Michael F. Uschold, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized expert with 25 years experience in developing and transitioning semantic technology from academia to industry. Michael pioneered the field of ontology engineering, co-authoring the first paper and giving the first tutorial on the topic in 1995. This leveraged the work he did in creating the influential “Enterprise Ontology.” He spent 11 years at Boeing defining, leading and participating in numerous projects applying semantic technology to enterprise challenges. Michael is a regular invited speaker and panelist at national and international events, and has given numerous tutorials and training classes. He received his PhD in Artificial Intelligence from The University of Edinburgh in 1991.
Areas of Expertise
Software concept design and architecture
Facilitation, Analysis & Modeling
Asking probing question, getting to the heart of the matter
Communication of complex information in simple terms. Writing, speaking, presenting
Constructive reviewing and critiquing
Semantic technology
Work History
December 2010 – Present
Senior Ontology Consultant – Semantic Arts, Inc.
September 2009 – November 2010
Independent Consultant
Ontology Design Pattern Wiki development and community involvement. (NEON)
Proposal Evaluator Expert, EU Seventh Framework Program
Panelist and Invited Speaker at Semantic Technology Conference, CNR (Italian National Research Council), Rome Italy, Free University of Amsterdam
Semantic technology training: Training ontologists of the future workshop. Educating Seattle business community.
Scientific Advisory Board, NEON Project
February 2008 – September 2009
Senior Ontologist – Reinvent, Inc.
Built contextual advertising system (CA). Worked on dynamic team designing and implementing a novel architecture integrating several advanced technologies to create a commercial grade categorization and contextual advertising system.
1997 – 2008
Advanced Computing Technologist – Boeing Phantom Works
Software concept design and architecture: Led or participated in numerous projects integrating semantic technology with existing systems. These include interoperability architectures using agents (A&O) community or practices semantic wiki (WikiBok), semantic filtering (SI), autonomous systems (ASN), product design and interoperability systems (PDI). Developed prototype system for automating compliance (AC).
Facilitator: Organized numerous workshops and seminars ranging from single day to week-long. These included: a company-wide workshop on semantic technology, several 2-3 day workshops and a week-long international seminar.
Analysis and Modeling: Co-authored extensive state-of-the-art report on semantic interoperability and integration, including future roadmap both internally (SIF&R) and for a US government customer (SIR). Created product ontology to serve as basis for hub and spokes interoperability of product data (PDI). Built ontology for semi-automated robot navigation (ASN). Built ontology for semantic filtering of battlefield status reports (SI). Was industrial representative for the DARPA-sponsored semantic web services initiative (SWSI).
Communicator / Mentor: Gave numerous invited talks; published numerous widely cited technical papers and reports; co-authored ontology engineering notes for the W3C; gave several tutorials at major conferences (AAAI, IJCAI, SemTech). Mentored several people in semantic technology.
1990 – 1997
Advanced Computing Technologist – AI Applications Inst., Univ. of Edinburgh
Software concept design and architecture: Elicited customer requirements, designed, architected and implemented a rule-based diagnostic system for automated teller machines (ATMD) for manufacturer of same.
Facilitator and Communicator: Led geographically diverse team of five in the development, application and documentation of the Enterprise Ontology (EP). Created and gave numerous short courses (1-5 days in length) to industrial customers.
1983 – 1990
Lecturer & Research Scientist, The University of Edinburgh
1980 – 1982
Research Programmer, Department of Computer Science, Rutgers University
Education
PhD Artificial Intelligence, U. of Edinburgh
Masters in Computer Science, Rutgers University
BS in Math and Physics, Canisius College, Buffalo, NY
Selected Publications
M. Uschold, M. King, S. Moralee, and Y. Zorgios. The enterprise ontology. The Knowledge Engineering Review, 13(1):31–89, 1998. In Special Issue on Putting Ontologies to Use (eds. Mike Uschold and Austin Tate)
M. Uschold and M. Gruninger, “Ontologies: principles, methods, and applications,” Knowledge Engineering Review, 11(2), 93–155, (1996)
T. Barrett, D. Jones J. Yuan and M. Uschold. “Applying Semantic Web technology to the integration of corporate information” Int. J.Web Engineering and Technology, Vol. 2, Nos. 2/3, 2005 231-247
M. Uschold and M. Gruninger. Ontology and semantics for seamless connectivity. SIGMOD Record 33(3), 2004
Uschold, M. Where are the Semantics on the Semantic Web?AI Magazine, 24(3), pp 25-36. Fall 2003
M. Uschold. The Use of the Typed Lambda Calculus for Guiding Naive Users in the Representation and Acquisition of Part-Whole Knowledge. Data & Knowledge Engineering 20 1996 385-404
Michael Uschold, Peter Clark, Fred Dickey, Casey Fung, Sonia Smith, Stephen Uczekaj Michael Wilke, Sean Bechhofer, and Ian Horrocks. A semantic infosphere. In Dieter Fensel, Katia Sycara, and John Mylopoulos, editors, Proc. of the 2003 International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2003), number 2870 in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 882-896. Springer, 2003
R. Jasper and M. Uschold. A Framework for Understanding and Classifying Ontology Applications. In Twelfth Workshop on Knowledge Acquisition Modeling and Management KAW’99, 1999
Mike Uschold, Mike Healy, Keith Williamson, Peter Clark, Steven Woods. Ontology Reuse and Application. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Formal Ontology and Information Systems – FOIS’98 (Frontiers in AI and Applications v46), pages 179-192, Ed: N. Guarino, Amsterdam:IOS Press, 1998
Uschold, M. (1996) “Building Ontologies: Towards A Unified Methodology”, in Proc. Expert Systems 96, Cambridge, December 16-18
Selected Presentations
“Ontologies and Database Schema: What’s the Difference?” Semantic Technology Conference, San Francisco, CA, June 2011
“Designing and Building Business Ontologies” An Intensive four-day seminar with workshops and demonstrations, on semantically enabling the enterprise; co-presented with Dave McComb and/or Simon Robe: Houston, TX May 2011; Fort Collins, CO October 2010 and March 2011
“Avoiding a Semantic Web Road Block: URI Management and Ontology Evolution,” University of Buffalo, November 2010
Keynote speech: “Ontology-Driven Information Systems: Past, Present and Future,” Formal Ontology in Information Systems Conference, Karlsruhe, Germany ,November 2008
Keynote speech: “Ontologies and Semantics for Industry,” Industry Day Workshop held in conjunction with the International Conference on Conceptual Structures, Sheffield, England, July 2007
“Introduction to Ontologies and Semantics,” Tutorial; Semantic Technology Conference, San Jose, CA, May 2007
Keynote speech: “Ontologies Ontologies Everywhere, but Who Knows What to Think?” Protégé Users’ Conference. Stanford, CA, July 2006
“Introduction to Ontologies and the Semantic Web,” University of Washington, WA, February 2006
“Semantic Filtering,” Webinar hosted by Ontolog, April 2005
“Ontologies and Knowledge Representation for the Semantic Web,” Tutorial, Semantic Web Summer School, outside Madrid, Spain, July 2003
“Creating Semantically Integrated Communities on the World Wide Web,” Semantic Web Workshop held in conjunction with the World Wide Web Conference, Honolulu, HI, May 2002
