Dr. Michael A. Covington '74 is Associate Director of the Institute for Artificial Intelligence at The University of Georgia, where he has been a faculty member since 1984.  He has degrees in Linguistics from the University of Georgia, University of Cambridge, and Yale University and does research on computer processing of human languages.  One recent research project, now in use by a federal defense contractor, is a software package that reads the international news media and spots emerging international conflicts.  "The best wars are the ones we prevent," he is fond of saying.  Michael is even better known for his hobby, taking pictures of the stars and planets through a telescope, and for the books he writes for astronomy hobbyists.