Barry Smith

Barry Smith, Distinguished Professor, Department of Philosophy
The State University of New York-Buffalo

Presentation Title:  What is a Cyber-Physical System?

Abstract: 

What on earth is a philosopher doing at a meeting like this? To illustrate, I will describe the work I have been doing in the life sciences, and in the defense and intelligence world, helping people glue their data and machines together. One key ingredient is to build good definitions (good for people, good for machines). Examples: How to define system? Or engineered system? Or cyberphysical system? And then what, finally, are the Implications for the manufacturing industry?

Biography:

Barry Smith is a prominent contributor to both theoretical and applied research in ontology. He is SUNY Distinguished Professor of Philosophy in the University at Buffalo, with joint appointments in the Departments of Biomedical Informatics, Neurology, and Computer Science and Engineering. He is also Director of the National Center for Ontological Research.

Smith is the author of some 300 peer-reviewed publications on ontology and related topics, with over 29,500 citations. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the US, Swiss and Austrian National Science Foundations, the Volkswagen Foundation, the European Union, and the US Department of Defense. He received the $2.7 million Wolfgang Paul Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2002. In 2011 he was awarded the first Paolo Bozzi Prize in Ontology and in 2013 he was elected Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (FACMI). Since 2000 he has served as consultant to Hernando de Soto, Director of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Peru, on projects relating to the advancement of property and business rights among the poor in developing countries.

Smith's pioneering work on the science of ontology led to the establishment of Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), now the most commonly adopted upper-level ontology development framework. It also led to the formation of the OBO (Open Biomedical Ontologies) Foundry, a suite of interoperable ontology modules designed to support information-driven research in biology and biomedicine. The methodology underlying BFO and the OBO Foundry is now being applied in a range of different domains, including military intelligence, defense logistics, and industrial engineering.