Robert (Bob) Allen is developing a model-oriented approach to information organization that applies aspects of cognitive science, linguistics, and software engineering to rich semantic descriptions in areas such as eScience and digital humanities. His previous work has ranged from recommender systems to neural networks. Bob studied at Reed College and got his doctorate in experimental psychology at UCSD. He joined the Research organization at Bell Laboratories to participate in their work on the “office of the future”. He then joined the Bellcore Applied Research group in information science and digital libraries. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the ACM Transactions on Information Systems for 10 years and later Chair of the ACM Publications Board. From 1998 to 2018 he was a faculty member at a number of universities around the world such as Maryland, Drexel, Victoria (NZ), Tsukuba (Japan), and Yonsei (Korea).