Margaret Boden OBE FBA (born 26 November 1936) is a Research Professor of Cognitive Science in the Department of Informatics at the University of Sussex, where her work embraces the fields of artificial intelligence, psychology, philosophy, and cognitive and computer science.
Early life and education :
Boden was educated at the City of London School for Girls in the late 1940s and 1950s. At Newnham College, Cambridge, she took first class honours in medical sciences, achieving the highest score across all Natural Sciences. In 1957 she studied the history of modern philosophy at the Cambridge Language Research Unit run by Margaret Masterman.
Career :
Boden was appointed lecturer in philosophy at the University of Birmingham in 1959. She became a Harkness Fellow at Harvard University from 1962 to 1964, then returned to Birmingham for a year before moving to a lectureship in philosophy and psychology at Sussex University in 1965, where she was later appointed as Reader then Professor in 1980.She was awarded a PhD in social psychology (specialism: cognitive studies) by Harvard in 1968.
She credits reading "Plans and the Structure of Behavior" by George A. Miller with giving her the realisation that computer programming approaches could be applied to the whole of psychology.
Boden became Dean of the School of Social Sciences in 1985. Two years later she became the founding Dean of the University of Sussex's School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences (COGS), precursor of the university's current Department of Informatics. Since 1997 she has been a Research Professor of Cognitive Science in the Department of Informatics, where her work encompasses the fields of artificial intelligence, psychology, philosophy, and cognitive and computer science.
Boden became a Fellow of the British Academy in 1983 and served as its vice-president from 1989 to 1991. Boden is a member of the editorial board for The Rutherford Journal.
In 2001 Boden was appointed an OBE for her services in the field of cognitive science.The same year she was also awarded an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Sussex.She also received an honorary degree from the University of Bristol.A PhD Scholarship that is awarded annually by the Department of Informatics at the University of Sussex was named in her honor.