Philip W. Balsiger

Philip W. Balsiger was born in 1956. He studied German Literature and Philosophy at the Universities of Berne, Lausanne (both Switzerland) and Bonn (Germany). In 1990 he was awarded his PhD from the University of Berne, his habilitation thesis from University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in 2003, and was appointed in 2008 as Extraordinary Professor for Philosophy at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. Philip’s fields of interest are Philosophy of science, epistemology, and continental philosophy.

Richard Beecroft

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Birgit Benzing

Birgit Benzing is Research Assistant at the Center for Economics and Environment at Nürtingen-Geislingen University and is engaged in an applied research project on justice in nature conservation. After graduating with a degree in biology, she worked for several years in nature conservation as director of the Stiftung Artenschutz (Species Conservation Foundation). Birgit completed philosophy studies at Bielefeld University. Her thesis discusses the moral legitimation of zoological gardens. She gives lectures on project management at the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt and at the Academy for the Protection of Nature and Environment of Northrhine-Westphalia. Currently, she Her main research interests are environmental ethics and human-animal studies.

Adam Briggle

Adam Briggle is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies. He has an interdisciplinary PhD in Environmental Studies, with an emphasis on Science and Technology Policy from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Briggle spent three years as a post-doctoral fellow in the Philosophy Department at the University of Twente, the Netherlands. There, he worked on a team research project, "Evaluating the Cultural Quality of New Media," which assessed new media technologies and cultures with the use of theories of the good life. Briggle is currently working on two book projects. A Rich Bioethics: Public Policy, Biotechnology, and the Kass Council (University of Notre Dame Press) characterizes and defends a type of public bioethical inquiry that explicitly evaluates competing notions of human flourishing. Ethics and Science: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press) is a texbook designed to introduce college students in all disciplines to the ethical, social, and cultural dimensions of science.

Stephen Crowley

Stephen Crowley is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boise State University. He is a graduate of Indiana University (Bloomington) where he was part of a rich inter-disciplinary community (philosophers, computer scientists, psychologists, and biologists) working on issues in animal cognition. He was also a founding member of the Indiana University Philosophy Departments’ Empirical Epistemology Laboratory – a group focused on applying methods from the social sciences to issues within the theory of knowledge in particular as well as philosophy more generally. Since arriving at BSU, Stephen’s research has focused on the twin issues of providing a coherent intellectual framework for empirical philosophy, and developing an understanding of the barriers to and mechanisms for conducting inter-disciplinary collaborative research.

Sophia Efstathiou

Sophia Efstathiou is a Researcher in Philosophy at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), currently collaborating as an embedded humanist with a systems biology group. Her work in the history and philosophy of medicine explores the conditions and implications of creativity within interdisciplinary bioscientific cultures. Her PhD (UCSD 2009) offers an account of how everyday race concepts can become scientific concepts. Following a postdoc at Southampton University, Efstathiou is now exploring along with colleagues at NTNU a model for “crossover research” between humanists and scientists. Efstathiou has taught at UCSD, LSE and Southampton University. Her work has been awarded NSF and White scholarships.

Nicola Erny

Prof. Dr. Nicola Erny is currently Professor of Philosophy at the Department for the Social & Cultural Sciences and Philosophy of Technology of the University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt. After studying Philosophy, Ancient History, Italian Language and Literature at the University of Hamburg, she received a doctor´s degree in 1992. In 2003 she became a Privatdozent (Private Lecturer) at the Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf. Her research interests are Practical Philosophy/ Applied Ethics, Neurophilosophy, Philosophy of Pragmatism, Semiotics and Ancient Philosophy. Her publications include Theorie und System der Neuen Wissenschaft von Giambattista Vico. Eine Untersuchung zu Konzeption und Begründung (Würzburg 1994) and Konkrete Vernünftigkeit. Zur Konzeption einer pragmatistischen Ethik bei Charles S. Peirce (Tübingen 2005).

