Giancarlo Guizzardi

Giancarlo Guizzardi (born 22 April 1975 in Vitoria, Brazil) is a Brazilian–Italian computer scientist specializing in conceptual modeling, enterprise modeling, applied ontology and ontology-driven information systems. He is a professor at the University of Twente, in The Netherlands, and a senior researcher and founding member of the Ontology & Conceptual Modeling Research Group (NEMO) in Vitoria, Brazil.

Work
He is a strong advocate of an approach to Conceptual Modeling known as Ontology-Driven Conceptual Modeling (ODCM). ODCM proposes that, since Conceptual Modeling is about representing conceptualizations of reality to support human understanding communication and problem-solving, it must rely on foundations that take formal ontology in philosophy, cognitive science, philosophical logics and linguistic seriously.

He defended his PhD thesis in 2005 in the University of Twente (with the highest distinction). His thesis, entitled Ontological Foundations for Structural Conceptual Models, lays the foundation of what came to be known as the Unified Foundational Ontology and the OntoUML language.