Juan Pavón (born 19 November 1962) is a Spanish

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

, full professor of the

Complutense University of Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid (, UCM; ) is a public research university located in Madrid. Founded in Alcalá in 1293 (before relocating to Madrid in 1836), it is one of the oldest operating universities in the world, and one of Spain's ...

(UCM). He is a pioneer researcher in the field of

Software Agents In computer science, a software agent is a computer program that acts for a user or another program in a relationship of agency. The term ''agent'' is derived from the Latin ''agere'' (to do): an agreement to act on one's behalf. Such "action on ...

, co-creator of the FIPA MESSAGE and INGENIAS methodologies, and founder and director of the research group ''GRASIA: GRoup of Agent-based, Social and Interdisciplinary Applications'' at UCM. He is known for his work in the field of

Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

, specifically in

agent-oriented software engineering Agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE) is a software engineering paradigm that arose to apply best practice in the development of complex Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) by focusing on the use of agents, and organizations (communities) of agents a ...

. He has been often cited by mainstream media, as a reference in Artificial Intelligence.

Biography

Education

Pavón belongs to the first Spanish generation to get official studies in

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

, during the 1980s. He studied

at the

Technical University of Madrid The Technical University of Madrid or sometimes called Polytechnic University of Madrid (, UPM) is a public university, located in Madrid, Spain. It was founded in 1971 as the result of merging different Technical Schools of Engineering and Arc ...

, graduating in 1985. In 1988, he obtained his PhD in this area with the

thesis A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...

: "Synthesis of communication protocols from service specifications". While doing this thesis, he worked as assistant professor at the same university. After his PhD, he joined

Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel-Lucent S.A. () was a multinational telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, France. The company focused on Fixed line telephone, fixed, Mobile phone, mobile and telecommunications convergence, ...

R&D team, where he worked for 10 years. At the end of 1997 he got an

Associate Professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a position ...

position at UCM, and in 2006, he achieved the

Habilitation à diriger des recherches Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

qualification in Computer Science at the

Université Pierre et Marie Curie Pierre and Marie Curie University ( , UPMC), also known as Paris VI, was a public research university in Paris, France, from 1971 to 2017. The university was located on the Jussieu Campus in the Latin Quarter of the 5th arrondissement of Paris, ...

(Paris VI) with the thesis "INGENIAS : Développement Dirigé par Modèles des Systèmes Multi-Agents" (in French).

Career

He joined the Alcatel R&D department as a systems engineer. There, he worked on the development of software

component-based Component-based software engineering (CBSE), also called component-based development (CBD), is a style of software engineering that aims to construct a software system from components that are loosely-coupled and reusable. This emphasizes the sep ...

architectures for

distributed systems Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems, defined as computer systems whose inter-communicating components are located on different computer network, networked computers. The components of a distribu ...

, and its applications for multimedia services over

broadband networks In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide- bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Internet access. The transmission m ...

and new generation mobile phones. During the 10 years he worked for the company, he spent periods in Alcatel centers outside Spain, such as France (

Lannion Lannion ( ; ) is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France. It is a subprefecture of Côtes-d'Armor, the capital of Trégor and the center of an urban area of almost 60,000 inhabitants. Climate Lannion h ...

and Vélizy) and Belgium (

Namur Namur (; ; ) is a city and municipality in Wallonia, Belgium. It is the capital both of the province of Namur and of Wallonia, hosting the Parliament of Wallonia, the Government of Wallonia and its administration. Namur stands at the confl ...

and

Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

). In this period, he worked several years in the labs of

Bellcore iconectiv supplies communications providers with network planning and management services. The company’s cloud-based information as a service network and operations management and numbering solutions span trusted communications, digital identi ...

Red Bank, New Jersey Red Bank is a borough in Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Incorporated in 1908, the community is on the Navesink River, the area's original transportation route to the ocean and other ports. Red Bank is in the New York metro ...

(USA), working in the TINA-C Core Team, and helping to produce architectural models for telecommunication services. As a result, he published several popular works. He then returned to the academic world, as an

at the Computer Science School of the Complutense University of Madrid (1997). By then, he researched

Multi-Agent System A multi-agent system (MAS or "self-organized system") is a computerized system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents.H. Pan; M. Zahmatkesh; F. Rekabi-Bana; F. Arvin; J. HuT-STAR: Time-Optimal Swarm Trajectory Planning for Quadroto ...

s within the Eurescom project P815 "Communications Management Process Integration Using Software Agents" (1999) working with

Telefónica , S.A. () is a Spanish multinational telecommunications company with registered office and headquarters located in two different places, both in Madrid, Spain. It is one of the largest telephone operators and mobile network providers in the ...

