Robert Anthony Kowalski (born 15 May 1941) is an American-British

logician Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...

and

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (a ...

, whose research is concerned with developing both human-oriented models of computing and computational models of human thinking. He has spent most of his career in the United Kingdom.

Education

He was educated at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

University of Bridgeport The University of Bridgeport (UB) is a private university in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The university is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. In 2021, the university was purchased by Goodwin University; it retain its own ...

(BA in mathematics, 1963),

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

(MSc in mathematics, 1966),

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields of ...

and the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 1 ...

(PhD in

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 Applied science, practical discipli ...

, 1970).

Career

He was a

research fellow A research fellow is an academic research position at a university or a similar research institution, usually for academic staff or faculty members. A research fellow may act either as an independent investigator or under the supervision of a pr ...

at the

(1970–75) and has been at the

Department of Computing, Imperial College London The Department of Computing (DoC) is the computer science department at Imperial College London. The department has around 50 academic staff and 1000 students, with around 600 studying undergraduate courses, 200 PhD students, and 200 MSc students ...

since 1975, attaining a chair in Computational logic in 1982 and becoming Emeritus Professor in 1999. He began his research in the field of

automated theorem proving Automated theorem proving (also known as ATP or automated deduction) is a subfield of automated reasoning and mathematical logic dealing with proving mathematical theorems by computer programs. Automated reasoning over mathematical proof was a ...

, developing both SL-resolution with Donald Kuehner and the connection graph proof procedure. He developed SLD resolution and the procedural interpretation of

Horn clauses In mathematical logic and logic programming, a Horn clause is a logical formula of a particular rule-like form which gives it useful properties for use in logic programming, formal specification, and model theory. Horn clauses are named for the lo ...

, which underpin the operational semantics of

backward reasoning Backward chaining (or backward reasoning) is an inference method described colloquially as working backward from the goal. It is used in automated theorem provers, inference engines, proof assistants, and other artificial intelligence applications ...

logic programming Logic programming is a programming paradigm which is largely based on formal logic. Any program written in a logic programming language is a set of sentences in logical form, expressing facts and rules about some problem domain. Major logic pro ...

. With Maarten van Emden., he also developed the minimal model and the fixpoint semantics of Horn clauses, which underpin the logical semantics of logic programming. With Marek Sergot, he developed both the event calculus and the application of logic programming to legal reasoning. With Fariba Sadri, he developed an agent model in which beliefs are represented by logic programs and goals are represented by

integrity constraints Data integrity is the maintenance of, and the assurance of, data accuracy and consistency over its entire life-cycle and is a critical aspect to the design, implementation, and usage of any system that stores, processes, or retrieves data. The ter ...

. Kowalski was one of the developers of

Abductive Logic Programming Abductive logic programming (ALP) is a high-level knowledge-representation framework that can be used to solve problems declaratively based on abductive reasoning. It extends normal logic programming by allowing some predicates to be incompletel ...

, in which logic programs are augmented with integrity constraints and with undefined, abducible predicates. This work led to the demonstration with Phan Minh Dung and Francesca Toni that most logics for default reasoning can be regarded as special cases of assumption-based

argumentation Argumentation theory, or argumentation, is the interdisciplinary study of how conclusions can be supported or undermined by premises through logical reasoning. With historical origins in logic, dialectic, and rhetoric, argumentation theory, incl ...

. In his 1979 book, ''Logic for Problem Solving'', Kowalski argues that logical inference provides a simple and powerful model of problem solving that can be used by both humans and computers. In his 2011 book, ''Computational Logic and Human Thinking - How to be Artificially Intelligent'', he argues that the use of computational logic can help ordinary people to improve their natural language communication skills, and that in combination with decision theory it can be used to improve their practical problem solving abilities. More recently in joint work with Fariba Sadri, he has developed the logic and computer language LPS, (Logic Production Systems), which integrates much of his previous work on computational logic.

Honours and awards

Kowalski was elected a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence in 1991, of the European Co-ordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence in 1999, and the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

in 2001. In 2011, he received the

IJCAI Award for Research Excellence The IJCAI Award for Research Excellence is a biannual award before given at the IJCAI conference to researcher in artificial intelligence as a recognition of excellence of their career. Beginning in 2016, the conference is held annually and so is ...

, “for his contributions to logic for knowledge representation and problem solving, including his pioneering work on automated theorem proving and logic programming”. In 2012, he received the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Award for Eminent Scientists for 2012–2014. In 2021, he received the Inaugural CodeX Prize for his work with Fariba Sadri and Marek Sergot "in acknowledgment of their groundbreaking work on the application of logic programming to the formalization and analysis of the British Nationality Act. The authors’ seminal article, “The British Nationality Act as a Logic Program,” published in 1986 in the Communications of the ACM journal, is one of the first and best-known works in computational law, and one of the most widely cited papers in the field."

Books

* ''Logic for Problem Solving'', North Holland, Elsevier, 1979. * ''Computational Logic and Human Thinking: How to be Artificially Intelligent'', Cambridge University Press, 2011.

References

External links

Robert Kowalski's home page

Biography
(

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

)
Biographical Essay

Interview April 2020
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kowalski, Robert 1941 births Living people American emigrants to England British logicians British computer scientists Academics of Imperial College London People from Bridgeport, Connecticut University of Bridgeport alumni Stanford University alumni University of Chicago alumni University of Warsaw alumni Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Academics of the University of Edinburgh Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Formal methods people Logic programming researchers British philosophers American people of Polish descent