Greg Wilson

PROFESSIONAL STATEMENT

Greg Wilson is a member of the Statistical Sciences Group (CCS-6) at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He uses qualitative methods to characterize large and complex research problems. Dr. Wilson specializes in working with communities of experts to get to the heart of complex problems so that sophisticated quantitative and computer modeling tools can be brought to bear to assist decision making.

Many of the "big science" problems that come to the national labs are "messy." That is, they aren't clearly a physics problem, or a chemistry problem, or an engineering problem. Like in the fable of the blind men around the elephant, multi-disciplinary communities often stand around these problems unable to define the problem in a way that they all can begin collaborative work. Dr. Wilson uses qualitative tools to begin to build shared understandings of the problem space, and he uses graphical methods to map out the different areas of knowledge about the problem so that interdisciplinary communities can begin to talk and perform work.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Reliability of Complex Systems, Expert Judgment Elicitation, Interdisciplinary Communication/Problem Solving, Complex Problem Definition,

Rhetoric of Science and Technology, Science Studies, Cultural Studies, Ethnography

EDUCATION

Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Professional Communication
New Mexico State University, Department of English, Las Cruces, NM, July 2001.
Dissertation-Articulation Theory and Disciplinary Change: Unpacking the Bayesian-Frequentist Paradigm Conflict in Statistical Science. Director: Carl G. Herndl

M.A. in Professional Writing
Carnegie Mellon University, Department of English, Pittsburgh, PA, December 1991.

B.A. in Psychology
Emory University, Atlanta, GA, May 1989.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Technical Staff Member, Statistical Sciences Group, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, New Mexico, September 2001 to present.
Applied ethnographic and qualitative methods as a member of a interdisciplinary research team to define the structure of large and forbiddingly complex engineered systems
Projects have included:
- Development of reliability assessments for the enduring U.S. nuclear stockpile
- Collaborating on reliability assessments of complex Department of Defense Systems
- Collaborating on development of information integration tools for the intelligence community
- Developing and parameterizing smallpox models for the Department of Homeland Security
- Developing qualitative models to foster the integration of basic science with modeling and simulation
- Collaborating on knowledge capture at LANL and 3M Corporation to preserve what is known about stockpile polymers that are no longer commercially available.

Graduate Research Assistant, Statistical Sciences Group, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, New Mexico, March 2000 to September 2001
Conducted and collaborated on research to develop methods for elicitation of expert judgment and representation of technical knowledge.

Graduate Assistant, New Mexico State University, Department of English
Las Cruces, New Mexico, September 1995 to May 1999
Planned and taught University courses in composition and technical writing. Assisted with administration of computer composition classroom. Assisted faculty with writing-across-the-curriculum research.

Technical Editor, Midwest Research Institute, Environmental Engineering Department
Cary, North Carolina; October 1993 to May 1995
Reviewed and edited reports, regulatory documents, and other project deliverables for EPA and industry contracts. Assisted with proposal writing and development.

Freelance/Contract Technical Writer
Raleigh, North Carolina; August 1992 to September 1993
Wrote, edited, and planned research proposals for submission to government agencies. Edited academic articles, hardware/software manuals, and technical reports. Designed charts and figures for research proposals, manuals, reports, and academic articles. Prepared course materials. Clients included the Research Triangle Institute and the North Carolina Supercomputing Center.

Writer/Editor, National Institutes of Health, Division of Computer Research and Technology
Bethesda, Maryland; summer of 1991 and January to August of 1992
Wrote, edited, and designed materials to promote research use of computer technology. Explained biomedical and computer research programs and their achievements. Responded to inquiries about the Division's programs and computer related topics.

PUBLICATIONS

Refereed Articles
Wilson, Alyson, Laura McNamara, and Greg Wilson. "Information Integration for Complex Systems." Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 92 (2007), 121-130.

Wilson, Greg and Carl Herndl. "Boundary Objects as Rhetorical Exigence: Knowledge Mapping and Interdisciplinary Cooperation at Los Alamos National Laboratory." To appear in the Journal of Business and Technical Communication. April 2007.

Wilson, Greg and Carl Herndl. "Reflections on Field Research and Professional Practice." To appear in the Journal of Business and Technical Communication. April 2007.

Wilson, Greg, and Julie Dyke Ford. "The Big Chill: A Conversation with Seven Professionals Ten Years After They Graduated with Master's Degrees in Technical Communication." Technical Communication. 50(2), May 2003. 145-159.

Wilson, Greg. "Technical Communication and Late Capitalism: Considering a Postmodern Technical Communication Pedagogy." Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 15:(1), 2001, 72-99.

Books and Chapters
Wilson, Alyson, Gregory Wilson, and David H. Olwell, eds. Statistical Methods in Counterterrorism. Springer, 2006.

Michalak, Sarah, and Gregory Wilson. "Modeling and Parameterization for Smallpox Simulation Study." Statistical Methods in Counterterrorism. Alyson Wilson, Gregory Wilson, David H. Olwell eds. Springer, 2006.

