University at Buffalo · Department of Philosophy

Master of Science in Applied Ontology (Fully Online)

Launching Spring 2026 — a rigorous, career-focused MS that combines philosophical foundations with practical engineering to make complex data and systems interoperate.

How to apply
Aerial view of UB campus by the lake at sunset
  • Built for early-career and experienced professionals
  • Learn practical ontology design, knowledge-graph applications, and standards-based integration
  • Flexible pacing, cross-campus electives, and internship opportunities

Fully Online Graduate Degree in Applied Ontology

Search any major employment website and you’re likely to find multiple occurrences of the word “ontology.” But subsequently searching for universities that offer degrees in ontology will return a single result: the University at Buffalo.

Beginning Spring 2026, the University at Buffalo will offer a fully online MS in Applied Ontology. The program blends the depth of philosophical analysis with hands-on engineering practice to make data and software systems interoperate across teams, tools, and institutions. Coursework is based in the Department of Philosophy with electives in Computer Science, Linguistics, Management, and Biomedical Informatics.

UB’s Department of Philosophy has long been a hub for applied ontological research, connecting philosophical theory with real-world data and information systems. Faculty collaborate with international initiatives such as the IEEE Standard Upper Ontology, the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies project, and the Industrial Ontologies Foundry.

Current research in Buffalo spans applications in medicine and biology, geographic information science, defense and security, and the ontology of artifacts. Supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, and other agencies, UB offers students the chance to engage in funded projects and develop skills that bridge philosophy and technology.

Where Ontology Began

Classical bust of Aristotle

Ontology is the study of what exists and of how the categories of being relate to one another—an inquiry that reaches back to Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Often regarded as the first ontologist, Aristotle sought to classify the fundamental kinds of things in the world, laying the groundwork for later systems of logic and meaning that shaped how philosophers and scientists describe reality.

In his analysis of being, Aristotle identified substance as the most fundamental kind of entity—the independent realities upon which other properties such as quantity, quality, and relation depend. He also distinguished between a thing’s essence—what it is—and its accidents—the features that can change without altering its identity. These ideas provided a systematic way to think about classification, change, and causation, themes that continue to influence how we model reality today.

Those same principles guide modern ontology. From medieval philosophy to the formal sciences of the modern era, the aim has remained the same: to bring order and clarity to the diversity of what exists. The field of applied ontology builds on this lineage, turning those classical insights into computable frameworks for structuring knowledge and enabling reasoning at scale.

What Is Applied Ontology

From Aristotle to AI: The philosophical questions that began with Aristotle—about what exists and how things relate—did not end in antiquity. They evolved alongside logic, mathematics, and computing, shaping how we model the world today. Modern ontology transforms those same inquiries into the foundation of digital reasoning: structuring information so that machines and humans can share understanding.

Applied ontology continues this philosophical lineage, turning classical analysis of kinds and relations into computable models that organize and reason over complex data in science, engineering, and everyday domains.

In the 1970s, as large information systems were developed independently, they framed data differently and could not work together—even when built for the same purpose. Applied ontology emerged to solve this problem of semantic interoperability—combining philosophical clarity about meaning with technical methods for structuring definitions and data.

The need for such interoperability has only grown with AI, data integration, and global collaboration. Applied ontology builds a common language that allows unrelated systems and disciplines to work together.

You encounter ontology-driven systems every day: the iPhone’s Siri, integration of Human Genome Project data, linked web content, product recommendations, and semantics-aware search all rely on ontological frameworks to make data coherent and usable.

At the University at Buffalo, applied ontology is taught as both a philosophical discipline and a practical toolkit. Students learn to analyze conceptual structure, formalize it using logical methods, and implement it in computational environments where precision of meaning is critical. With the founding of the National Center for Ontological Research (NCOR) in 2005, UB became a world center for ontology research and education—continuing the philosophical project Aristotle began, now at computational scale.

“We are riding a new wave of advances in artificial intelligence, and ontologies are at the forefront of this wave.”

— John Beverley, PhD, Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Jobs in Applied Ontology

Graduates are competitive for positions such as Ontologist, Knowledge Engineer, Data/AI Ontology Specialist, and Information Architect. Applied ontologists are in demand across healthcare and pharmaceuticals, government and intelligence, banking and finance, e-commerce, manufacturing, and technology. As Barry Smith notes, “Every government in the world and every intelligence agency needs ontology support.” Starting salaries for UB graduates with ontology-focused degrees can reach as high as $175,000, with an average ontologist salary around $92,000 in industry reports. Employers span both public and private sectors, reflecting a growing demand for experts who can connect data, algorithms, and domain knowledge.

Students researching applied ontology at UB join a long-standing international network of collaborators that has, for decades, centered in Buffalo. “With this MS degree,” says John Beverley, “we aim to more formally standardize applied ontology education—not just for UB, but as an example for the ontology community worldwide.” Recent commentary from industry leaders underscores this demand: organizations from Amazon and Google to Nike are hiring specialists in semantic technologies such as OWL, SPARQL, and knowledge graphs.

Explore Interviews

Applied Ontology MS Degree

The Applied Ontology degree prepares students from around the world for work in a rapidly growing, interdisciplinary branch of information science. It combines philosophical rigor with practical computing skills, enabling graduates to bridge the gap between conceptual modeling and data-driven systems.