R+D.Eurescom P815 "Communications Management Process Integration Using Software Agents"
His work in several projects combines

software engineering Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining Application software, software applications. It involves applying engineering design process, engineering principl ...

practices and MAS. In the Eurescom P907 "Methodology for Engineering Systems of Software Agents", he co-created the MESSAGE

methodology In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...

, currently part of the main FIPA software agent methodologies.Eurescom P907 "Methodology for Engineering Systems of Software Agents"
In 2000 he established the research group GRASIA for the research in

and

in the

. He also held several management positions in the university, serving as Vice Dean for four years (1998–2002). Nowadays, he is

full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a 'person who professes'. Professors ...

at the Universidad Complutense Madrid.

Work

Software Agents Research

Pavón work has focused on

and Agent-based simulation. His work on

started at the end of the 1990s, after they emerge as a new paradigm. His first project in the area was funded by Telefonica R+D, "Communications Management Process Integration Using Software Agents" (1999). Later he attracted funding for research projects from the 5th European Framework Programme (PSI3, DEMOS) and from Euroscom (P815, P907), all considered early applications of agents to software engineering processes. In the Eurescom P907 "Methodology for Engineering Systems of Software Agents", he co-created the MESSAGE

, currently part of the main FIPA software agent methodologies.

INGENIAS

His main contribution combining agent concepts in software engineering is the INGENIAS methodology and toolkit. INGENIAS (Engineering for Software Agents) is a complete

framework A framework is a generic term commonly referring to an essential supporting structure which other things are built on top of. Framework may refer to: Computing * Application framework, used to implement the structure of an application for an op ...

for the analysis, design and implementation of

multi-agent systems A multi-agent system (MAS or "self-organized system") is a computerized system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents.H. Pan; M. Zahmatkesh; F. Rekabi-Bana; F. Arvin; J. HuT-STAR: Time-Optimal Swarm Trajectory Planning for Quadroto ...

(MAS). As a result of the research in these years, Jorge J. Gómez-Sanz published in 2002 his PhD thesis "A Methodology for the Development of Multi-Agent Systems" (in Spanish) advised by Francisco Garijo and Juan Pavón. This work constitutes the first version of the INGENIAS methodology and its meta-models. INGENIAS adopts since its inception a

model-driven engineering Model-driven engineering (MDE) is a software development methodology that focuses on creating and exploiting domain models, which are conceptual model (computer science), conceptual models of all the topics related to a specific problem. Hence, i ...

(MDE) approach.

Model-driven engineering Model-driven engineering (MDE) is a software development methodology that focuses on creating and exploiting domain models, which are conceptual model (computer science), conceptual models of all the topics related to a specific problem. Hence, i ...

(MDE) organizes developments around the specification of systems through models that are automatically transformed to generate other artefacts, e.g., code, tests, or documentation. INGENIAS follows these principles specifying the MAS meta-models that define its

modeling language A modeling language is any artificial language that can be used to express data, information or knowledge or systems in a structure that is defined by a consistent set of rules. The rules are used for interpretation of the meaning of components in ...

and allow generating automatically its development tools distributed as the INGENIAS Development Kit (IDK). This approach supports research in different areas characterized by the use of modeling languages and requiring flexibility to adapt these to new requirements. Thus, it has been also used in Agent-based simulation. INGENIAS development process has been one of the few processes of agent-oriented

methodologies In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...

in having their development process formally specified with SPEM, a language of the Object Management Group ( OMG). Currently, there is one development process based on the Unified Process and another based on

Scrum Scrum may refer to: * Autozam Scrum, a microvan and pickup truck sold in Japan by Mazda * Line of scrimmage, line separating football teams before a play * Media scrum, an impromptu press conference, often held immediately outside an event such a ...

. The INGENIAS modeling language and the open-source tools for its application made it a popular methodology in the agent literature. It has been included in relevant surveys and comparisons in the field. The open-source INGENIAS associated tools are also successful in the agent community, as assessed by their number of downloads.

