Session	Education
Duration	1 hour
Date/Time	20 May 2026 16:00 GMT
	9:00am PDT/12:00pm EDT
	5:00pm BST/6:00pm CST
Convener	Ken Baclawski

Ontology Summit 2026 Education

• John Beverley Ontology Education at the University at Buffalo
  • 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.

Conference Call Information

• Date: Wednesday, 20 May 2026
• Start Time: 9:00am PDT / 12:00pm EDT / 6:00pm CEST / 5:00pm BST / 1600 UTC
  • ref: World Clock
• Expected Call Duration: 1 hour
• Video Conference URL: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86994661673?pwd=mMUeaWyWhBMSzTw3SgH5GjMv2Qx4rH.1
  • Meeting ID: 869 9466 1673
  • Passcode: 803090
• Please download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system.
  • Weekly: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/tZIkfu2uqDosHddtIR_XTIoQlXKQbDMLAing/ics?icsToken=DCmtbHKw6UkYvhXO1AAALAAAADorLjwBqUy1j8CrHtKZOzjPeUmMLYQ3XMGusEqr55Acc-ytgOkxl_cBUf2s1j36Jw38ZPHY_ofJ9thYEjAwMDAwMQ&meetingMasterEventId=8dTP3JiuSzqD32pYF8wsXQ

Previous Meetings

	Session
ConferenceCall 2026 05 13	Interoperability
ConferenceCall 2026 05 06	Interoperability
ConferenceCall 2026 04 29	Interoperability
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Next Meetings

	Session
ConferenceCall 2026 06 03	Cognition
ConferenceCall 2026 06 10	Education
ConferenceCall 2026 06 17	Synthesis
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