Bruce Maddox

Commander Bruce Maddox was one of the Federation's leading cybernetics experts during the mid to late 24th century. As the Associate Chair of Robotics at the Daystrom Institute, Maddox was the only person on a review board to object to the Android Data's application to Starfleet Academy in 2341, believing that Data was not a sentient being.

In 2365, Commander Maddox, still under the impression that Data was not sentient, and therefore Starfleet property, attempted to force Data to submit to an experimental procedure involving disassembly, in order to further his research toward mass producing the Soong-type android. A hearing was convened at the newly Commissioned Starbase 173, where after much deliberation, it was found that Data had full sentience. Data politely refused the procedure, but kept a correspondence with Maddox, and told him that he would assist him in the future, should the procedure become less risky.

Although he never submitted to the procedure, Commander Data kept up his correspondence with Maddox for nearly 15 years before his death in 2379, and Maddox was able to study the deactivated android Lore, by 2381 it was widely believed that Maddox was close to recreating a fully functional positronic brain. Though most members of the scientific community believed Maddox was still several years off.