Presenters

• Nir Oren, Nadin Kökciyan and Isabel Sassoon

About the Tutorial

Computational Argumentation is an emerging area of research in the domain of Artificial Intelligence. Computational Argumentation provides a mechanism to reason with uncertain and at times incomplete information and a way of explaining the resulting outcome of the reasoning process. Computational Argumentation can be used to enhance the interaction of humans with Intelligent Agent Based Systems.

The main aim of this tutorial is to provide an initial foundation in the concepts underlying computational argumentation and its relevance and potential applications in the context of Human-agent interaction (HAI).

Attendees will gain exposure to the field of computational argumentation with an emphasis on those aspects of the domain that are more readily applicable to Human-Agent Interaction context.

Everybody is welcome to attend this tutorial, which will provide introductory information about computational argumentation, which can be a mechanism to enable collaboration between humans and agents.

About the Tutors

Simon Parsons

Simon is a Professor of Computer Science in the Department of Informatics at King's College London and Vice-Dean for Technology. He received his PhD from University of London in 1993, and held academic positions at Queen Mary and Westfield College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, City University of New York and University of Liverpool before joining King’s. Simon’s research interests center on autonomous systems, in particular coordination and decision-making, and he has published over 300 papers and written or edited 11 books on these topics. He is co-Editor of Knowledge Engineering Review, and an Editorial Board member for Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-AgentSystems and Argument Computation.

Elizabeth Sklar

Elizabeth is a Professor of Robotics, and the Head of the Centre for Robotics Research (CoRe) in the Department of Informatics at King’s College London. She received her PhD from Brandeis University (US) in 2000, and subsequently has held academic positions at Columbia University (US), City University of New York (US) and University of Liverpool (UK). She is a former US-UK Fulbright Scholar (2013-14). Prof Sklar's research interests include human/multi-robot interaction, data-backed decision making and behaviour mining. While in the US, her work was largely funded by the National Science Foundation. She has published over 150 papers in refereed journals, conferences and workshops and has edited two books. She is a founding chair of RoboCupJunior, on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems and on the Board of Directors for the International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multi-agent Systems. Elizabeth has 20 years experience teaching in higher education. She has previously given Tutorials in 4 international conferences, including AAMAS and AAAI.

Nir Oren

Nir is a Reader in Computer Science and head of Computing Science at the University of Aberdeen. He has held academic positions at King's College London and the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). Nir's research interests revolve around practical reasoning and explanation of behaviour in multi-agent systems, and he has published over 150 papers on topics such as argumentation, normative reasoning and trust. He is a co-founder of the bi-annual International Workshop on the Theory and Application of Formal Argumentation and the International Competition on Computational Models of Argumentation.

Nadin Kökciyan

Nadin is a Research Associate in the Department of Informatics at King's College London. Her research interests include ontology engineering, multi-agent systems, and privacy in social software. Her current focus is on making use of argumentation for making and explaining decisions in the context of healthcare. Nadin received a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Bogazici University. Nadin was a tutor in Computational Argumentation in the Context of Human-Agent Interaction which was held at Human-Agent Interaction conference 2018.

Isabel Sassoon

Isabel is a Research Associate in the Department of Informatics at King's College London. Her research interests are in the field of clinical decision support specifically related to data science and argumentation. Prior to joining King's College London Isabel worked for more than 10 years as a data science consultant in industry, including 8 years in SAS. Isabel read Statistics, Operations Research and Economics at Tel Aviv University and received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from King's College London. Isabel is Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Josh Murphy

Josh is a Lecturer of Computer Science Education in the Department of Informatics at King's College London. His research interests lay in the area of computational argument-based persuasion. Josh is currently finalising his Ph.D., under the supervision of Dr. Elizabeth Black and Prof. Michael Luck, in which his thesis considers the performance of strategic decision making in dialogue-based argumentation