Cliff Joslyn (born 1963) is an American mathematician, cognitive scientist, and cybernetician. He is the Chief Knowledge Scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

, and visiting professor of systems science at

Binghamton University The State University of New York at Binghamton (Binghamton University or SUNY Binghamton) is a public university, public research university in Binghamton metropolitan area, Greater Binghamton, New York, United States. It is one of the four uni ...

Biography

Cliff Joslyn studied at

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational lib ...

and received a BA in

Cognitive Science Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...

and

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

, with High Honors in

Cybernetics Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with ...

, in 1985. In 1987, he continued at the

State University of New York The State University of New York (SUNY ) is a system of Public education, public colleges and universities in the New York (state), State of New York. It is one of the List of largest universities and university networks by enrollment, larges ...

at Binghamton studying under George Klir. In 1989, he received an MS, and in 1994, received a Ph.D, both in systems science, including the thesis "Possibilistic Processes for Complex Systems Modeling". In 1991, Joslyn was awarded the Sir Geoffrey Vickers' Award for Best Student Paper from the International Society for the Systems Sciences. In 1997 he received the Distinguished Performance Award: A Large Team Award for IRS Fraud Detection Projects, Los Alamos National Laboratory. From 1994 to 1996, he was an NRC Research Associate at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. From 1996 to 2007 he was staff member and team leader at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he led the Knowledge and Information Systems Science research team in the Modeling, Algorithms and Informatics (CCS-3) Group of the Computer, Computational, and Statistical Sciences Division. Since 2007 he is Chief Scientist for Knowledge Sciences,Cliff Joslyn at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Accessed May 23, 2015. and from 2021-2023 was the Team Leader for Mathematics of Data Science, at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in

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. In 2022, Joslyn took a position as a visiting professor of Systems Science in the Systems Science and Industrial Engineering department at

Work

Joslyn's research interests extend from "order theoretical approaches to knowledge discovery and database analysis to include computational semiotics, qualitative modeling, and generalized information theory, with applications in computational biology, infrastructure protection, homeland defense, intelligence analysis, and defense transformation".

Principia Cybernetica

Principia Cybernetica is an international organization in the field of

cybernetics Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with ...

and systems science focused on the collaborative development of a "computer-supported evolutionary-systemic

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

in the context of the transdisciplinary academic fields of Systems Science and Cybernetics". The organisation was initiated in 1989 by Joslyn, Valentin Turchin of the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a Public university, public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York ...

, and Francis Heylighen from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. These three scientists managed the project and worked together in an editorial board, which manages the collection, selection and development of the material, and the implementation of the computer system.

Knowledge and Information Systems Science

At Los Alamos Joslyn and his Knowledge and Information Systems Science team performed scientific research in " computational methods for the extraction, representation, organization, synthesis, discovery, and retrieval of knowledge in databases and information systems. They especially emphasize methods for representing semantic information, and hybrid methodologies combining statistical, numerical, and quantitative with symbolic, logical, and qualitative techniques".Knowledge and Information Systems Science Team
. Accessed May 29, 2009. A primary application area is

computational biology Computational biology refers to the use of techniques in computer science, data analysis, mathematical modeling and Computer simulation, computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer sci ...

, and thus they had a close working relationship with the Computational Biology and Bioinformatics team. Other application areas include homeland defense, critical infrastructure protection, intelligence analysis, decision support environments, risk and reliability analysis, and defense transformation.

Publications

Joslyn has published numerous papers, articles and book chapters. A selection:Cliff Joslyn
List of publications from the DBLP Bibliography Server. Accessed May 29, 2009. * 1994. ''Possibilistic Processes for Complex Systems Modeling''. PhD Dissertation, SUNY-Binghamton, Systems Science. * 1995. ''The Quantum of Evolution: Towards a Theory of Meta-System Transitions''. With Francis Heylighen, and Valentin Turchin eds. Gordon and Breach.

References

External links

Cliff Joslyn
personal page {{DEFAULTSORT:Joslyn, Cliff 1963 births Cyberneticists Living people American systems scientists Complex systems scientists