KASABOV, Nikola K(irilov) 1948-

PERSONAL: Born August 12, 1948, in Svistov, Bulgaria; son of Kiril (a veterinarian) and Kapka (a teacher; maiden name, Mankova) Kasabov; married Diana Atanassova, October 3, 1971; children: Kapka, Assia (daughters). Ethnicity: "Bulgarian." Education: Technical University of Sofia, M.C., 1971, M.C., 1972, Ph.D., 1975. Religion: Christian. Hobbies and other interests: Playing the accordion, painting.

ADDRESSES: Home—47C Nihil Cres., Auckland, New Zealand. Office—Knowledge Engineering and Discovery Research Institute, Auckland University of Technology, Ronald Trotter House, Level 4, 581-585 Great South Rd., Penrose, Auckland, New Zealand; fax: +64-9-917-8501. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Technical University of Sofia, Sofia, Bulgaria, began as lecturer, became senior lecturer, 1976-87, associate professor of computer science and director of International Graduate School in Artificial Intelligence, 1988-91; University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, senior lecturer, 1992-95, associate professor, 1995-99, professor of information science, 1999-2002, director of Knowledge Engineering Laboratory, 1994-2002; Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand, professor and chair of knowledge engineering and director of Knowledge Engineering and Discovery Research Institute, 2002—. University of Essex, senior lecturer, 1990-91. Asia-Pacific Neural Network Assembly, member of governing board, 1993—, president, 1997-98; leader of international conferences; holder of fifteen patents in the United States, England, France, Russia, and Bulgaria.

MEMBER: Royal Society of New Zealand (fellow), New Zealand Computer Society (fellow), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (senior member).

AWARDS, HONORS: Award for high achievement in patent work, Institute of Inventions, Sofia, Bulgaria, 1991; best paper award, European Meeting of Cybernetics and System Research, 1998; Silver Medal for contribution to science and technology, Royal Society of New Zealand, 2001.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) 1993 First New Zealand International Two-Stream Conference on Artificial Neural Networks and Expert Systems, November 24-26, 1993, Dunedin, New Zealand: Proceedings, IEEE Computer Society Press (Washington, DC), 1993.

(Coeditor) 1995 Second New Zealand International Two-Stream Conference on Artificial Neural Networks and Expert Systems, November 20-23, 1995, Dunedin, New Zealand: Proceedings, IEEE Computer Society Press (Washington, DC), 1995.

(With R. Romanski) Computing, Technika (Sofia, Bulgaria), 1995.

Foundations of Neural Networks, Fuzzy Systems, and Knowledge Engineering, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1996.

(Editor, with S. Amari) Brain-Line Computing and Intelligent Systems, Springer Verlag (Singapore, China), 1997.

(Editor, with R. Kozma, and contributor) Neuro-Fuzzy Techniques for Intelligent Systems, Physica-Verlag (Heidelberg, Germany), 1998.

(Editor and contributor) Future Directions for Intelligent Systems and Information Sciences: The Future of Speech and Image Technologies, Brain Computers, WWW, and Bioinformatics, Physica-Verlag (Heidelberg, Germany), 2000.

Evolving Connectionist Systems: Methods and Applications in Bioinformatics, Brain Study, and Intelligent Machines, Springer Verlag (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor to scientific books, including Fuzzy Systems in Medicine, edited by P. S. Szczepaniak, P. J. G. Lisboa, and J. Kacprzyk, Physica-Verlag (Heidelberg, Germany), 2000; Neuro-Fuzzy Pattern Recognition, edited by H. Bunke and A. Kandel, World Scientific Publishing (River Edge, NJ), 2000; and Handbook of Brain Study and Neural Networks, edited by M. Arbib, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2002. Contributor of about eighty articles to periodicals, including International Journal of Control and Cybernetics, Fuzzy Sets and Systems, Neural Networks, Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence, Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems, Neurocomputing, AI in Medicine, European Journal of Operation Research, and Genome Letters. Member of editorial board of five international journals.

SIDELIGHTS: Nikola K. Kasabov once told CA: "I have been teaching graduate courses in neural networks, fuzzy systems, intelligent systems, and knowledge engineering for about twenty years. I find it fascinating to have an opportunity to pass my experience to other people, along with my latest research results. I produce advanced textbooks, which represent both 'classic' material and new research opportunities in artificial intelligence. My research focuses on contemporary issues in intelligent information systems that could inspire new researchers to join the field."