Barry Smith (ontologist)

Barry Smith (born 4 June 1952) is Julian Park Distinguished Professor of Philosophy in the University at Buffalo (New York, USA) and Research Scientist in the New York State [http://www.bioinformatics.buffalo.edu/ Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences] . From 2002 to 2006 he was Director of the Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science in Leipzig and Saarbrücken, Germany.

He is the author of some 450 scientific publications, including 15 authored or edited books, and editor of "The Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry". His research has been funded by the US, Swiss and Austrian National Science Foundations, the Volkswagen Foundation, and the European Union. In 2002 he received in recognition of his scientific achievements the Wolfgang Paul Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

He is a coordinator of the [http://obofoundry.org OBO Foundry] and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Gene Ontology Consortium, the [http://obi.sourceforge.net/ OBI] (Ontology for Biomedical Investigations) Working Group, and of the Cleveland Clinic Semantic Database.

Smith's research focus is ontology and its applications in biomedicine and biomedical informatics, where he is working on a variety of projects relating to biomedical terminologies and electronic health records. He is also collaborating with Hernando de Soto, Director of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Lima, Peru, on the ontology of property rights and social development.

Bibliography

* "Structure and Gestalt: Philosophy and Literature in Austria-Hungary and Her Successor States" (ed.) (1981)
* "Parts and Moments. Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology" (ed.) (1982).
*B. Smith (ed.), "Foundations of Gestalt Theory". München-Wien: Philosophia Verlag, 1988.
*"Austrian Philosophy: The Legacy of Franz Brentano". Chicago-LaSalle: Open Court, 1994.
* "Adolf Reinach, Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Ausgabe mit Kommentar", Band I: Die Werke, Teil I: Kritische Neuausgabe (1905–1914), Teil II: Nachgelassene Texte (1906–1917); Band II: Kommentar und Textkritik (ed. with Karl Schuhmann) (1989).
* "Handbook of Metaphysics and Ontology", 2 vol. (ed. with Hans Burkhardt) (1991).
*"Austrian Philosophy: The Legacy of Franz Brentano", Chicago-LaSalle, Open Court, 1994.
* "The Cambridge Companion to Husserl" (ed. with David W. Smith) (1995).
* "Rationality and Irrationality" (ed. with Berit Brogaard) (2001).
* "John Searle" (ed.) (2003).

External links

* [http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/Ontology_Course.html Introduction to Biomedical Ontology in Eight Lectures]
* [http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v25/n11/pdf/nbt1346.pdf Coordinated Evolution of Ontologies to Support Biomedical Data Integration]
* [http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith Barry Smith's faculty page at the University of Buffalo]
* [http://www.ifomis.org Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science]
* [http://obofoundry.org The OBO Foundry]
* [http://www.ifomis.org/bfo Basic Formal Ontology]