Amy L. Lansky
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, computer scientist, and homeopath, noted for having written Impossible Cure: the Promise of Homeopathy.
Life
Lansky grew up in Buffalo, New YorkBuffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
. She received a B.A. from University of Rochester
University of Rochester
The University of Rochester is a private, nonsectarian, research university in Rochester, New York, United States. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The university has six schools and various interdisciplinary programs.The...
in 1977 and a M.S. (1979) and Ph.D. (1983) in Computer Science from Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
.
She is married to Steven M. Rubin; they have two children.
Computer Science
After receiving her doctorate, Lansky worked on Artificial IntelligenceArtificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
planning at SRI International
SRI International
SRI International , founded as Stanford Research Institute, is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. Based in Menlo Park, California, the trustees of Stanford University established it in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. It was later...
and NASA Ames Research Center
NASA Ames Research Center
The Ames Research Center , is one of the United States of America's National Aeronautics and Space Administration 10 major field centers.The centre is located in Moffett Field in California's Silicon Valley, near the high-tech companies, entrepreneurial ventures, universities, and other...
. During this time, she worked with Michael Georgeff
Michael Georgeff
Michael Peter Georgeff is a computer scientist and entrepreneur who has made contributions in the areas of Intelligent Software Agents and eHealth.- Overview :...
on the Procedural Reasoning System
Procedural Reasoning System
In Artificial Intelligence, the Procedural Reasoning System is a framework for constructing real-time reasoning systems that can perform complex tasks in dynamic environments...
. This work resulted in a paper which won the AAAI
American Association for Artificial Intelligence
The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence or AAAI is an international, nonprofit, scientific society devoted to advancing the scientific understanding of the mechanisms underlying thought and intelligent behavior and their embodiment in machines...
Classic Paper award of 2006.
Lansky is also known for her development of the multiagent planning system
COLLAGE.
Lansky's other computer science publications include:
- Amy L. Lansky, "Pasmac – A Macro Processor for Pascal," Technical Report CSL-TN-174, Stanford University Computer Systems Laboratory, April, 1980.http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=323641&dl=ACM&coll=GUIDE
- Amy L. Lansky, "Specification and Analysis of Concurrency," Doctoral Dissertation, Technical Report STAN-CS-83-993, Computer Science Department, Stanford University, 1984.
- Amy L. Lansky and Susan S. Owicki, "GEM: A Tool for Concurrency Specification and Verification," , in Proceedings of the Second Annual ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed ComputingSymposium on Principles of Distributed ComputingThe Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing is an academic conference in the field of distributed computing organised annually by the Association for Computing Machinery ....
, ACM, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 1983.
Homeopathy
In 1998, Lansky left the field of Computer Science to study homeopathyHomeopathy
Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners claim to treat patients using highly diluted preparations that are believed to cause healthy people to exhibit symptoms that are similar to those exhibited by the patient...
.
This transition was prompted by her perceived success at using homeopathy to "cure her son of Autism." She explained the situation in a Psychology Today interview: "As a scientist, I recognize that homeopathy is implausible. But I've seen it cure my son."
In 2003, she published Impossible Cure: The Promise of Homeopathy (ISBN 0-9727514-0-8).
This book is now used as a textbook in homeopathy schools and is cited in a number of other books on alternative health.
It has been translated into German and Greek.
Lansky is involved in a number of activities to promote homeopathy:
- She served on the executive board of the California Health Freedom Coalition which was instrumental in legalizing unlicensed forms of medicine in California by passing (in 2002) SB-577 into law. She testified in a California Senate hearing on November 1, 2001. She has been part of their Steering Committee.
- From 1998 to 2000, she was co-editor of the North American Homeopathic Society http://www.homeopathy.org's journal "The American Homeopath".
- Since 2004, she has published a regular column in the British Society of Homeopaths http://www.homeopathy-soh.org newsletter called "Letters From America".
- She currently broadcasts a monthly Internet radio show on Autism One http://www.autismone.org/radio called "There's Hope With Homeopathy".
- She is currently on the executive board of the National Center for Homeopathy http://www.homeopathic.org.
- Lansky appears as a guest on alternative health radio shows and is treated as an expert by the organizers of various alternative health forums:
- She has a forum called "Leading Voices in Homeopathy".
Miscellaneous
Lansky is a musician who has composed a number of piano pieces. She was the singer of Not Dead Yet, a Silicon ValleySilicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
rock-and-roll band.