Robert David Stevens (born 1965) is a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

of bio-health informatics. and former Head of Department of Computer Science at The

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univ ...

Education

Stevens gained his

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree in

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

from the

University of Bristol , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

in 1986, a

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast t ...

degree in bioinformatics in 1991 and a

DPhil A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

in 1996, both from the University of York.

Career and research

Stevens current research interests are the construction of biological

ontologies In computer science and information science, an ontology encompasses a representation, formal naming, and definition of the categories, properties, and relations between the concepts, data, and entities that substantiate one, many, or all domains ...

, such as the

Gene Ontology The Gene Ontology (GO) is a major bioinformatics initiative to unify the representation of gene and gene product attributes across all species. More specifically, the project aims to: 1) maintain and develop its controlled vocabulary of gene and ge ...

, and the reconciliation of semantic heterogeneity in bioinformatics. This research has been funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

. Stevens has been

Principal investigator In many countries, the term principal investigator (PI) refers to the holder of an independent grant and the lead researcher for the grant project, usually in the sciences, such as a laboratory study or a clinical trial. The phrase is also often us ...

for a range of research projects including Ondex, ComparaGrid, SWAT (Semantic Web Authoring Tool) and the Ontogenesis Network. Stevens served as Program Chair and co-organiser for the International Conference on Biomedical Ontology (ICBO) 2012 and co-founded the UK Ontology Network. He has also participated in the Health care and Life Sciences Interest Group (HCLSIG) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Stevens is currently on the editorial board of the

Journal of Biomedical Semantics The ''Journal of Biomedical Semantics'' is a peer-reviewed open-access scientific journal that covers biomedical semantics. History It was established in 2010 and is published by BioMed Central. The editors-in-chief are Dietrich Rebholz-Schuhma ...

. Stevens started as a lecturer, then became a senior lecturer,

Reader A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to: Computing and technology * Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader * Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application * A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ...

and became a Professor in August 2013. Stevens has taught on several undergraduate and postgraduate courses on software engineering, databases, bioinformatics and runs introductory and advanced courses on the

Web Ontology Language The Web Ontology Language (OWL) is a family of knowledge representation languages for authoring ontologies. Ontologies are a formal way to describe taxonomies and classification networks, essentially defining the structure of knowledge for vario ...

. He has been the main doctoral advisor to five successful PhD students} and co-supervised several others. Since July 2016 he has served as Head of Department of Computer Science at The University of Manchester.

References

, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Stevens, Robert David Alumni of the University of York Alumni of the University of Bristol Academics of the University of Manchester People associated with the Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester Living people 1965 births