computer science
OPENS DOORS
Senior Lecturer
| Room | Owheo Building, Room G.30 |
| Phone | +64 3 479 5735 |
| willem@cs.otago.ac.nz |
Adviser of Studies for Computer Science
Director of the Diploma for Graduates Programme
I'm extremely interested in logic and artificial intelligence. Both fields are about the design of agents that can plan and act effectively in their environment. How should such agents reason? How should an agent, when given new information, change his/her/its beliefs? How does the way information is represented influence the way it is used? The buzzwords describing the research areas in which I read, think, and write are 'nonmonotonic logic' and 'belief change theory'.
My teaching areas at undergraduate level are tangentially related to my research: algorithms, Turing machines, formal languages, denotational semantics. My imaginary Aunt Maud and I enjoy teaching COSC242, our data structures paper.
In addition to teaching and research, I am the chief adviser for Computer Science, and the Director of the Diploma for Graduates Programme. Exploring the options that students have, and working out sensible pathways for them, gives me a lot of satisfaction. My role in the DipGrad Programme requires me to work more closely with the administrative staff of the University than most academics might, and I have been impressed by their uniformly positive and helpful attitude. I think the University of Otago is a great place to work.
Selected Publications
Britz, Heidema & Labuschagne (2009): Semantics for dual preferential entailment. Journal of Philosophical Logic 38(4):433--446.
van Ditmarsch & Labuschagne (2007): My beliefs about your beliefs: A case study in theory of mind and epistemic logic. Synthese 155(2):191--209.
Meyer, Heidema, Labuschagne & Leenen (2002): Systematic withdrawal. Journal of Philosophical Logic 31(5):415--443.
Meyer, Labuschagne & Heidema (2000): Infobase change: A first approximation. Journal of Logic, Language, and Information 9:353--377.
Meyer, Labuschagne & Heidema (2000): Refined epistemic entrenchment. Journal of Logic, Language, and Information 9:237--259.
