Maria Keet

Dr. C. Maria Keet (PhD, MSc, MA, BSc(hons)) is an Associate Professor with the Department of Computer Science, University of Cape Town. She focuses on knowledge engineering and conceptual data modelling, which has resulted in around 150 peer-reviewed publications at venues including FOIS, KR, EKAW, ESWC, ER, CIKM, Applied Ontology, Data and Knowledge Engineering, and the Journal of Biomedical Informatics. She is PI on a NRF-funded project on a natural language generation for Nguni languages, and was PI on an DST/MINCyT-funded bi-lateral project with Argentina on ontology-driven conceptual modelling, among others. She was involved in several EU-funded projects, and has reviewed for many journals and international conferences and workshops. She is an NRF-rated researcher. She also wrote an award-winning textbook on ontology engineering.
Before her employment at UCT, Maria was Senior lecturer at the School of Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and before that, an Assistant Professor at the KRDB Research Centre, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy. She obtained a PhD in Computer Science at the KRDB Research Centre in 2008, following a BSc(honours) 1st class in IT & Computing from the Open University UK in 2004, and 3.5 years work experience as systems engineer in the IT industry. In addition to computer science, she obtained an MSc in Food Science (Microbiology) from Wageningen University and Research Centre, the Netherlands, in 1998, and an MA 1st class in Peace & Development Studies from the University of Limerick, Ireland, in 2003.