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The University of Sussex

 09 January 2002 

Professor Margaret Boden awarded OBE

Professor Margaret Boden, an internationally respected authority in the field of artificial intelligence and cognitive science, has been awarded an OBE for services to cognitive science in the New Years Honours List.

Boden, who is Professor of Philosophy and Psychology in the School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences (COGS) at the University of Sussex, works on the philosophy and history of psychology and artificial intelligence, with a particular focus on the phenomena of purpose and creativity.

Her notable works include Artificial Intelligence and Natural Man, which became a set text for the Open University, and The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms, which has been translated into many languages worldwide.

"I use computational concepts to try and answer questions about how material creatures can have goals and intentions and how they can come up with creative ideas," she says.

Professor Boden gained a ScD in medical sciences and philosophy at Cambridge before going to Birmingham as an assistant lecturer in philosophy in 1959. She then went to Harvard on a Harkness Commonwealth Fund Fellowship from 1962 to 1964.

"I wanted to come to Sussex before I even left for Harvard," says Boden. "What attracted me to Sussex, and what has kept me here, was the interdisciplinary nature of the teaching and research."

She came to Sussex in 1965 and was one of the founders in the early 1970s of the Cognitive Studies programme, making Sussex the first university in the world to offer undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in this area. In 1980 Boden became a professor and she was made Dean of the School of Social Sciences (SOC) in 1985. Two years later she became the founding Dean of the new School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences.

Professor Boden became a Fellow of the British Academy in 1983 and is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In January 2001 she received an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Sussex.




 Notes for editors 

For further information, please contact Peter Simmons or Jacqui Bealing, University of Sussex, Tel. 01273 678888, Fax 01273 877456, Email P.J.Simmons@sussex.ac.uk or J.A.Bealing@sussex.ac.uk.

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