Contact Information
Biography
Dr. Jeffery Jackson earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, an MSCS from California State University Fullerton, and a BS in Mathematics and Computer Science from Oral Roberts University. With over 30 years of university teaching experience, Dr. Jackson is deeply committed to student learning and mentorship.
His research focuses on computational learning theory, bridging theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence, while also exploring related philosophical questions. He has served as the Principal Investigator on four NSF grants, funding research for numerous undergraduate and master’s students. Dr. Jackson has chaired the Computer Science Department at Duquesne University for six years previously and has recently returned to the role, demonstrating his dedication to departmental growth and excellence.
In addition to academia, Dr. Jackson has industry experience as a software engineer and manager in the aerospace and defense sector, including work at Nellis Air Force Base. He has also authored a textbook on Web technologies, which originated from his consulting work during the dot-com boom of the 1990s.
Dr. Jackson is passionate about guiding student research and senior projects, sharing selected works online with their authors' permission. A fun fact: Dr. Jackson holds an Erdös Number of 3!
Education
Ph.D., Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, 1995
M.S., Computer Science, California State University, 1981
B.S., Mathematics and Computer Science, Oral Roberts University, 1978
Research
Probabilism holds that a rational agent's beliefs about uncertain events must conform precisely with mathematical probability theory. Rigid acceptance of probabilism implies that assumptions are necessary to justify claims of having learned correct generalizations (No Free Lunch theorems). Dr. Jackson's current research aims to show that probabilism, in its absolute form, is not a valid epistemic principle and that therefore assumption-free learning is feasible.
Profile Information
- COSC 160 Computer Programming: Java
- COSC 418 Formal Languages
- COSC 430 Web-based Systems (for which I have written a textbook)
- COSC 435 Theory of Programming Languages
- COSC 445W Systems Analysis and Software Design
- CPMA 515 Advanced Discrete Math
- CPMA 530 Programming Language: Python
- CPMA 532 Data Structures
- CPMA 535 Introduction to Computer Systems
- CPMA 536 Software Engineering
- MATH 135 Discrete Mathematics
- Web Technologies: A Computer Science Perspective, Prentice Hall, 2007.
- The Harmonic Sieve: A Novel Application of Fourier Analysis to Machine Learning Theory and Practice, PhD Thesis, Carnegie Mellon University, 1995, technical report CMU-CS-95-183 (zipped PDF format).
- Jackson, J.C., What is a Theorem?, unpublished paper inviting discussion at drjeffjackson.blogspot.com, 2017.
- Jackson, J. C., Randomized Arguments are Transferable (pre-print). Philosophia Mathematica 17(2), pp. 363-368, 2009. Journal version.
- Jackson, J. C., Learning DNF Formulas, Encyclopedia of Algorithms, Second Edition (Ming-Yang Kao, Ed.), 2014. First edition, 2008.
- Jackson, J. C. and Wimmer, K., New Results for Random Walk Learning, Journal of Machine Learning Research 15, 3815-3846, 2014. Preliminary version in Proceedings of 22nd Annual Conference on Learning Theory, 2009.
- Jackson, J. C., Lee, H. K., Servedio, R. A., Wan, A., Learning Random Monotone DNF (preliminary version), Discrete Applied Mathematics 159(5), 259-271, 2011.
- Jackson, J. C., Uniform-Distribution Learnability of Noisy Linear Threshold Functions with Restricted Focus of Attention, Proceedings of 19th Annual Conference on Learning Theory, 2006.
- Jackson, J. C., and Servedio, R. A., On Learning Random DNF Formulas Under the Uniform Distribution, Theory of Computing 2, 2006. Preliminary version in Proceedings of 9th International Workshop on Randomization and Computation, RANDOM 2005.
- Jackson, J. C., and Servedio, R. A., Learning Random log-depth Decision Trees under the Uniform Distribution, SIAM Journal on Computing 34/5, 2005. Preliminary version in Proceedings of the 16th Annual Workshop on Computational Learning Theory, 2003.
- Bshouty, N. H., Jackson, J. C., and Tamon, C., Exploring Learnability Between Exact and PAC, Journal of Computer and System Sciences 70/4 (Special Issue on COLT 2002, invited), 2005. Preliminary version in Proceedings of the 15th Annual Workshop on Computational Learning Theory, 2002.
- Blum, A., Jackson, J., Sandholm, T., and Zinkevich, M., Preference Elicitation and Query Learning, Journal of Machine Learning Research 5 (Special Topic on Learning Theory, invited), June 2004. Preliminary version in Proceedings of the 16th Annual Workshop on Computational Learning Theory, 2003.
- Bshouty, N., Jackson, J., and Tamon, T., More Efficient PAC-learning of DNF with Membership Queries Under the Uniform Distribution, Journal of Computer and System Sciences 68, 2004. Preliminary version in Proceedings of the 12th Annual Workshop on Computational Learning Theory, 1999. Preliminary extended version: postscript (.ps) or portable document format (.pdf).
- Bshouty, N., Jackson, J., and Tamon, T., Uniform-Distribution Attribute Noise Learnability, Information and Computation 187(2), December 2003. Preliminary version in Proceedings of the 12th Annual Workshop on Computational Learning Theory, 1999. Preliminary extended version: postscript (.ps) or portable document format (.pdf).
