Department News

Recent News

  • BFO and CCO adopted as 'baseline standards' by federal agencies
    3/4/24
    Under the leadership of Barry Smith, on-going research by UB ontologists has resulted in the development of Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), an international standard top-level ontology that provides the common starting point for 100s of ontology initiatives throughout the world. Here in Buffalo, BFO has been extended to form the Common Core Ontologies (CCO), which is a family of mid-level ontologies used especially in military and security domains. BFO and CCO allow information to be effectively combined, retrieved and analyzed. In January of this year, the Chief Data Officers in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the DOD, and, the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office defined BFO and CCO as the baseline standards for ontology work in the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community.
  • Alexandra Oprea's research on compulsory voting published by Cambridge UP
    3/8/24
    Alexandria Oprea's research, published online by Cambridge University Press, strengthens the normative case for compulsory voting by arguing that it could improve democracy by reducing polarization, which existing work suggests can lead to democratic backsliding. Read the news story by Bert Gambini.

Spotlight

SPRING 2024: The American Philosophical Association (APA) has awarded a grant to David Emmanuel Gray for the Mentor Observation Program. Over the next two years (2024 to 2025) Dr. Gray will participate in the APA's Mentor Observation Program with Jack Musselman (Associate Professor of Philosophy, St. Edward's University) for the American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT). The program abstract is here.

  • PPE student initiative helps make BUFFALO SOUP a recurring event
    2/5/24
    PHI 485, Integrating PPE, is a course that challenges students to find a way to concretely make a social improvement, and then do it. One team accomplished that with BUFFALO SOUP. Their professor, Dr. David Gray, designed the philosophy course. He states, “I am really proud of our PPE students who continue working on their capstone project from Spring 2023, transforming Buffalo Soup into a regular Buffalo institution that is now bringing in partners from other colleges at UB.” BUFFALO SOUP is now apart of a micro-funding group. Read news story by David J. Hill.
  • PHI 485 inspires student initiative: UB Homework Helpers
    1/20/23
    Motivated by grim state data identifying significant educational deficiencies, UB’s Homework Helpers is trying to make a difference for Buffalo public school students who need extra help with their studies.  Founded by five students in spring 2021, UB Homework Helpers is a volunteer-run organization providing free virtual tutoring — from reading to math and beyond — to K-12 students in the Buffalo Public Schools. It is currently managed by four of the five original founders: Julia Dietz, Evan Forti Hong, Gubaz Giorgadze and Shanaz Uddin, all current or former UB political science students. The idea took form in the PHI 485 classroom of David Gray. The course is part of the Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) program designed to help students develop an interdisciplinary toolkit for approaching social and political problems.
  • PHI 485 students deliver new areas for reading at Buffalo City Mission
    7/10/23
    When the student team in the PPE course, PHI 485, identified a need for places to read inside the Buffalo City Mission, they proceeded to develop three areas, and built bookshelves for over 1,000 donated books for the residents. Their capstone project is the subject of an article by Charles Anzalone, UB News.
  • PHI 485 students aim to make the world a better place, Spring 23 Edition
    4/27/23
    David Gray's course, PHI 485 Integrating PPE, challenges students to find a way to concretely make a social improvement, and then do it. For the Spring 2023 Edition, students organized into three teams: Team Traffic Cones is collecting items that will populate a reading room in the women’s shelter at the Buffalo City Mission; Team Gift of Thrift is collecting lightly used items from students’ dorms as the inventory for pop-up sales, with proceeds going to charity; and, Team Buffalo Soup is orchestrating a crowdfunding event to raise support for local non-profit organizations. Read news story by Bert Gambini.

Selected News Highlights

  • Does (mis)communication mitigate the upshot of diversity?
    3/27/23
    PLOS ONE has published to the Creative Commons a research article examining the question, Does (mis)communication mitigate the upshot of diversity? Co-authored by Ryan Muldoon, the study examines diversity’s potential across different structures of cooperation. According to Muldoon, “When we work in groups, communication is crucial. Sometimes we randomly make a communication error, but sometimes miscommunication stems from the group diversity. When miscommunication occurs, it is how we’ve organized ourselves that matters.” He observes that it’s the internal structure that makes a difference when introducing miscommunication. Read the news release by Bert Gambini.
  • UB Philosophy PhD Leo Zaibert appointed to Hirsch Professorship in Cambridge University
    7/11/22
    The UB Department of Philosophy is pleased to announce that Leo Zaibert, one of our most successful PhD students, has been elected to the Hirsch Professorship of Penal Theory and Ethics in Cambridge University, effective September 1 2022. Zaibert’s dissertation, which he completed in 1997 under the joint supervision of UB professors James B. Brady and Barry Smith, is on the topic of “Intentionality and blame: A study on the foundations of culpability” and won the UB Philosophy Department Perry Prize. Zaibert is the author of over 100 publications, including books, edited books and dozens of peer-reviewed articles.