Professor honoured with two awards for outstanding contributions to AI
A renowned professor in artificial intelligence has been recognised with two prestigious awards for his contributions to AI research and his service to international academic communities.
Professor Anthony Cohn, of the School of Computer Science, was given the 2024 Distinguished Service Award by the European Association for Artificial Intelligence (EurAI), celebrating his four decades of work in AI, particularly in qualitative spatial reasoning (QSR), robotics, cognitive vision, and ontology-based decision support systems.
Often regarded as one of the founders of QSR, Professor Cohn has played a pivotal role in advancing AI applications, including their use in the built environment. In addition to his research contributions, Professor Cohn has dedicated himself to the European AI community since the 1980s. His leadership roles include serving as Treasurer and Chairman of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB), as well as holding multiple positions within EurAI, including its presidency from 1990 to 1992.
Furthermore, the Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR Inc), a US-based scientific foundation, presented Professor Cohn with its 2024 Distinguished Service Award. This honour – only the second of its kind – acknowledges his sustained impact on the field of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR&R).
As a Professor of Automated Reasoning at the Leeds, Professor Cohn has significantly shaped the KR&R community through his leadership roles, including serving as President of KR Inc, and as a driving force behind the global prominence of the KR conference.
These add to Professor Cohn’s other career accolades, including two other Distinguished Service Awards, fellowships with the Royal Academy of Engineering, the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, and the British Computer Society. He continues to serve the global academic community in various capacities, including as Chair of the AAAI Publications Committee and the BCS Awards Committee.
