I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at Bielefeld University on the "Integrating Ethics and Epistemology of Scientific Research" GRK. My research project is on the role of values in the explication and operationalization of concepts in social science and medicine. My work touches on topics such as: the role of social and political values in science, public trust in science, conceptual engineering for scientific research, and citizen- or community-based participatory research.
My dissertation addressed why robustness in science has both more functions and more limitations than philosophers of science and scientists have recognized. I addressed questions such as: How does the epistemic context of a research project affect the type and practice of robustness analysis (i.e., searching for robustness between a result and set of models)? How and why do researchers fail to triangulate on some result? What characterization of a construct is required to successfully triangulate on that construct with multiple methods? My analysis focused on case studies from recent developments in network neuroscience and implicit social cognition, in which I argued robustness reasoning plays important roles.
Another area of my research is in feminist philosophy broadly construed. I research the demographics of philosophy and causes of the underrepresentation of women and minority groups across various disciplines. With my many co-authors, I have researched possible factors for women's and Black students' underrepresentation in philosophy. Additionally, some of my co-authors and I have proposed a causal framework for testing claims about intersectionality, which would be able to test claims about intersectionality of these factors or about the experiences of Black women in philosophy, were the appropriate data sets available.
Much of my work in feminist philosophy and the demographics of philosophy ties into recommendations and interventions in the philosophy classroom. I bring this expertise to my teaching and mentoring through the Pittsburgh Summer Program in Philosophy of Science (see more on my inclusive pedagogy page). Beyond the classroom, I have also organized a number of diversity initiatives; for example, I organized the development of a list of underrepresented philosophers of neuroscience due to a series of conferences and workshops that invited few women and people of color, which you can find here.
I completed my PhD in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. At Pitt, I was a student member of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, an interdisciplinary neural and cognitive science center with both the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. I was also a member of the Pittsburgh Empirical Philosophy Lab. Before attending Pitt, I completed my Master's in Philosophy at Georgia State University with an emphasis in Neurophilosophy. While there, I received the Brains & Behavior Fellowship. Prior to Georgia State, I completed my Bachelor's in Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.
My dissertation addressed why robustness in science has both more functions and more limitations than philosophers of science and scientists have recognized. I addressed questions such as: How does the epistemic context of a research project affect the type and practice of robustness analysis (i.e., searching for robustness between a result and set of models)? How and why do researchers fail to triangulate on some result? What characterization of a construct is required to successfully triangulate on that construct with multiple methods? My analysis focused on case studies from recent developments in network neuroscience and implicit social cognition, in which I argued robustness reasoning plays important roles.
Another area of my research is in feminist philosophy broadly construed. I research the demographics of philosophy and causes of the underrepresentation of women and minority groups across various disciplines. With my many co-authors, I have researched possible factors for women's and Black students' underrepresentation in philosophy. Additionally, some of my co-authors and I have proposed a causal framework for testing claims about intersectionality, which would be able to test claims about intersectionality of these factors or about the experiences of Black women in philosophy, were the appropriate data sets available.
Much of my work in feminist philosophy and the demographics of philosophy ties into recommendations and interventions in the philosophy classroom. I bring this expertise to my teaching and mentoring through the Pittsburgh Summer Program in Philosophy of Science (see more on my inclusive pedagogy page). Beyond the classroom, I have also organized a number of diversity initiatives; for example, I organized the development of a list of underrepresented philosophers of neuroscience due to a series of conferences and workshops that invited few women and people of color, which you can find here.
I completed my PhD in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. At Pitt, I was a student member of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, an interdisciplinary neural and cognitive science center with both the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. I was also a member of the Pittsburgh Empirical Philosophy Lab. Before attending Pitt, I completed my Master's in Philosophy at Georgia State University with an emphasis in Neurophilosophy. While there, I received the Brains & Behavior Fellowship. Prior to Georgia State, I completed my Bachelor's in Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.
News
- The website for my conference on the Development and Structure of Concepts in the Life Sciences (co-organized with Philipp Haueis and Marie Kaiser) can be found here: https://lifescienceconcepts.weebly.com/
- Find my report here on members of the PSA Women's Caucus's views on future inclusive directions for the caucus.
- My brief article in the Science Visions Newsletter (of the Philosophy of Science Association's Women's Caucus) on "Underrepresentation in Philosophy of Science and What We Can Do About It" is now published here: https://mms.philsci.org/msg_detail.php?mid=84353117
- Eric Schwitzgebel, Eric Winsberg, and I are analyzing data about the demographics of students intending to major in philosophy as of their first year at a U.S. university. Find a summary of our findings for the representation of non-heterosexual (e.g., queer, gay, bisexual) students here: http://dailynous.com/2020/05/15/sexual-orientation-first-year-philosophy-undergrads/