Barry Smith

Barry Smith is SUNY Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University at Buffalo, with joint appointments in the Departments of Biomedical Informatics, Neurology, and Computer Science and Engineering. He serves as Director of the National Center for Ontological Research and is also a Visiting Professor at the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Lugano.

Professor Smith is a pioneering contributor to both theoretical and applied research in ontology. His work has been instrumental in establishing Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), which has become the most commonly adopted top-level ontology development framework and was approved as an ISO standard (ISO/IEC:21838-2). His research has also led to the formation of the Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry, a suite of interoperable ontology modules designed to support information-driven research in biology and biomedicine. His methodology is now being applied across diverse domains including military intelligence and industrial engineering.

Smith's research interests span formal ontology, biomedical informatics, philosophy of language, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. His work focuses on developing rigorous ontological frameworks for representing reality across various domains, with particular emphasis on applications in healthcare, biology, and information systems. He has made significant contributions to understanding the nature of substances, accidents, and universals, as well as developing theories of granular partitions and mereotopology. His recent publications demonstrate a trend toward applying ontological frameworks to pressing real-world problems including pandemic response, artificial intelligence limitations, and spatial reasoning.

• Wolfgang Paul Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2002)
• Paolo Bozzi Prize in Ontology (2011)
• Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (FACMI) (2013)

As Director of the National Center for Ontological Research, Smith leads a multidisciplinary team focused on advancing ontological research and its applications across multiple domains. His work with Hernando de Soto on property and business rights among the poor in developing countries demonstrates the practical impact of his theoretical work. His research has been funded by major organizations including the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundations of the US, Switzerland and Austria, the Volkswagen Foundation, the European Union, and the US Department of Defense.