Margaret Boden

Margaret Boden, OBE, is research professor of cognitive science at the University of Sussex and was founding dean of the university’s School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences (COGS), a pioneering interdisciplinary center for research into intelligence – in humans, other animals, and machines. Boden’s background, research and writing are, as one might expect, interdisciplinary as well; she is trained in medical science, philosophy and psychology. Her honors include membership in a number of prestigious scientific and scholarly bodies, including the British Academy, the Academia Europaea, the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, and she is past Chair of Council of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

Boden has lectured to audiences across Europe, Asia and the Americas, and the interdisciplinary quality of her work has drawn interest from practicing artists, students of the humanities, and scientists from a number of disciplines. Her work has been translated into twenty languages, and her many books on a variety of topics include Computer Models of Mind (1988), Dimensions of Creativity (1994) and The Philosophy of Artificial Life (1996). Her two-volume Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science, was published in 2006 by Oxford University Press. It spans all the disciplines involved in cognitive science, stressing their inter-relations.