Agent-based social simulation

The level of maturity reached by the INGENIAS framework and related tools, mainly INGENME, in its application to Software Agents, allowed the GRASIA group to consider its application to other domains. Agent-based simulation has been one with an immediate application. As in

, agent-based simulation (ABS) relies on the concept of agent, in this case as the basic block to build computational simulations. The conceptual similarities between the concept of agent in both disciplines, and the suitability of models to work with simulations, made of agent-based simulation a sensible extension for INGENIAS work. This line of research started in GRASIA with a direct application of the works in INGENIAS with software agents to ABS for the PhD thesis of Candelaria Sansores "A Methodology for the Study of Artificial Societies" (2007), advised by Pavonl. This work pointed out the suitability of applying the MDE approach of INGENIAS to this field, but also the problems of researchers without a background on

Software Engineering Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining Application software, software applications. It involves applying engineering design process, engineering principl ...

to use INGENIAS. These first attempts were oriented to simulations intended to verify behavioral principles described by well-known laws, but not to explore simulations based on the use of big amounts of raw data. This

data-driven Data ( , ) are a collection of discrete or continuous value (semiotics), values that convey information, describing the quantity, qualitative property, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols t ...

agent-based social simulation Agent-based social simulation (or ABSS) consists of social simulations that are based on agent-based modeling, and implemented using artificial agent technologies. Agent-based social simulation is a scientific discipline concerned with simulation ...

was the subject of the interdisciplinary PhD thesis of Samer Hassan "Towards a Data Driven Approach for Agent Based Modelling: Simulating Spanish Postmodernization", also advised by Juan Pavón. The use of INGENIAS for ABS is based on the adoption of MDE to build simulations. This approach was developed and validated by GRASIA in different domains, e.g., urbanism and group work.

Other research and activity

He has achieved multiple agreements with relevant research groups: ICAR-CNR, SenSysCal.it, INSISOC, SMAC.ICAR-CNR research group
/ref>SenSysCal.it research group
/ref>INSISOC research group
/ref>SMAC research group
/ref> and industry such as Telefonica R+D or

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

Research and Technology Europe. His topics of interest cover several disciplines, including simulation of

complex system A complex system is a system composed of many components that may interact with one another. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication sy ...

s, agent-oriented software engineering, artificial intelligent applications,

Responsible Research and Innovation Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is a term used by the European Union's Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, Framework Programmes to describe scientific research and technological development processes that take ...

, Ethics in AI,

Smart Cities A smart city is an urban area that uses digital technology to collect data and operate services. Data is collected from citizens, devices, buildings, or cameras. Applications include traffic and transportation systems, power plants, utilities ...

Blockchain The blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of Record (computer science), records (''blocks'') that are securely linked together via Cryptographic hash function, cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of th ...

, Legal Tech and inclusion tech.

Scientific recognitions

Pavón joined the European research networks on

and Agent-based simulation, AgentLink and AgentCities,AgentCities
and has contributed to different international projects funded by the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

: VITAL,VITAL
/ref> MOMOCS,MOMOCS
PSI3, DEMOS, AGENTCITIES.NET, P2Pvalue. He has worked on more than 30 research projects, leading 20 of them, with public and private funding. He accounts more than 260 scientific publications, and an H-index of 34. He is a research consultant for dozens of committees and part of the editorial board of several journals in the field of computer science. He is member of the Spanish Association for Artificial Intelligence.,Asociación EsPañola de Inteligencia Artificial (AEPIA)
/ref> the European Social Simulation Association, the FIPA board, the

European Association for the Study of Science and Technology Science and technology studies (STS) or science, technology, and society is an interdisciplinary field that examines the creation, development, and consequences of science and technology in their historical, cultural, and social contexts. Histo ...

, the

IEEE Computer Society IEEE Computer Society (commonly known as the Computer Society or CS) is a technical society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) dedicated to computing, namely the major areas of hardware, software, standards and people ...

, and scientific project evaluator of the

. In 2006 he received an honorary PhD from the

(París 6). His research group GRASIA has achieved some recognition through several awards: * The AAMAS 2008 Best Academic Software Demo for INGENIAS. * Second prize in the contest Robotrader organized by the

2012. * Selection by the IEEE Special Technical Community on Social Networks as featured article in October 2012. * Best paper award in the 19th edition of the Semantic Search Workshop 2010 of the World Wide Web Conference.

Selected publications

Pavón is author of several books and more than 260 scientific articles on

and

. A selection of highly cited works are: * * * * *

References

External links

Juan Pavón personal page

GRASIA research group
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pavon, Juan 1962 births Living people Spanish computer scientists Formal methods people Artificial intelligence researchers Researchers in distributed computing Computer science writers Alcatel-Lucent Agent-based software Academic staff of the Complutense University of Madrid Polytechnic University of Madrid alumni Pierre and Marie Curie University alumni 20th-century Spanish scientists 21st-century Spanish scientists