bcor

Buffalo Center for Ontological Research

Background The University at  Buffalo (UB) has a unique concentration of faculty working on cutting-edge research in ontology in a number of interdisciplinary projects spanning a range of Schools and Departments. Ontologists at UB are involved in collaborative ventures with leading national and international institutions. They have received major funding for ontology-related projects from the NSF, NIH, US and Canadian defense agencies and defense industries, and from the European Union.

Goals  BCOR is designed to provide a forum within which philosophical ontologists and those involved in ontology applications can work together in high-level interdisciplinary research. It serves the coordination and integration of a range of ontological projects currently being pursued in Buffalo.

Employment opportunities The University at Buffalo, State University of New York: Assistant Professor. Two positions. AOS: Metaphysics/Ontology; AOC open. Duties: two courses per semester, graduate and undergraduate; usual committee work. Salary: competitive. Applicants must show evidence of research productivity and teaching skills. Send complete dossier (letter of interest, CV, letters of recommendation, writing sample of no more than 25 pages) to: Metaphysics/Ontology Search, Philosophy Department, 135 Park Hall, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260. Deadline: November 20, 2004 or until position is filled. The University at Buffalo is an equal opportunity employer and particularly encourages applications from women and minorities.

Biomedical ontology  BCOR has a special focus in the area of biomedical ontology, where the Institute will support the work of UB’s Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics through research in the integration of clinical ontologies with ontologies in the domains of general biology, molecular biology and biochemistry, functional genomics, proteomics, and related fields.

Personnel The following faculty members in the Department of Philosophy will play a leading role in the development of the Center:

Barry Smith (Director) Jorge Gracia   Randall Dipert David Hershenov

UB affiliate schools and departments Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics School of Informatics School of Dental Medicine Center for Multisource Information Fusion Computer Science and Engineering School of Management National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

Partners outside UB                               Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science (Saarbrücken, Germany) EU Network of Excellence in Semantic Datamining and Biomedical Informatics European Centre for Ontological Research (Saarbrücken, Germany) Cognigen, Amherst, NY Structural Informatics Group, University of Washington (Seattle) Laboratory for Ontology, Turin, Italy

Contact Information Barry Smith, Department of Philosophy, 135 Park Hall, University at Buffalo, NY 14260 <mailto:phismith-at-buffalo.edu>