John Beverley at the Ontology Summit
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Ken Baclawski
May 17, 2026, 10:31:14 PM (2 days ago) May 17
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We are very pleased to announce that the next Ontology Summit session on Wednesday 20 May 2026 will feature
John Beverley
who will present
Ontology Education at the University at Buffalo
As usual, all summit sessions are zoom sessions on Wednesdays at Noon US/Canada Eastern Time and each session lasts one hour. The summit is open to the public and no registration is necessary. All summit sessions are recorded and are available on the summit web pages and on the Ontology Summit YouTube channel.
The session page is: https://ontologforum.com/index.php/ConferenceCall_2026_05_20
Zoom information:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86994661673?pwd=mMUeaWyWhBMSzTw3SgH5GjMv2Qx4rH.1
Meeting ID: 869 9466 1673
Passcode: 803090
Abstract: Ontology engineering is, at base, an exercise in logic. This is one of the central lessons of the University at Buffalo’s Applied Ontology MS program and emerging PhD training program. In this talk, I use Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) to show how rigorous logical discipline underwrites good ontology engineering: consistency, interoperability, explanatory power, and scalable data quality. Drawing on themes covered throughout UB’s applied ontology curriculum, I examine how BFO’s realist commitments, category distinctions - such as continuant versus occurrent and dependent versus independent entity - and relation hierarchies constrain modeling choices and help prevent common errors. I will also discuss how students and practitioners are trained to translate competency questions into formally testable constraints, construct genus–differentia definitions aligned with BFO categories and use automated reasoning to evaluate ontological commitments.
Bio: Dr. John Beverley is an Assistant Professor at the University at Buffalo (UB) and director of the MS and PhD in Applied Ontology programs. He is one of the developers of the ISO/IEC 21838-2 top-level standard Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), chair of the IEEE P3195 Mid-Level Ontology standard working group, and core developer on numerous BFO-based ontology projects. Prior to joining UB, Dr. Beverley was Senior Ontologist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, integrating semantic web technologies with machine learning to support predictive analytics, promote explainable AI, and automate error detection in complex software.
We had a very well attended session on 13 May 2026 during which Jim Wilson presented Interoperability Fundamentals in the Age of AI. If you were unable to attend, be sure to check out the videos on the session page at https://ontologforum.com/index.php/ConferenceCall_2026_05_13 or on the Ontology Summit YouTube channel.
Ken Baclawski
Chair, Ontology Summit 2026
John Beverley
who will present
Ontology Education at the University at Buffalo
As usual, all summit sessions are zoom sessions on Wednesdays at Noon US/Canada Eastern Time and each session lasts one hour. The summit is open to the public and no registration is necessary. All summit sessions are recorded and are available on the summit web pages and on the Ontology Summit YouTube channel.
The session page is: https://ontologforum.com/index.php/ConferenceCall_2026_05_20
Zoom information:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86994661673?pwd=mMUeaWyWhBMSzTw3SgH5GjMv2Qx4rH.1
Meeting ID: 869 9466 1673
Passcode: 803090
Abstract: Ontology engineering is, at base, an exercise in logic. This is one of the central lessons of the University at Buffalo’s Applied Ontology MS program and emerging PhD training program. In this talk, I use Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) to show how rigorous logical discipline underwrites good ontology engineering: consistency, interoperability, explanatory power, and scalable data quality. Drawing on themes covered throughout UB’s applied ontology curriculum, I examine how BFO’s realist commitments, category distinctions - such as continuant versus occurrent and dependent versus independent entity - and relation hierarchies constrain modeling choices and help prevent common errors. I will also discuss how students and practitioners are trained to translate competency questions into formally testable constraints, construct genus–differentia definitions aligned with BFO categories and use automated reasoning to evaluate ontological commitments.
Bio: Dr. John Beverley is an Assistant Professor at the University at Buffalo (UB) and director of the MS and PhD in Applied Ontology programs. He is one of the developers of the ISO/IEC 21838-2 top-level standard Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), chair of the IEEE P3195 Mid-Level Ontology standard working group, and core developer on numerous BFO-based ontology projects. Prior to joining UB, Dr. Beverley was Senior Ontologist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, integrating semantic web technologies with machine learning to support predictive analytics, promote explainable AI, and automate error detection in complex software.
We had a very well attended session on 13 May 2026 during which Jim Wilson presented Interoperability Fundamentals in the Age of AI. If you were unable to attend, be sure to check out the videos on the session page at https://ontologforum.com/index.php/ConferenceCall_2026_05_13 or on the Ontology Summit YouTube channel.
Ken Baclawski
Chair, Ontology Summit 2026
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