Other Publications
Sallie Keller-McNulty, Alyson Wilson, and Greg Wilson. The Impact of Technology on the Scientific Method. Chance. 18(4), Fall 2005. 4-8.

Michalak, Sarah, and Greg Wilson. "Reconsidering Smallpox." Chance. 18(1), Winter 2005. 38-43.

Wilson, Greg. "Tides of Change: Is Bayesianism the New Paradigm in Statistics?" Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference. 113(1), April 2003. 371-4.

Wilson, Greg. "Conversations about Postmodernism, Technical Communication, and Pedagogy: A Response to Catherine Fox and David Fisher." Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 15:(2), 2001, 249-252.

Wilson, Greg, Carl G. Herndl, and Julie Simon. "Saving Rusty." (A Response to comments on "Playing in Traffic: Cultural Studies and Composition Pedagogy"), Composition Studies, 27:(2), 1999, 127-128.

Wilson, Greg, Carl G. Herndl, and Julie Simon. "Playing in Traffic: Cultural Studies and Composition Pedagogy." Composition Studies, 27:(1), 1999, 93-107.

LANL Reports
Omberg, Kristin, Andrew Koehler, Benjamin Sims, and Greg Wilson, "Capabilities Analysis in Support of the Bioagent Autonomous Networked Detectors (BAND) Proposal, July 15, 2005.

Booth, Steven R., Mark S. McNulty, Matthew M. Nuckols, and Gregory D. Wilson. "Analysis of Nuclear Radiography Options at Los Alamos National Laboratory." LA-CP-03-0618. 2003.

Eubank, S., C. Barrett, S. Michalak, D. Roberts, A. Wilson, G. Wilson. "Assessment of Responses to Smallpox Attack. Report to the Office of Homeland Security." LA-CP-02-0284. 2002.

Forthcoming
Sims, Benjamin, Andrew Koehler, and Greg Wilson. "Expert Opinion in Reliability." Encyclopedia of Statistics in Quality and Reliability. John Wiley & Sons.

Works in Progress
Greg Wilson and Carl Herndl. "Speaking Plutonium." An examination of Plutonium as a socio-technical hybrid, discursively grounding the recent work of Bruno Latour and Donna Haraway in a case study conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Greg Wilson. "Beyond Rhetorical Gradualism: The Articulation of Scientific Revolutions." An examination of discursive strategies for disciplinary change with a case study from statistical science.

Stephen Johnson and Greg Wilson. A historical/rhetorical project in the planning stages to examine the first introduction of the concept of "system" by eight different disciplines.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS AND SEMINARS

Greg Wilson and Carl Herndl. "Speaking Plutonium: the discovery/construction of an element." Annual Meeting of the Rhetoric Society of America, Memphis, TN; May 26-29, 2006.

Greg Wilson, Alyson Wilson, Mike Hamada, Benjamin Sims, Andrew Koehler, Shane Reese. "Next Generation Stockpile Reliability Methods." Presented to the Decision Applications Division Review Committee, Los Alamos National Laboratory. March 8, 2006.

Greg Wilson, Andrew Koehler, and Benjamin Sims. "Representing Weapons." Presented at the 29th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science, Pasadena, CA; October 20-22, 2005.

Benjamin Sims, Andrew Koehler, and Greg Wilson. "The Sociology of Parts: Complexity in Socio-Technical Systems." Presented at the 29th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science, Pasadena, CA; October 20-22, 2005.

Greg Wilson. "The Intersection of the Humanities and Social Sciences with Big Science." Seminar Presentation at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Humanities Department; November 8, 2004.

Greg Wilson and Carl Herndl. "Fostering Collaboration in Socially Complex Problem Areas: A Rhetorical View." Presented at the 28th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science, Paris, France; August 25-28, 2004.

Greg Wilson. "Studying the Incommensurability that Unites Us: Persuasion across Discourse Communities, Persuasion Via Boundary Objects." Presented at the National Communication Association Meeting, Miami, FL; November 19-23, 2003.

Greg Wilson. "Boundary Objects and Persuasion Across Discourse Communities." Presentation for the Project on the Rhetoric of Inquiry (POROI), University of Iowa; November 6, 2003.

Greg Wilson. "The Impact of Rhetorical Thinking/Training/Research: Beyond the Borders of the University/Classroom." Seminar Presentation at the University of Iowa, Communications Department; November 4, 2003.

Greg Wilson and Sarah Michalak. "Quantifying the Apocalypse." Presented at the 27th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science, Atlanta, GA; October 16-18, 2003.

David Shiferl, Gregory D. Wilson, Bruce E. Orler, Tom R. Baker, Larry E. Hatler, Sheldon A. Larson, Deborah A. Wrobleski, Mary Stinecipher Campbell, and Kenneth E. Laintz. "Kel-F 800-Guiding Decisions for the Next 30 Years, Process Knowledge Capture and Archiving." Poster presentation at the September 2003 Los Alamos National Laboratory Energetic Materials Review.

