Invited speakers:

Associate Prof. Gerhard Lakemeyer
Aachen University of Technology, Germany
www-i5.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/gerhard

Biography:

Prof. Gerhard Lakemeyer is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and head of the knowledge-based systems group at the Department of Computer Science V , Aachen University of Technology, Germany. He is also affiliated with the information systems group. His research focuses on knowledge representation, cognitive robotics in artificial intelligence, and applying logics of action to the control of mobile robots and to requirements engineering. Dr. Lakemeyer is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence.

Prof. Stuart C. Shapiro
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
www.cse.buffalo.edu/~shapiro

Biography:

Stuart C. Shapiro is currently Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, and Affiliated Professor of Linguistics and of Philosophy at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, where he was Chair of the Department of Computer Science, the founding Chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and Director of the Center for Cognitive Science. Prof. Shapiro's research interests are in artificial intelligence, specifically, knowledge representation, reasoning, cognitive robotics and natural language processing. With various colleagues and students, he also did pioneering research in natural language help systems, natural language generation, SCRABBLE Crossword Game-playing programs, intelligent multi-modal interfaces, and assumption-based truth maintenance systems. He is the principal designer of the SNePS knowledge representation, reasoning, and acting system.

Prof. Shapiro is editor-in-chief of The Encyclopedia of Artificial Intelligence (John Wiley & Sons, First Edition, 1987, Second Edition, 1992), co-editor of Natural Language Processing and Knowledge Representation: Language for Knowledge and Knowledge for Language, (AAAI Press/The MIT Press, 2000), author of Techniques of Artificial Intelligence (D. Van Nostrand, 1979), LISP: An Interactive Approach (Computer Science Press, 1986), Common Lisp: An Interactive Approach (Computer Science Press, 1992), and author or coauthor of over 240 technical articles and reports. He has served on several National Research Council review panels, as a consultant on Artificial Intelligence for several companies, as department editor of the journal, Cognition and Brain Theory for Artificial Intelligence, has served on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Computational Linguistics, and the International Journal of Applied Software Technology (IJAST), on the Advisory Board of intelligence: New Visions of AI in Practice and as guest editor of special issues of Minds and Machines, and of the International Journal of Expert Systems.

Prof. Shapiro is a member of the the Association for Computational Linguistics, the Cognitive Science Society, and Sigma Xi, a Senior Member of the IEEE, an ACM Distinguished Scientist, and a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. He has served as Chair of ACM's Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence, and President of Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Incorporated. He is listed in Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the East, Who's Who in Science and Engineering, Who's Who in American Education, Who's Who in the Media and Communications, American Men and Women of Science, Contemporary Authors, Directory of American Scholars, Who's Who in Technology and Who's Who in Artificial Intelligence.
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Prof. Katia Sycara
Carnegie Mellon University
www.cs.cmu.edu/~sycara

Biography:

Katia Sycara is a Professor in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University and holds the Sixth Century Chair in Computing Science at the University of Aberdeen in the U.K. She is the Director of the Laboratory for Agents Technology and Semantic Web Technologies. She holds a B.S in Applied Mathematics from Brown University, M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin and PhD in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology. She holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the Aegean (2004). She is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and the recipient of the 2002 ACM/SIGART Agents Research Award. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of France Telecom.

Prof. Sycara has given numerous invited talks, and has authored or co-authored more than 350 technical papers dealing with Multiagent Systems, Agents Supporting Human Teams, Multi-Agent Learning, Sensor Networks, Web Services, the Semantic Web, Human-Robot Interaction, Negotiation, Dynamics of Large Scale Networked Systems and Games on Networks. Prof. Sycara has served as the program co-chair of the International conference on Service Oriented Computing and Applications (SOCASE 2007), program co-chair of the 6th IEEE/ACM conference on Intelligent Agent Technology (IAT 2006), program chair of the Second International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2003), general chair of the Second International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents 98), as the chair of the Steering Committee of the Agents Conference (1999-2001), as the Scholarship chair of AAAI (1993-1999) and as a member of the AAAI Executive Council (1996-99). She is a founding member and member of the Board of Directors of the International Foundation of Multiagent Systems (IFMAS); founding member of the Semantic Web Science Association. She is a founder of the journal "Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems", serving as Editor in Chief from 1998-2007, and on the editorial board of 7 other journals.
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Sam Wintermute
SOAR group, University of Michigan
www-personal.umich.edu/~swinterm

Biography:

Sam Wintermute is a graduate student researcher and PhD candidate of the Soar group at the Computer Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, United States. His research focusses are on representing and solving spatial problems in a general-purpose cognitive architecture. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering, Computer Engineering, Master of Science, Computer Science and Engineering both from University of Michigan. He has authored or co-authored numerous papers, including AAAI and CogSci papers dealing with cognitive architecture.