Dr. Yan Jin is Professor of Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering at University of Southern California and Director of USC IMPACT Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. degree in Naval Engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1988. Since then, Dr. Jin has done research on design theory, knowledge-based systems, distributed problem solving, organization modeling, along with their applications to computer integrated manufacturing, collaborative engineering, and project management. Prior to joining USC faculty in the Fall of 1996, Dr. Jin worked as a senior research scientist at Stanford University for 5 years. His current research interests include design methodology, agent-based collaborative engineering, and computational organization modeling. Dr. Jin is a recipient of National Science Foundation CAREER Award (1998), TRW Excellence in Teaching Award (2001), Best Paper in Human Information Systems (5th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, 2001), and Xerox Best Paper Award (ASME International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology, 2002). He is currently heading a research program at IMPACT Lab aimming at building knowledge infrastructure to support collaborative engineering.