Uta Eser

Uta Eser is senior researcher at the Center for Economics and the Environment at Nürtingen-Geislingen University (NGU). Her particular interests are ethical questions which arise at the interface between science and society with regard to environmental problems. After her graduation in biology, she received post graduate education in the program “Ethics in the Sciences” at the International Center for Ethics in the Sciences at University of Tübingen. Uta’s PhD dissertation concerned philosophical as well as ecological aspects of one particular conservation problem: the treatment of invasive alien species. As a postdoc, she was visiting scholar at the Institute for Science and Technology Studies (IWT) in Bielefeld and in the HPS/STS Program at UC Davis with James Griesemer. There she did research on the value of (bio)diversity. She is an officer for Sustainable Development and engaged in several applied research projects by order of the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN).

Steve Fuller

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Robert Frodeman

Robert Frodeman is Professor of Philosophy and former Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of North Texas (UNT), where he specializes in environmental philosophy, the philosophy of science policy, and the philosophy of interdisciplinarity. He served as a consultant for the US Geological Survey for eight years, was the 2001-2002 Hennebach Professor of the Humanities at the Colorado School of Mines, and was an ESRC Fellow at Lancaster University in England in the spring of 2005. In addition to more than 60 published articles and $1.7mil in grants, Frodeman is the author of Geo-Logic: Breaking Ground between Philosophy and the Earth Sciences (2003), co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy (2008), general editor of the Oxford University Press Handbook of Interdisciplinarity (2010), and co-editor of Peer Review, Research Integrity, and the Governance of Science – Practice, Theory, and Current Discussions (2012). Robert is the founding director of the Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity at UNT.

Michael Hoffmann

Michael Hoffmann is Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy, Director of the Philosophy Program, and Director of the AGORA Project at the Georgia Tech. Dr. Hoffmann’s research interests are in the areas of argument visualization, theory of argumentation, diagrammatic reasoning and the cognitive role of external representations for learning processes, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking.

J. Britt Holbrook

J. Britt Holbrook is Assistant Director of the Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity. Holbrook’s work since 2005 has aimed to challenge the typical distinctions between research, teaching, and service according to which faculty members are judged. Instead, he has attempted to embody the spirit of his research and achieve excellence with impact. Holbrook's current research focuses on interdisciplinarity, peer review, and the relationship between science, technology, and society. He is especially interested in the future of scholarly research and communication and the incorporation of societal impacts considerations into the peer review process of publicly supported funding agencies (such as NSF’s Broader Impacts Criterion). Britt also has growing interest in China, which presents a very different policy context than the US and Europe. His most recent publications include: Peer Review, Research Integrity, and the Governance of Science – Practice, Theory, and Current Discussions, co-authored and edited with Robert Frodeman, Carl Mitcham, and Hong Xiaonan. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2012.

Machiel Keestra

Machiel Keestra studied philosophy and psychology in Amsterdam and Heidelberg. He was a staff member at the International School of Philosophy in the Netherlands and subsequently the General Studies department of the University of Amsterdam. He initiated and contributed to many courses and events on scientific, cultural and political subjects, while publishing on topics like the cultural history of mathematics, Aristotle’s philosophy of science and the philosophy of tragic action. The Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies (U Amsterdam) offered Machiel in 2005 a tenured position. He co-develops and teaches in the Natural & Social Sciences bachelor, Brain and Cognitive Sciences master, and Interdisciplinary Honours programs. His research now focuses on the philosophy of the cognitive sciences, currently finishing an interdisciplinary thesis: “Sculpting the space of actions: mechanisms and meanings, causes and contexts.” Machiel has been involved with the Association for Integrative [interdisciplinary] Studies as ‘International Liaison’ since 2008 and as a board member since 2011. June 2011 he was local co-organizer of the inaugural seminar of the International Network for Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity (INIT) and acts since then as convenor of the INIT steering group.

Wolfgang Krohn

Wolfgang Krohn is professor emeritus for science and technology studies at the University of Bielefeld. His main research interests encompass the origins of modern science and the philosophy of Francis Bacon, transdisciplinary research and real-world experiments, and the aesthetics of science and its relations to research in the arts.

