Kenneth Ford is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition (IHMC) — a not-for-profit research institute located in Pensacola, Florida. IHMC has grown into one of the nation’s premier research organizations with world-class scientists and engineers investigating a broad range of topics related to building technological systems aimed at amplifying and extending human cognition, perception, locomotion, and resilience. Richard Florida has described IHMC as “a new model for interdisciplinary research institutes that strive to be both entrepreneurial and academic, firmly grounded and inspiringly ambitious.” IHMC headquarters are in Pensacola with a branch research facility in Ocala, Florida. Ford is the author of hundreds of scientific papers and six books. Ford received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Tulane University. He is Emeritus Editor-in-Chief of AAAI/MIT Press and has been involved in the editing of several journals. Ford is a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, a charter Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, a member of the Association for Computing Machinery, a member of the IEEE Computer Society, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
In January 1997, Ford was asked by NASA to develop and direct its new Center of Excellence in Information Technology at the Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. He served as Associate Center Director and Director of NASA’s Center of Excellence in Information Technology. In July 1999, Ford was awarded the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal. That same year, Ford returned to private life and to the IHMC.
In October of 2002, Ford was nominated to serve on the National Science Board (NSB) and the United States Senate confirmed his nomination in March of 2003. The NSB is the governing board of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and plays an important role in advising the President and Congress on science policy issues. In 2005, Ford was appointed and sworn in as a member of the Air Force Science Advisory Board. In 2007, he became a member of the NASA Advisory Council and on October 16, 2008, Ford was named as Chairman – a capacity in which he served until October 2011. In February of 2012, Ford was named to a two-year term on the Defense Science Board (DSB). In 2013, he became a member of the Advanced Technology Board which supports the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). In 2018, Dr. Ford was appointed to the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.
Ford has received many awards and honors. In 2004 Florida Trend Magazine named Ford one of Florida’s four most influential citizens working in academia. The University of Bordeaux awarded the Doctor Honoris Causas in 2005. In 2008 the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) award Ford the Robert S. Englemore Memorial Award for his work in artificial intelligence. In August 2010, Ford was awarded NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Medal – the highest honor the agency confers. In 2012 Tulane University named Ford its Outstanding Alumnus in the School of Science and Engineering. In 2015, AAAI named Ford the recipient of the 2015 Distinguished Service Award. Also, in 2015, he was elected as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In 2017 Ford was inducted into the Florida Inventor’s Hall of Fame. In 2020, Florida Trend Magazine named Ford one of its Living Legends, a list of all-time influential Florida leaders in business, medicine, academia, entertainment, politics, and sport.