Ontologist, BFO/CCO & Knowledge Graphs (Remote)

BasisPath Inc; Herndon (VA); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Signing bonus

Relocation aid

Expense reimbursement

Health insurance

Profit sharing

Growth opportunities

Training

PTO

Job summary

BasisPath seeks an Ontologist to join our semantic technology team in support of enterprise knowledge representation, data integration, and AI-enabled initiatives.

The role involves designing, extending, and curating ontological models using BFO 2020 and CCO, enabling semantic interoperability and knowledge graph construction across multi-domain datasets. Hybrid or remote work options are available.

Qualifications

• Master’s or PhD in Philosophy, Computer Science, Information Science, Cognitive Science, or related field.
• 3+ years of experience in applied ontology development.
• Strong knowledge of BFO 2020.
• Familiarity with the CCO suite.
• Proficiency in OWL, RDF, Protégé, and ontology modeling tools.
• Demonstrated ability to design ontologies for mission-aligned use cases.
• Strong communication skills, particularly in explaining ontological concepts to non-experts.

Responsibilities

• Design and maintain formal ontologies using BFO-compliant structures and CCO.
• Extend ontological frameworks by modeling domain-specific content using realist ontology principles.
• Align and map external ontologies, taxonomies, and schemas to BFO and CCO structures.
• Collaborate with data engineers, knowledge graph architects, and subject matter experts to translate domain knowledge into ontological models.
• Develop OWL ontologies and SHACL constraints to enforce data validation and reasoning.
• Contribute to ontology documentation, naming conventions, and governance artifacts.
• Participate in cross-agency ontology working groups, providing input on alignment and best practices.
• Support use cases in AI/ML explainability, decision support, and automated reasoning.

Skills

Ontology development

BFO 2020

CCO

OWL/RDF/Protégé

Communication

Ontology modeling tools

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Master’s or PhD in a related field

Tools

Protégé

SPARQL

Job description

BasisPath seeks an Ontologist to join our semantic technology team in support of enterprise knowledge representation, data integration, and AI-enabled initiatives.

The role involves designing, extending, and curating ontological models using BFO 2020 and CCO, enabling semantic interoperability and knowledge graph construction across multi-domain datasets. Hybrid or remote work options are available.