JILL LUDLUM

Dr. Jill Melissa Ludlum had been born in London and had earned her Ph.D. in Systems Design from Oxford University in 1980. From 1980 to 1982, she designed the Ludlum Cybernetic Circuit. After taking a year off for personal reasons, she had immersed herself in the STRADA project, working under Colonel Scott Woodward of the military and with her assistant Steven Lee.

STRADA, or Strategic Research and Development Administration, was a top-top-secret facility housed in a cave in the desert southwest. It consisted of thousands of square feet of research laboratories, and at its core was Sandi, a fifth-generation computer just a blink away from artificial intelligence. Dr. Ludlum had designed Sandi, as well as the drones and the rest of the elaborate security system at STRADA.

Dr. Ludlum was purported to be a premier technocrat with absolute faith in machines. She believed that 90% of security breaches were due to human error, and by eliminating the human factor she believed that Sandi was invincible.

When Dr. Ludlum was introduced to MacGyver, she recognized him by reputation as a "sometime consultant for the Phoenix Foundation, alleged hockey player, camel smuggler, and Jack-of-all-trades." As a representative of the Phoenix Foundation, it was MacGyver's mission to test the security at STRADA by breaking in using his creativity and intuition, and Dr. Ludlum bet him 25 cents that her machine could not be beaten.

MacGyver was able to defeat the security system, however a program response error caused Sandi to misinterpret the simulation as a genuine threat, and she began thinking for herself using all means possible to eliminate both MacGyver and Dr. Ludlum. By working together and relying on MacGyver's ability to trust his instincts over programmed logic, they were able to breach security, elude the laser drones, avoid an acid bath, and use a power surge to overpower the system and escape, just as Sandi had removed nearly all the oxygen from the facility.

Dr. Ludlum regretted that it had been necessary to destroy Sandi since she believed she was on the verge of a major scientific breakthrough in the development of true artificial intelligence. She intended to continue her research and to refine the program, but she could finally acknowledge that perhaps a human factor was needed.

Portrayed by: June Chadwick

Cross Reference: Drones, Steven Lee, Sandi, STRADA, Scott Woodward

Episode Reference: The Human Factor