Category: Allgemein

The International Association for Computing and Philosophy’s executive board has selected Associate Professor Corey Maley, for the 2023 Herbert A. Simon Award for Outstanding Research in Computing and Philosophy, which specifically recognizes scholars at an early stage of their academic career whose research is likely to reshape debates at the nexus of Computing and Philosophy.

Corey is an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at Purdue University. He is interested in understanding what, precisely, computation is. To that end, he is currently working on a theory of computation that is broad enough to incorporate distinct types of computation as species (i.e., both digital and analog) in both artifacts and natural systems (i.e., engineered systems and neural systems). At the same time, this theory needs to be narrow enough to avoid making everything computational, or making computation a mere matter of perspective. Finally, this theory should make clear what the various types of computation have in common such that they are all of the same genera, yet distinct enough to count as separate species of that genera. Much of this project has been informed by Corey’s research into analog computation, which is not (as is commonly thought) essentially about continuity. Revealing the differences between analog and digital computation, as well as their similarities, has illuminated what aspects of computation are specific only to digital computation, and not necessary features of computation in general.

Before Purdue, Corey was a faculty member at the University of Kansas. As an undergraduate at the University of Nebraska, he received a B.S. in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Psychology, and a B.A. in Philosophy. After spending a couple of years in a cognitive neuroscience lab at Washington University in St. Louis, he went to graduate school at Princeton University, where he received a Ph.D. through the Logic and Philosophy of Science track in the Department of Philosophy.

Dr. Maley will present the Simon Award Keynote Address at IACAP 2024 conference in Eugene, Oregon, 8-10 July 2024.

Please join us at IACAP 2024 to congratulate Dr. Corey Maley on this well-deserved award.

The International Association for Computing and Philosophy’s Executive Board has selected Johannes Lenhard for the 2024 Covey Award recognizing senior scholars with a substantial record of innovative research in the field of computing and philosophy broadly conceived. The board recognised Professor Lenhard’s significant contribution to our field over several decades.

Johannes Lenhard holds the Heisenberg-Professorship “Philosophy in Science and Engineering” at Rhineland-Palatinate Technical University, Kaiserslautern, Germany, starting in 4/2024. He received his doctoral degree in mathematics from the University of Frankfurt (1998), long before he wrote his habilitation thesis in philosophy at Bielefeld University (2012). How does using a computer change the methodology and epistemology of the sciences? How does computational modeling transform the use of mathematical tools? Lenhard’s research aims at tackling these questions in a way that speaks to philosophers, historians, and scientists alike. He articulates this aim in: “Calculated Surprises. A Philosophy of Computer Simulation”, New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. In May 2024, just in time for the IACAP 2024 conference, his book “Cultures of Prediction. How Engineering and Science Evolve with Mathematical Tools”, coauthored with Ann Johnson (1965-2016), will be published by MIT Press.

Professor Lenhard will present the Covey Award Keynote Address at IACAP 2024 conference in Eugene, Oregon, 8-10 July 2024. For more information see https://www.iacap.org/iacap-2024-call-for-abstracts-and-symposia-proposals-university-of-oregon/

Please join us at IACAP 2024 to congratulate Prof. Lenhard on this well-deserved award.

The International Association for Computing and Philosophy’s executive board has selected Dr. Kathleen Creel for the 2023 Herbert A. Simon Award for Outstanding Research in Computing and Philosophy, which specifically recognizes scholars at an early stage of their academic career whose research is likely to reshape debates at the nexus of Computing and Philosophy.

Dr. Creel is an assistant professor at Northeastern University, cross appointed between the Department of Philosophy and the Khoury College of Computer Sciences. Her research explores the moral, political, and epistemic implications of machine learning as it is used in non-state automated decision making and in science. A current project focuses on defining, measuring, and ethically evaluating algorithm-derived outcome homogeneity, namely the extent to which monoculture among decision-making systems causes individuals to receive the same outcomes from multiple decision-makers. In other work, she has developed definitions of transparency for complex computational systems, argued that algorithmic arbitrariness is wrong at scale, and contended that ethically setting decision thresholds in medical settings requires the consideration of individual patient values. 

Before Northeastern, she recieved her BA from Williams College in Computer Science and Philosophy. After working as a software engineer at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, she received her MA from Simon Fraser University’s Philosophy Department and her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh’s History and Philosophy of Science Department. Most recently, she was the Embedded Ethics postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. Dr. Creel will present the Simon Award Keynote Address at IACAP 2023 in Prague, 3-5 July 2023.

Please join us at IACAP 2023 to congratulate Dr. Creel on this well-deserved award. More information regarding the conference can be found here: https://www.iacap.org/iacap-2023-prague-czech-republic/

The International Association for Computing and Philosophy’s Executive Board has selected Oron Shagrir for the 2023 Covey Award recognizing senior scholars with a substantial record of innovative research in the field of computing and philosophy broadly conceived. The board recognised Professor Shagrir’s significant contribution to our field over several decades; in particular, his contribution to theories of computation.

Oron Shagrir is the Schulman Chair in Philosophy, professor of philosophy and cognitive and brain sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He graduated in mathematics and computer science from the Hebrew University, and received his PhD in philosophy and cognitive science from the University of California, San Diego. He was a visiting fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, and an Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. He has served the academic community in many different roles, and currently, since 2017, he is the vice president for international affairs of the Hebrew University. He was an associate editor of Cognitive Science and served on the editorial boards of several journals and book series. Professor Shagrir’s current research focuses on the nature of computation and representation, the role of computational approaches in cognitive and brain sciences, and the history of computability. He is the author of The Nature of Physical Computation (Oxford University Press, 2022), the editor, with Jack Copeland and Carl Posy, of Computability: Turing, Gödel, Church, and Beyond (MIT 2013), and the author of numerous papers on computation and the mind.

Professor Oron Shagrir will present the Covey Award Keynote Address at IACAP 2023 conference in Prague, 3-5 July 2023. For more information see https://www.iacap.org/iacap-2023-prague-czech-republic/.

Please join us at IACAP 2023 to congratulate Prof. Shagrir on this well-deserved award.