PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

William J. Rapaport

Also known as Bill Rapaport, William Joseph Rapaport

William J. Rapaport is CSE Eminent Professor Emeritus at the University at Buffalo, a post he has held since 2017, and his work joins artificial intelligence, knowledge representation and cognitive science with philosophy. After a mathematics degree at Rochester, he earned a philosophy doctorate at Indiana University in 1976 under Hector-Neri Castañeda and taught philosophy at SUNY Fredonia before joining Buffalo's computer science department in 1984. At Buffalo, he became Associate Director of the SNePS Research Group, published "The SNePS Family" with Stuart Shapiro in 1992, and directed a National Science Foundation project on contextual vocabulary acquisition from 2001 to 2003. In 2015, he won the American Philosophical Association's Barwise Prize and the Covey Award of the International Association for Computing and Philosophy, and in 2023 Wiley-Blackwell published his Philosophy of Computer Science.

Badges

Timeline

  1. 1968–1976

    Mathematics and a philosophy PhD

    He earns a B.A. in mathematics at the University of Rochester in 1968 and a Ph.D. in philosophy at Indiana University in 1976, with the dissertation Intentionality and the Structure of Existence directed by Hector-Neri Castañeda. As a graduate student at Indiana in 1972, he concocts the sentence "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo".

  2. 1976–1984

    Philosophy at SUNY Fredonia

    At SUNY College at Fredonia, he is an assistant professor of philosophy from 1976 and an associate professor from 1983. His early work on nonexistent objects, influenced by Alexius Meinong, includes the 1978 Noûs paper "Meinongian Theories and a Russellian Paradox".

  3. 1984–1988

    Computer science at Buffalo

    A 1984 M.S. in computer science at SUNY Buffalo, with the thesis Belief Representation and Quasi-Indicators directed by Stuart C. Shapiro, opens his move into the field. In the Department of Computer Science, he is a visiting assistant professor from 1984, an assistant professor from 1986, and an associate professor from 1988.

  4. 1984–1992

    The SNePS Research Group

    From 1984, he is Associate Director of the SNePS Research Group. SNePS is a knowledge representation, reasoning and acting system created by Stuart C. Shapiro, and in 1992 the two publish "The SNePS Family" in Computers & Mathematics with Applications.

  5. 2001–2003

    Contextual vocabulary acquisition project

    Buffalo's Contextual Vocabulary Acquisition project, "from algorithm to curriculum", studies how readers learn words from context, and he is one of its directors. The National Science Foundation supports the project under grant REC-0106338 from 2001 to 2003.

  6. 2006–2007

    Helen Keller and a Chinese Room

    In 2006, he publishes "How Helen Keller Used Syntactic Semantics to Escape from a Chinese Room" in Minds and Machines. In 2007, he coauthors "Metacognition in SNePS" with Stuart C. Shapiro and others in AI Magazine.

  7. 2015

    Barwise Prize and Covey Award

    In 2015, he receives the Barwise Prize from the American Philosophical Association's committee on philosophy and computers, along with the Covey Award from the International Association for Computing and Philosophy.

  8. Since 2017

    Eminent Professor Emeritus

    Retirement in 2012 as an associate professor leads in 2017 to the title of CSE Eminent Professor Emeritus in Buffalo's Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Wiley-Blackwell publishes his book Philosophy of Computer Science: An Introduction to the Issues and the Literature in 2023, and his listed specializations include artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computational linguistics and knowledge representation.

Career

  1. Since 1984University at Buffalo, State University of New YorkVisiting Assistant Professor, Assistant Professor
  2. 1976–1984State University of New York at FredoniaAssistant Professor of Philosophy, Associate Professor of Philosophy

Education

  1. 1984University at Buffalo, State University of New YorkM.S. in computer science
  2. 1976Indiana UniversityPh.D. in philosophy
  3. 1968University of RochesterB.A. in mathematics

From the biography.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes University at Buffalo, State University of New York. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes University at Buffalo, State University of New York. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  3. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes University at Buffalo, State University of New York. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.
  4. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes University at Buffalo, State University of New York. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. WILLIAM J. RAPAPORT: VITA cse.buffalo.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. William J. Rapaport - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Semantic Networks cse.buffalo.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Computational Contextual Vocabulary Acquisition cse.buffalo.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Rapaport receives APA’s Barwise Prize Award - UBNow: News and views for UB faculty and staff - University at Buffalo buffalo.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Covey Award 2015: William J. Rapaport - International Association for Computing and Philosophy iacap.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. UB CSE Department: William J. Rapaport cse.buffalo.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. PhiCS: Online Resources cse.buffalo.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. William J. Rapaport - Department of Philosophy - University at Buffalo buffalo.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.