Curriculum

The curriculum combines two complementary strands taken alongside electives: the human side of ontology, where students work with domain experts (e.g., food science, healthcare) to analyze heterogeneous data and plan interoperability; and the software side, where students use ontology tools to implement, deploy, and integrate rigorously defined models within contemporary computing environments.

Requirements

Admission requires an undergraduate degree. Philosophy graduates—trained in logic and argumentation—are especially well suited, and the program also welcomes applicants from computer science, management, information studies, and other STEM and humanities fields.

Explore the Program

Prospective MS students can click here for admission to the Spring 2026 semester.

Apply Here

Where Do Our Students Come From

Students in UB’s ontology programs come from a broad mix of fields—philosophy, computer science, linguistics, information science, healthcare, defense, and engineering. Some join straight from undergraduate study, while others bring research or industry experience. All share an interest in using clear conceptual models to make data and systems work together.

Graduates and collaborators of the UB Department of Philosophy now work and study around the world in government, industry, and academia. Our research community collaborates closely with institutions such as:

Together, these students and partners form a worldwide network contributing to the continued growth and practical impact of applied ontology.

Our Faculty

UB Philosophers with a primary focus in ontology include:

Barry Smith

Barry Smith PhD, FACMI

SUNY Distinguished Professor of Philosophy
Julian Park Chair

Areas of Specialization

Applied Ontology; Artificial Intelligence

Education

  • PhD, Philosophy — University of Manchester (1976)
  • MA, Mathematics and Philosophy — Oxford University (1975)
  • BA, Mathematics and Philosophy (1st Class Joint Honors) — Oxford University (1973)
Courses
  • Ontology and Artificial Intelligence (Fall 2025)
  • Ontology of Economics (Fall 2024)
  • Nature and Culture (2023)
  • Philosophy of Science (2022)
  • American Philosophy and Its Contemporary Relevance (2021)
  • Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence (Crash Course, Oct 2–3, 2021)
  • Intelligence Analysis: A Crash Course (2019)
  • Applied Ontology (Fall 2018)
  • Ontological Engineering (Online, Spring 2018)
  • Advanced Biomedical Ontology (Fall 2017)
  • Applied Ontology (Online, Spring 2017)
  • Biomedical Ontology (Fall 2016)
  • Analytic Metaphysics (Spring 2016)
Selected Publications
  • Jobst Landgrebe and Barry Smith, Why Machines Will Never Rule The World — Artificial Intelligence Without Fear, 2nd revised and expanded edition (Routledge, 2025).
  • Ludger Jansen and Barry Smith, “Categories in Top-Level Ontologies: Revisiting the Aristotelian Background,” Advances in Knowledge Representation, 5(3), September 2025.
  • S. Clint Dowland, Barry Smith, Matthew A. Diller, Jobst Landgrebe, and William R. Hogan, “Ontology of language, with applications to demographic data,” Applied Ontology, 1–24, 2024.
  • Barry Smith, “Biomedical ontologies,” in Peter Elkin (ed.), Terminology, Ontology and their Implementations, Springer, 2023, 125–169.
John Beverley

John Beverley PhD

Assistant Professor

Areas of Specialization

Logic, Social Epistemology, Ethics, Applied Ontology, Race, Ethnicity, Diversity.

Education

  • PhD, Northwestern University
  • MA, University at Buffalo
  • BS, North Carolina State University
Courses
  • Introduction to Philosophy
  • Logic of Ontology
  • Metaphysics
Selected Publications
  • “The Infectious Disease Ontology in the Age of COVID-19,” with Shane Babcock, Barry Smith, et al. Journal of Biomedical Semantics, 2021, 12(13): 1–20.
  • “BFO: Basic Formal Ontology,” with Neil Otte and Alan Ruttenberg. Applied Ontology, 2022, 17(1): 17–43.
  • “Speak No Evil: Understanding Hermeneutical (In)Justice.” Episteme, 2022, 19(3): 431–454.
  • “CIDO: Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology,” with Oliver He, Barry Smith, et al. Scientific Data, 2020, 7(181): 1–8.
Regina Hurley

Regina Hurley PhD

Assistant Professor

Areas of Specialization

Applied Ontology; Epistemology.

Education

  • PhD, Northwestern University
Courses
  • Ethical Problems and Public Issues
  • Introduction to Feminist Philosophy
  • Environmental Ethics
Selected Publications
  • “Coordinating virus research: The Virus Infectious Disease Ontology,” with John Beverley et al. PLOS ONE, 2024.
  • “Coordinating Coronavirus Research: The COVID-19 Infectious Disease Ontology,” with John Beverley et al. Proceedings of the International Conference on Biomedical Ontologies, 2022.
  • “Counternarrative Themes,” with John Beverley. American Journal of Bioethics 21(2): 72–74, 2021.

Research

Highlights of current ontology research projects will appear here.

News

Program announcements and updates will be posted here.

Events

Upcoming talks, info sessions, and workshops will be listed here.

Looking for the previous site? See Contemporary Ontology, History of Ontology, Ontological Engineering, and Biomedical Ontology.