Ian Horrocks facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Ian Horrocks
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Ian Horrocks
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| Born |
Ian Robert Horrocks
11 March 1958 |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | University of Manchester (BSc, MSc, PhD) |
| Known for |
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| Awards | BCS Lovelace Medal (2020). Roger Needham Award (2005) |
| Scientific career | |
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| Thesis | Optimising tableaux decision procedures for description logics (1997) |
Ian Robert Horrocks is a brilliant professor of computer science at the University of Oxford in the UK. He is also a Fellow at Oriel College, Oxford. His main work is about how computers can understand and use information. This field is called knowledge representation and reasoning. He focuses on special computer languages like "ontology languages" and "description logic." These languages help computers think and make smart decisions.
Where He Studied
Ian Horrocks went to the University of Manchester. He earned three different degrees there. First, he got his Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree. Then, he completed his Master of Science (MSc) degree. Finally, he earned his PhD from the Computer Science Department.
His Work and Discoveries
After teaching for several years at the University of Manchester, Professor Horrocks moved to the University of Oxford in 2008. His early work helped create many computer systems used today. These systems help computers understand complex information. Some of them are called Racer, FaCT++, HermiT, and Pellet.
Professor Horrocks also helped create important computer languages. These include the OIL and DAML+OIL languages. He played a big part in developing the Web Ontology Language (OWL). These languages and tools are used by many important groups. This includes the United Nations (UN) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Many big companies and government groups also use his work. His research gets some funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
From 2012 to 2022, Professor Horrocks was the main editor for the Journal of Web Semantics. Later, he and other editors started a new journal. It is called Transactions on Graph Data and Knowledge. He also helped organize big computer science conferences. He was the program chair for the first International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC) in 2002. He was also the general chair for ISWC in 2010.
Awards and Special Honors
In 2020, Ian Horrocks received the BCS Lovelace Medal. This award honored his important contributions to computer systems that can "reason" or think.
He was also chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2011. This is a very high honor for scientists. In 2005, he won the Roger Needham Award from the British Computer Society (BCS).
Starting a New Company
In 2017, Professor Horrocks helped start a company called Oxford Semantic Technologies Limited. He created it with two of his colleagues. Their names are Bernardo Cuenca Grau and Boris Motik. This company uses the research from the university to create new technologies.