- Jackson, J., On the Efficiency of Noise-Tolerant PAC Algorithms Derived from Statistical Queries, Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence, 2003. Preliminary version in Proceedings of the 13th Annual Workshop on Computational Learning Theory, 2000. Pre-print version: postscript (.ps) or portable document format (.pdf).
- Jackson, J. C., Klivans, A. R., and Servedio, R. A., Learnability Beyond AC0, Proceedings of the Symposium on the Theory of Computing 2002. Preliminary version: postscript (.ps) or portable document format (.pdf).
- Jackson, J. C., Tamon, C., and Yamakami, T., Quantum DNF Learnability Revisited, Proceedings of Computing and Combinatorics, 8th Annual International Conference, 2002.
- Bshouty, N. H. and Jackson, J. C., Learning DNF over the Uniform Distribution using a Quantum Example Oracle, SIAM Journal on Computing 28(3), 1999. Preliminary version in Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Workshop on Computational Learning Theory, 1995, 118-127. Preliminary extended version: postscript (.ps) or portable document format (.pdf).
- Jackson, J., Shamir, E., and Shwartzman, C., Learning with Queries Corrupted by Classification Noise, Discrete Applied Mathematics 92(2-3), 1999. Preliminary version in Proceedings of the Fifth Israel Symposium on the Theory of Computing Systems, IEEE Press, 1997. Preliminary extended version: postscript (.ps) or portable document format (.pdf).
- Birkendorf, A., Dichterman, E., Jackson, J., Klasner, N., and Simon, H. U., On Restricted-Focus-of-Attention Learnability of Boolean Functions, Machine Learning 30, 1998. Preliminary version in Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Workshop on Computational Learning Theory, 1996. Preliminary extended version: postscript (.ps) or portable document format (.pdf).
- Jackson, J., An Efficient Membership-Query Algorithm for Learning DNF with Respect to the Uniform Distribution, Journal of Computer and System Sciences 55(3), 1997. Preliminary version in Proceedings of the 35th Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, 1994, 42-53. A preliminary extended version of this paper is available for download.
- Blum, A., Furst, M., Jackson, J., Kearns, M., Mansour, Y., and Rudich, S., Weakly Learning DNF and Characterizing Statistical Query Learning Using Fourier Analysis, Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Symposium on the Theory of Computing, 1994, 253-262. (Very) preliminary version: postscript (.ps) or portable document format (.pdf).
- Blum, A., Chalasani, P., and Jackson, J., On Learning Embedded Symmetric Concepts, Proceedings of Sixth Annual Workshop on Computational Learning Theory, 1993, 337-346.
- Jackson, J. and Tomkins, A., A Computational Model of Teaching, Proceedings of Fifth Annual Workshop on Computational Learning Theory, 1992, 319-326.
- Furst, M. L., Jackson, J. C., and Smith, S. W., Improved Learning of $AC^0$ Functions, Proceedings of Fourth Annual Workshop on Computational Learning Theory, 1991, 317-325. See also Furst, M., Jackson, J., and Smith, S., Learning $AC^0$ Functions Sampled Under Mutually Independent Distributions, technical report CMU-CS-90-183, October 1990.
- Zhang, H., Kann, J., Lard, C., Jackson, J., and Spencer, A., Creation of a Resident Reference Application for Apple iOS Devices, poster, Society of General Internal Medicine Mid-Atlantic Conference. March 16, 2012.
- Anderson, B., Jackson, J., and Sitharam, M., Descartes' Rule of Signs Revisited, American Mathematical Monthly, May 1998.
- Jackson, J. and Craven, M., Learning Sparse Perceptrons, Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 8 (Conference Proceedings of NIPS*95), 1996. Postscript (.ps) or portable document format (.pdf).
- Bruegge, B., Blythe, J., Jackson, J., and Shufelt, J., Object-Oriented System Modeling with OMT, Proceedings of Conference on Object-oriented Programming Systems, Languages, and Applications, 1992, 359-376. Proceedings published as SIGPLAN Notices, vol. 27, no. 10, October 1992.
- Neuman, Frank and Erzberger, Heinz (with appendix by Jackson, J. C.), Analysis of sequencing and scheduling methods for arrival traffic, NASA Technical Memorandum NASA-TM-102795, April 1990.
- Jackson, J. C. and Roske-Hofstrand, R. J., Circling: A Method of Mouse-Based Selection without Button Presses, Proceedings of CHI, 1989 (Conference on Computer-Human Interaction), 1989, 161-166. Proceedings published as SIGCHI Bulletin, special issue, May 1989.
- Jackson, J. C., Observations on Integrating Interactive Graphics into Large Batch-Oriented Simulations, Proceedings of the Second Oklahoma Workshop on Applied Computing, March 1988, 319-326.
- Palmer, I. D., Jackson, J. C., and Hones, Jr., E. W., Entry of Solar Protons to the Plasma Sheet and Lobe of the Magnetotail at r=18RE in the Event of April 22, 1971, Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 84 (1979), 2630-2640.
- Palmer, I. D., Jackson, J. C., and Hones, Jr., E. W., The Solar Proton Event of April 16, 1970. 3. Evolution of Pitch Angle Distribution as ≤1-MeV Protons Propagate into the High-Latitude Magnetotail, Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 84 (1979), 109-119.