Enrico Pontelli

 

ENRICO PONTELLI

Associate Professor, Dept. Computer Science, New Mexico State University

Contact information:
    E-mail: epontell AT cs DOT nmsu DOT edu
    Tel: (505) 646-6239
    Fax: (505) 646-1002
    Office: 163 New Science Hall
    Mailing Address: Box 30001/CS,
                                  Las Cruces, NM 88003

 

Logic Programming has been my main area of research interest since 1990 (when G. Rossi and E. Omodeo introduced me to the beauty of Prolog and declarative programming). Throughout the years I have explored LP and CLP in most of its aspects, from the semantical foundations, to sequential and parallel implementations, to applications in a variety of domains.

The Association of Logic Programming has played a pivotal role in the establishment of LP as a key programming paradigm. If elected to the ALP EC, I will work hard to further improve visibility of LP and expand participation to LP-related research and activities. I will offer my unconditional dedication and effort to the mission of ALP.

I have always demonstrated by commitment to LP and to the ALP-sponsored activities. I have founded a laboratory dedicated to research in logic programming (which now counts 3 faculty members and over 25 graduate students). I have played a significant role in the creation of the Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages Symposia series and in the CICLOPS workshop series. I have co-organized two summer schools on logic and constraint programming and I am the chair of the first Doctoral Consortium on logic programming (to be held during ICLP 2005). I am currently the Editor in Chief of the quarterly newsletter of the ALP. 

There are two areas that I believe are particularly important to the growth and evolution of ALP: student training and participation and interaction with other disciplines.

As a member of the ALP EC, I will investigate ways to promote participation of students to research in LP. Initiatives such as summer schools, doctoral consortia and explicit support to facilitate students' participation to conferences are vital to the growth and expansion of the field. I will explore avenues to facilitate these activities and further expand them, e.g.,

  •  promote the development and distribution of LP-related educational material
  •  investigate alternative ways to recognize and support doctoral students working in this area
  •  facilitate opportunities for young researchers to voice their ideas.

The other vital goals I will work actively to address are:

  •  the recognition of the diversity that exists in research about LP, and work towards ensuring that all research aspects are properly promoted and integrated
  •  improved interaction with other fields of computer science, through cooperative initiatives and promotion of innovative applications. Areas such as software engineering, semantic web, verification have already given us a taste of the potential of success of LP. New application areas for LP (e.g., human-computer interaction, computational biology) are arising and participation should be encouraged and supported. 

Brief Bio:

Enrico Pontelli received a Laurea in Computer Science from the University of Udine, a M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Houston, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from New Mexico State University.

Enrico Pontelli is currently an Associate Professor of Computer Science at New Mexico State University (Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA). He is the director of the Knowledge representation, Logic, and Advanced Programming (KLAP) Laboratory, a federally-funded laboratory dedicated to research on foundations, development, and pragmatics of logic and constraint programming and knowledge representation and reasoning. He is also the Associate Director of the Center of Research Excellence in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at New Mexico State University.

His research interests are in the areas of logic programming, constraint programming, parallel computing,  knowledge representation, bioinformatics, and assistive technologies. He has published over 100 papers in these areas. His research has been primarily funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health, and the Department of Education.

He has served as reviewer for various conferences and journals, served in proposal review panels. He is one of the co-founders of the CICLOPS series of workshops on implementation of logic and constraint logic programming systems, and he has served as committee member of various conferences.

For further details about research and activities, please view my complete CV.