In this interview, the Blog’s Philosophy and Technology Series Editor Charlie Taben interviews Barry Smith, who is a Distinguished Julian Park Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Computer Science and Engineering, and Neurology at the University at Buffalo. They discuss new private and public sector jobs in a burgeoning ontological sector, involving the commercial and industrial applications of ontology across diverse industries. They also explore the evolution of the field and how philosophers are ideally suited for these tech-driven positions.
In addition to his academic work, Smith is also Director of the National Center for Ontological Research and lead developer of Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), a top-level ontology (ISO/IEC 21838-2) used by over 450 ontology development groups across the world. His work led to the formation of the Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry, a set of resources designed to support information-driven research in biology and biomedicine. He also contributes to ontology projects in the military and security domains and is one of the founders of the Industrial Ontologies Foundry (IOF) initiative, whose goal is to advance interoperability of information systems in the industrial domain. Finally, Smith has authored over 700 publications with more than 40,000 citations and an h-index of 98. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the US, Swiss and Austrian National Science Foundations, the US Department of Defense, the Humboldt and Volkswagen Foundations, and the European Union.
Barry Smith
Barry Smith contributes to both theoretical and applied research in ontology. He is Distinguished Julian Park Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Computer Science and Engineering, and Neurology at the University at Buffalo. He is also Director of the National Center for Ontological Research.
Barry is also lead developer of Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), a top-level ontology (ISO/IEC 21838-2) used by over 450 ontology development groups across the world.Â
Charlie Taben graduated from Middlebury College in 1983 with a BA in philosophy and has been a financial services executive for nearly 40 years. He studied at Harvard University during his junior year and says one of the highlights of his life was taking John Rawls’ class. Today, Charlie remains engaged with the discipline, focusing on Spinoza, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer. He has worked with the APA Blog, creating the Philosophy and the Mirror of Technology Series. Charlie has also performed volunteer work for the Philosophical Society of England. You can find Charlie on Twitter @gbglax
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