Sallie Keller McNulty, Gregory D. Wilson, Andrew Koehler, and Alyson G. Wilson. "Information Integration Technology for Complex Systems." Presented at the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications short course on Complex Systems, Minneapolis, MN; September 19, 2003.

Greg Wilson, Andrew Koehler, Benjamin Sims, Laura McNamara, Deborah Leishman. "Knowledge Modeling and Integration at Los Alamos National Laboratory." Presented at the Joint Statistical Meetings, San Francisco, CA; August 4-7, 2003.

Greg Wilson and Sarah Michalak. "Knowledge Modeling and Data Integration to Support Epidemiological Modeling." Decision Applications Division Review Committee, Los Alamos National Laboratory; March, 2003.

Greg Wilson. "Connecting Incommensurable Discourses: Choosing Between Paradigms in Statistical Science." Presented at the Society for the Social Studies of Science Conference. Milwaukee, WI; November 6-9, 2002.

Greg Wilson. "1073 Physicists, 508 Chemists, 1565 Engineers, and One Rhetorician: Rhetorical Approaches to Multi-Disciplinary Problem Solving." Seminar Presentation at Iowa State University, English Department; November 5, 2002.

Greg Wilson. "Marking the Other, Marking the Enemy: The Us-Them Binary in Scientific Disciplines, Gender, and National Security." Conference on Alien Enemies in Wartime: Race, Ethnicity and Civil Liberties. Boulder, CO; April 4-6, 2002.

Greg Wilson and Julie Ford. "How Are We Doing, What Are We Doing: Conversations with Former Students Reveal the Real World of Technical Communication." Presented at the Conference for the Association for Teachers of Technical Writing, Chicago, IL; March 20, 2002.

Greg Wilson. "Modeling the Spread of Smallpox Using EpiSims." Presented at the Conference on Modeling Bioterrorism Agents. McLean, VA; March 12-13, 2002. Conference sponsored by the National Intelligence Council.

Greg Wilson. "Marking the Enemy, Marking the Other: The intersection of National Security and Diversity." Presented at the Society for the Social Studies of Science Conference. Boston, MA; November 1-4, 2001.

Mary Meyer, Jerry Morzinski, Laura McNamara, Gregory Wilson. "Case Studies in Elicitation and Quantification of Expertise and Expert Judgment." Presented at the Army Conference on Applied Statistics. Santa Fe, NM; October 24-26, 2001

Greg Wilson. "Discourse Production and Paradigm Change." Presented at the Rhetoric Society of America Conference. Washington, DC; May 25-28, 2000.

Greg Wilson. "Agency, Invention, and Disciplinarity: The Personal, The Public, and The Political Meet (In/Re/Di)Visible Constraints." Presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication. Atlanta, Georgia; March 24-27, 1999.

Greg Wilson. "Depicting Powerful Women: Writing the Body of the Internet 'Amazon.'" Presented at the 12th Annual National Feminist Graduate Student Conference. Madison, Wisconsin; February 5-8, 1998.

Greg Wilson. "The Metanarrative of Consequences in the Pragmatist Philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce." Presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication. Phoenix, Arizona; March 12-15, 1997.

Greg Wilson. "Accentuate the Quantitative: Math's Role in the Construction of Scientific Truth." Presented at the 24th Wyoming Conference on English. Laramie, Wyoming; June 18-21, 1996.

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

Professional Service
Member of the Steering Committee and Second Vice President for the Association for the Rhetoric of Science and Technology
Member of the Corporate Advisory Board for New Mexico Tech's Technical Communication Program
Member of the program committee for the 2002 Conference for the Society for the Social Studies of Science
Reviewer for a special Journal of Business and Technical Communication issue on critical practice
Reviewer for the Journal of Statistics Education 
Guest instructor and lecturer at National Youth Science Camp, 2004, 2006, 2007.
President of the English Graduate Student Organization at New Mexico State University, 1998-1999 

Affiliations
Member of the Rhetoric Society of America
Member of the American Association for the Rhetoric of Science and Technology
Member of the Society for the Social Studies of Science
Member of National Communication Association

HONORS AND AWARDS

Academic
Winner of the 2000 Sutherland-McManus Award for outstanding student paper written by a New Mexico State University English Graduate Student
Inducted into Phi Kappa Phi National Scholastic Honor Society 1998.
Winner of the 1996 and 1997 Emerson Awards for outstanding student paper written by a New Mexico State University English Graduate Student.

Professional
Received a Special Award in 2000 from the Statistical Sciences Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory for exceptional contributions and noteworthy achievements
Winner of a 1992 Director's Special Service Award in the Division of Computer Research and Technology at the National Institutes of Health.
Winner of a 1991 award for outstanding job performance in the Division of Computer Research and Technology at the National Institutes of Health.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Rhetoric Society of America Institute short course on the rhetoric of science with Alan Gross, 2005.
American Society of Materials Introduction to Plutonium Metallurgy, 2004.
Joint Nuclear Explosives Test Facility short course on the W78 warhead, 2005.
Leadership Los Alamos program, 2004.