Short Bio of Yoshinobu Kitamura

Yoshinobu Kitamura is a professor, College of Information Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, Japan. He received his Bachelor, Master and Doctoral degrees of Engineering in 1991, 1993 and 2000 from Osaka University, Osaka Japan, respectively. He had worked in the Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research (ISIR), Osaka University, as a technical official (1993-1994). a research associate (1994-2003) and then an associate professor (2003-2015). He has been working in Ritsumeikan University as a full professor since 2015. He had done visiting research as a senior research fellow at Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands (2002) and as an visiting associate professor at Stanford University, CA, U.S.A. (2007-2008).

His research interest includes ontology-based modeling of artifacts, engineering knowledge management, and conceptual design support. He has been active in the engineering knowledge research field since 1995, developing a strongly interdisciplinary approach that combines together Ontological Engineering in Artificial Intelligence in Computer Science and Engineering Design (in addition, Philosophy recently). He has published 44 journal papers and 62 papers in international conferences/workshops (reviewed). He has regularly presented papers and talks in the major conferences in the Engineering Design field such as ICED and ASME/IDETC and the Ontological Engineering field such as FOIS.

His best-successful result is an ontology-based modeling framework of functionality of artifact. The functional ontologies for representing functions have been established and knowledge management systems based on the ontologies have been developed. One of those systems has been successfully deployed in industry and engineers have gotten many practical benefits including efficient design review, speed-up of patent writing, solving difficult manufacturing problems and good redesign by describing functional knowledge based on the ontological framework and by sharing it.

He has/had served as follows in the research community:

ASME Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering (JCISE), Associate Editor (2009.12 - 2012.12)
JSME Journal of Advanced Mechanical Design, Systems, and Manufacturing (JAMDSM), Editor (2012.6 - 2016.3)

Journal of Applied Ontology, IOS Press, Editorial Board Member (2015-)
International Journal of Advanced Engineering Informatics (ADVEI), Elsevier, Editorial Board Member (2008-)

A Special Issue of International Journal of Advanced Engineering Informatics on Modeling, Extraction, and Transformation of Semantics in Computer Aided Engineering Systemsn , Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 1-92, Guest editor (2011-2013)

The 21st International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 17) , Scientific Committee Member
The 16th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2017) Doctoral Consortium, PC Member
The 9th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS 2016), PC Member
The Seventh International Conference on Design Computing and Cognition (DCC'16)Advisory Board member.
The 15th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2016) Local Orgnizing Comittee Vice-Chair
The 15th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2016) Doctoral Consortium, PC Member
The 20th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 15) (PC Member)
The 6th International Conference on Design Computing and Cognition (DCC '14) (Advisory Board member)
The 3rd Joint International Semantic Technology Conference (JIST 2014) (PC Member)
The 10th International Symposium on Tools and Methods of Competitive Engineering (TMCE 2014) (International review panel member)
The 19th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 13) (PC Member)
The 3rd Joint International Semantic Technology Conference (JIST 2013) (PC Member)
The 2nd Joint International Semantic Technology Conference (JIST2012) (Local Organizing Chair)
The 7th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS 2012) (PC Member)
Fifth International Conference on Design Computing and Cognition (DCC'12) (PC Member)
The 4th CIRP Conference on Industrial Product Service Systems (CIRP IPS2 2012) (Organizing committee member)
The 1st Joint International Semantic Technology Conference (JIST2011) (PC Member)
The 19th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2010) (PC Member)
The 17th International Conference on Concurrent Engineering (CE 2010) (PC Member)
The 4th Asian Semantic Web Conference (ASWC2009) (PC Member)

The 3rd Asian Semantic Web Conference (ASWC2008) (PC Member)

The First International Workshop on Semantic Web and Web 2.0 in Architectural, Product and Engineering Design, 2007(Organizing Committee member)

The 1st Asian Semantic Web Conference (ASWC2006) (PC member)
The Sixth International Symposium on Tools and Methods of Competitive Engineering (TMCE 2006) (PC member)
Canadian Semantic Web Working Symposium 2006 (PC member)
2006 IEEE International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration (IEEE-IRI 06) (PC member)
The 5th International Seminar and Workshop Engineering Design in Integrated Product Development (EDIProD 2006) (PC member)