Dr. John W. Coffey holds a B.S. in Psychology from the College of William and Mary (1971), a B.S. in Systems Science (1989), an M.S. in Computer Science/Software Engineering (1992), and an Ed.D. with an emphasis in Computer Science (2000) from the University of West Florida (UWF). He was one of the first members of the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) and he has worked with that organization for many years. He has been in the Department of Computer Science at the University of West Florida since 1992, starting as a Lecturer and working his way up to his current rank of Professor. He has published a total of more than 100 refereed journal articles, book chapters, technical reports, and conference proceedings. His research interests include knowledge elicitation and representation, web services, and Service Oriented Architecture, advanced technology for education, and computer science education.

Computer systems, large and small, are everywhere. From the 100+ electronic control units in a modern car to mobile devices to tablets and desktop computers to petabyte databases that are mined for information, computers pervade our lives. When any factor in our lives becomes so pervasive, a range of problems will certainly follow ranging from basic frustration and inconvenience, to lost productivity, to losses due to using the devices apart from problems with the devices themselves, to loss of life. This presentation explores the unique role of computers in our lives from the perspective of their complexity, limits on our ability to ensure that systems are built without errors, tradeoffs inherent in the design of computer systems, and what can be done about these problems.