Maria Keet

Maria Keet (PhD, MSc, MA, BSc(hons)) is an Associate Professor with the Department of Computer Science, University of Cape Town. Her research focuses on logic-based knowledge representation for ontologies and Ontology, and their interaction with conceptual data modelling and natural language, which has resulted in over 90 peer-reviewed publications at venues including K-CAP, KR, FOIS, EKAW, ESWC, ER, CIKM, Applied Ontology, and Data and Knowledge Engineering, including several best paper awards. She was PI on a NRF-funded project on a knowledge-driven grammar engine for Nguni languages, and on an DST/MINCyT-funded bi-lateral project with Argentina on ontology-driven conceptual modelling, among others. She was involved in the EU FET FP6 TONES, EU IRSES FP7 Net2, and EU FP7 e-Lico projects involving ontology research, and coordinated the development of the WONDER system for ontology-based data access to biological data. She has served in over 25 Program Committees of international workshops and conferences and reviewed for international journals, has been local organiser of FOIS'18 and ISAO'18, and is/has been PC co-chair for, among others, EKAW'20 and the ESWC'14 track on ontologies. She has served as chair of the Technical Committee on education of the IAOA and is currently member of the IAOA executive committee. She has taught courses on ontology engineering and related topics since 2009.

Before her employment at UCT, Maria was Senior lecturer at the School of Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and before that, a non-tenured Assistant Professor at the KRDB Research Centre, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy. She obtained a PhD in Computer Science at the KRDB Research Centre in 2008, following a BSc(honours) 1st class in IT & Computing from the Open University UK in 2004, and 3.5 years work experience as systems engineer in the IT industry with its vocational training (MSCE, ASE, ITIL). In addition to computer science, she obtained an MSc in Food Science (Microbiology) from Wageningen University and Research Centre, the Netherlands, in 1998, and an MA 1st class in Peace & Development Studies from the University of Limerick, Ireland, in 2003.

For more details, see http://www.meteck.org