Keynote Speakers

We are happy to announce the keynote speakers at ESTC2007:

Prof. Frank van Harmelen is a professor in Knowledge Representation & Reasoning in the AI department (Faculty of Science) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. After studying mathematics and computer science in Amsterdam, he moved to the Department of AI in Edinburgh, where he was awarded a PhD in 1989 for his research on meta-level reasoning. While in Edinburgh, he worked with Dr. Peter Jackson on Socrates, a logic-based toolkit for expert systems, and with Prof. Alan Bundy on proof planning for inductive theorem proving. After his PhD research, he moved back toAmsterdamwhere he worked from 1990 to 1995 in the SWI Department under Prof. Wielinga. He was involved in the REFLECT project on the use of reflection in expert systems, and in the KADS project, where he contributed to the development of the (ML)², language for formally specifying Knowledge-Based Systems. In 1995 he joined the AI research group at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where he was appointed professor in 2002, and is leading the Knowledge Representation and Reasoning Group.

His current interests include: Approximate reasoning, Semantic Web and Medical Protocols. He has published three books (on meta-level inference, on knowledge-based systems, and on the Semantic Web) and over 100 research papers.

Dr. Mark Greaves is Senior Research Program Manager at Vulcan, Inc., the private investment vehicle for Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft). At Vulcan, he is sponsoring advanced research in large knowledge bases and advanced web technologies, including Project Halo). Formally, he was Program Manager in DARPA's Information Exploitation Office (IXO) for the DAML, UltraLog, and Advanced Logistics Projects. At DARPA, he sponsored research on logistics and supply chain control technologies, formal ontology specification, Semantic Web technology, and the application of software agent technology to problems of distributed control of complex systems-of-systems. Prior to coming to DARPA, he led advanced programs in software agent technology at the Mathematics and Computing Technology group of Boeing's Phantom Works division. His main research interests are in mathematical logic, Semantic Web, and software agent technology, about which he has published two books and over 20 papers.  Dr. Greaves holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Ora Lassila is a Research Fellow at the Nokia Research Center Cambridge. He has been an elected member of the Advisory Board of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) since 1998, and represented Nokia in the W3C Advisory Committee in 1998-2002. In 1996-1997 he was a Visiting Scientist at MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, working with W3C and launching the Resource Description Framework (RDF) standard; he served as a co-editor of the RDF Model and Syntax specification.

His current research work focuses on the Semantic Web and particularly its applications to mobile and ubiquitous computing. He collaborates with several US universities, and was an active participant in the DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) program.

His previous positions include Project Manager at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University and Research Scientist at the CS Laboratory of Helsinki University of Technology. He has also worked as a software engineer in several companies (including his own start-up). He is the author of more than 80 conference papers and journal articles.

Dave Pearson is  a  Senior Director in Oracle Corporation He has a global role as a spokesperson on Grid and SOA and is actively involved in the development of Grid standards. He co-chairs the Global Grid Forum working group on Database Access and Integration (DAIS) and is a member of the Enterprise Grid Alliance European steering committee. He has worked for Oracle UK for 18 years. As a consultant he carried out assignments in all industry sectors before heading technical and architectural consulting practices in the UK, and in Oracle's EMEA Division. Prior to joining Oracle he worked in the oil industry developing data integration and visualization applications to support exploration and production processes.

Dr. Susie Stephens joined Eli Lilly in early 2007 as a Principal Research Scientist for open innovation. Her role is to identify and foster external collaborations that complement Lilly's research and business priorities in integrative informatics and tailored therapeutics. Previously, Dr. Stephens worked at Oracle where she led the development of the company's core infrastructure to enhance its capabilities for the life sciences industry. As such, she was heavily involved in providing support for RDF and OWL within the Oracle Database. Dr Stephens is chair of W3C's Semantic Web Education and Outreach Interest Group, and coordinates the BioRDF activity within the W3C Health Care and Life Sciences Interest Group.

Prof. Benjamin Grosof is Assistant Professor in Information Technology (IT) at MIT Sloan School of Management. His research is to create and study knowledge-based IT for e-commerce applications. He focuses especially on the technologies, business applications, and strategies for Semantic Web Services (SWS), the convergence of Semantic Web and Web Services. SWS is the next major generation of the Web, in which e-services and business communication become more knowledge-based and agent-based. The pioneer of inter-operable XML business rules, he co-leads the RuleML emerging industry standards effort. He interacts extensively with industry, including consulting in areas related to his research and standards activities.