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Renate Schmidt

Dr

 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6673-3333

Accepting PhD Students

Personal profile

My group

Research Group(s)

Overview

Renate Schmidt is University Reader in Computer Science, Head of Postgraduate Research and Leader of Formal Methods Research Group in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manchester. She served as Chair of the PGR Degrees Panel in the Faculty of Science and Engineering and was Member of the FSE Doctoral Academy Academic Leadership Team and the Faculty Graduate Committee (2021-2024). She is Associate Editor or Editorial Board Member of Artificial Intelligence Journal, Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Journal of Automated Reasoning and Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logic. She was PC (Co-)Chair of KR 2025 Recently Published Paper Track, IJCAR 2024, CADE-22, TABLEAUX 2017, FroCoS 2013. She is Vice-President of the Board of Trustees of CADE Incorporated (since 2020 and 2011-15). She serves on the Steering Committee of TABLEAUX and the Board of Trustees of the Britisch Logic Colloquium.
 
Her research involves the development of both theoretical results and implemented systems for knowledge representation, automated symbolic reasoning and formal methods. She has published widely in the areas of  automated reasoning , knowledge representation , ontology engineering , automated model building , multi-agent systems , non-classical logics , and relation algebras. What unites this broad range of topics is the need for solving decision problems , i.e., problems that can be solved in finite computation time and the development of practical automated reasoning methods. Significant contributions have been made on developing resolution and tableau decision procedures, tableau system synthesis, automated prover generation, forgetting/uniform interpolation and knowledge base extraction & processing. She is a co-author of a monograph on the topic "Second-Order Quantifier Elimination".
 
Her current research is driven by the aim to develop improved automated support for knowledge representation, ontology extraction, knowledge re-engineering, information hiding, abductive learning and query answering in the context of ontologies, modal logics, guarded fragments and first-order logic. 

Opportunities

Students interested in doing a PhD in areas related to ontology engineering, knowledge representation and reasoning, symbolic AI, automated reasoning, logic, logic-based multi-agent systems and any topics close to my research interests are welcome to contact me to discuss possible projects.

I am currently particularly interested in supervising projects on these topics:

  • Automated support for focussed sharing, distribution, tracking and learning of content of medical ontologies underpinning healthcare services
  • Query answering for expressive description logics
  • Advancement and application of second-order quantifier elimination
  • Technology for knowledge base extraction, sharing, reuse and comparison.

Anybody with a keen interest and background in (a subset of) ontologies, classical logic, description or modal logic, automated reasoning, knowledge representation and reasoning and symbolic AI will enjoy these projects. The research may be focussed on investigation of the theoretical underpinnings, it may be focussed on enhancing existing technologies developed in my group, develop new technology, or it may be application-oriented. Most likely the research will involve a combination of these.

Since every year PhD studentships are awarded on a first come first serve basis and the deadlines for the President's and Faculty awards are normally in December to February it is advisable to apply early in the academic year. Do refer to the PhD application pages on the FSE Doctoral Academy website and contact someone in the admissions team for the most up-to-date information about the application process.

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 13 - Climate Action

Education/Academic qualification

Doctor of Engineering, Optimised Modal Translation and Resolution, Universitat des Saarlandes

Award Date: 3 Nov 1997

Areas of expertise

  • QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
  • Automated Reasoning
  • Computional Logic
  • Knowledge Representation
  • Symbolic AI
  • Knowledge Base Extraction and Processing
  • Query Answering
  • Decidability Problems

Research Beacons, Institutes and Platforms

  • Digital Futures
  • Institute for Data Science and AI

Keywords

  • Computational Logic
  • Automated Reasoning
  • Knowledge-Based AI
  • Knowledge Representation
  • Deduction
  • Forgetting
  • Decidability Problems

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