4 Biographies

Stephen Bespalko has a degree in Mathematics and Physics from Binghamton University (formerly the State University of New York at Binghamton) and an MBA from New York University. He began his career as an applied mathematician at the US Headquarters of Xerox Corporation in Rochester, New York where he was responsible for constructing financial forecasting tools. Mr. Bespalko subsequently was transferred to the Xerox International Headquarters where he was an analyst on the staff of the Executive Vice President for Strategy and Policy. After spending two years as the manager of computer aided publishing for a Xerox-owned publishing company in Lexington, Massachusetts, he transferred to the Xerox R&D staff in Palo Alto, California and subsequently to San Diego, California. Mr. Bespalko has won numerous awards and other recognition for his work in applying mathematical techniques to real-world problems. His current research interests are in the area of formal languages, in particular those involving uncertainty and ambiguity.

Alexander Sindt is a Junior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he is double-majoring in Computer Science and Philosophy. Mr. Sindt is a National Merit and Presidential Scholar. He has spent three summers at Sandia National Laboratories; in 1995 Mr. Sindt was chosen as a participant in the US Department of Energy Honors Program for Science and Engineering Students. The top science student from each state is selected to participate in the program and Mr. Sindt was selected from his home state of Alaska. For the last two summers he has been a technical intern, most recently working on projects involving spatial data and formal languages.