Faculty
John Licato
Associate Professor
ENB 301D | 813-974-6212
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Biography
John Licato is an associate professor in the Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing of the University of South Florida, founder/director of the Advancing Machine and Human Reasoning (AMHR) Lab, and owner of the startup company Actualization.AI. He earned a PhD in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2015, working under Professor Selmer Bringsjord and specializing in the computational modeling of analogical reasoning.
His research expertise lies in AI, NLP, human reasoning, cognitive modeling, and legal / regulatory reasoning, with over 100 peer-reviewed publications. He has been featured in outlets such as NPR's Marketplace Tech, ABC Action News, Spectrum News, and the Tampa Bay Business Journal.
Research Interests
Licato is an artificial intelligence and natural language processing researcher who is primarily interested in human-level reasoning, the kind of reasoning that people normally refer to as cognitive. This includes computational modeling of cognitive reasoning, natural language processing, cognitive science and robotics, computational cognitive architectures, automated theorem provers, artificially intelligent reasoners, argumentation, legal reasoning, and artificial reasoning with both formal and informal logics. He also explores analogical, deductive, argumentative, and hypothetico-deductive reasoning.
Teaching Interests
NLP, computational cognitive modeling, modeling human reasoning, automated theorem proving and logical reasoning with AI agents, legal reasoning
Education
PhD in Computer Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2015)
BS in Computer Science with Magna Cum Laude, University of South Alabama (2010)
Honors and Awards
- Global and National Security Institute Faculty Senior Fellow (2024)
- Air Force Research Lab Summer Faculty Fellow (2022,2023,2024)
- Science Central STEM Community Fellow (2016)
- Sigma Xi (IPFW Chapter) Researcher of the Year (2016)
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator's Program (YIP) award (2015,2017)
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Founders Award of Excellence (2012)