Sports
  • Hockey - to midget level while in grade school, occasional industrial/ fun leagues prior to 1992
  • tackle football (high school quarterback - team won city finals grade 10, university intramural – almost broke my neck)
  • soccer Chicoutimi league 1980
  • lacrosse Calgary city champs 1969, Alberta midget champs 1971
• Student Leadership
  • Engineering Students' Society Student of the Year 1975-76
  • President, Engineering Students Society, U of Calgary 1977-78

  • President, Chemical Engineering Graduate SS, U of Ottawa ~1983ish?

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