Mary Shepherd holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Sociology, and has held positions in both academia and in industry. The latter include her being one of the first employees of Thinking Machines; the former include serving as Assistant Associate Vice President for Information Services and Technology at Harvard University. She started the Cyc (large common sense knowledge base) project in 1984 at MCC, along with Douglas Lenat, and has worked on it since then. She has authored and co-authored numerous articles and technical reports. Since the end of 1994, when the Cyc project spun out as an independent company, Cycorp, Ms. Shepherd has served as its Administrative Director.