Andrew Light

Andrew Light is a Senior Fellow and Director of International Climate Policy at the Center for American Progress (CAP) in Washington, D.C., a think tank with over 250 staff that has been closely tied to the Obama administration. He is also Associate Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy (IPPP) at George Mason University, and was responsible for moving IPPP to Mason from the University of Maryland where it was founded 30 years ago. In his policy career he is chief adviser on international environmental affairs to CAP’s chairman, John Podesta, and leads CAP's work on bilateral and multilateral climate and energy agreements, most recently with a focus on climate finance, and short-lived climate forcers. In this capacity he has authored dozens of columns and policy briefs, as well as ten major reports on climate diplomacy and global clean energy development. Andrew is a frequent adviser to the U.S. State Department, the Department of Energy, and the President’s National Security Council. In his academic career he has worked for almost twenty years at the intersection of environmental ethics and public policy, primarily on terrestrial restoration ecology and conservation biology. On these topics and others, he has written over 80 scholarly articles and authored, co-authored and edited 17 books including Environmental Pragmatism (1996), Technology and the Good Life? (2000), Moral and Political Reasoning in Environmental Practice (2003), Philosophy and Design (2008), and Environmental Values (2008). Andrew has formerly taught at the University of Montana, NYU, and the University of Washington in Seattle. He is the founding co-editor of the journal Ethics, Policy, and Environment, and he serves as co-chair of the ConnectUS Fund's International Climate Leaders Working Group.

Stephan Lingner

Stephan Lingner is the Deputy Director of "Europäische Akademie Bad Neuenahr- Ahrweiler GmbH" (a technology assessment establishment near Germany's former capital of Bonn). A geologist, geochemist and planetary scientist, he researches & publishes on lunar mineralogy, planetary exploration, systems analysis, technology assessment, interdisciplinary methodology, and environmental ethics. Dr. Lingner is the Editor-in Chief of Poiesis & Praxis: the International Journal of Ethics of Science and Technology Assessment (Springer). He is a member of the coordination team of the German-speaking Network Technology Assessment (NTA) and of the European Space Policy Research & Academic Network (ESPRAN, Vienna).

Zara Mirmalek

Zara Mirmalek (PhD, Communication and Science Studies, University of California San Diego) studies culture, technology, and work. Her research focuses on relationships among people, tools, and knowledge-making practices in organizations and culture-specific habits and values that inform the adoption, use, and misuse of work support technologies and membership identity. Mirmalek conducted one year of ethnographic fieldwork on National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Mars Exploration Rovers mission resulting in an analysis of the use of clock time to regulate human and robot work relationships. Her post-graduate research, conducted in the Program for Science, Technology, and Society, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, includes studies of human-machine relationships within commercial aviation, undersea exploration, and remotely piloted vehicles and of the intercultural nature of communication between humans and computers.

Michael O’Rourke

Michael O’Rourke is Professor of Philosophy at Michigan State University. His research interests include the nature of epistemic integration and communication in collaborative, cross-disciplinary research and the nature of linguistic communication between intelligent agents. He is Director of the Toolbox Project, an NSF-sponsored research initiative that investigates philosophical approaches to facilitating interdisciplinary research. He has published extensively on the topic of communication, in philosophy, interdisciplinary theory and practice, and robotic agent design. He has been a co-principal investigator and collaborator on several funded projects involving autonomous underwater vehicles. He co-founded and served as co-director of the Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference, an interdisciplinary conference on philosophical themes, and as co-editor of the Topics in Contemporary Philosophy series published by MIT Press.

Kathryn Plaisance

Kathryn Plaisance is an Assistant Professor in the Centre for Knowledge Integration, with a cross appointment to the Department of Philosophy, at the University of Waterloo in Canada. She completed a BSc in molecular biology and philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2000 and, after taking a year off to travel, went on to the University of Minnesota where she obtained an MA and PhD in philosophy, specializing in philosophy of science, in 2006. She also spent two and a half years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Ethics and Science in Hannover, Germany, before moving to Waterloo for her current position. Kathryn has two major areas of research. The first examines concepts, methods, and inferences in the human behavioral sciences, while the second reflects on the goals and approaches of philosophers of science, seeking to find ways to make philosophy of science more scientifically and socially engaged.

Anne Françoise Schmid

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Jan C. Schmidt

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Rene von Schomberg

Rene von Schomberg is an agricultural scientist and philosopher. He holds Ph.D's from the University of Twente (NL) (Science and Technology Studies) and J. W. Goethe University in Frankfurt (Philosophy). He has been a European Union Fellow at George Mason University, USA in 2007 and has been with the European Commission since 1998. Rene is author/co-editor of 12 books, most recently:-Towards Responsible Research and Innovation in the ICT and Security Technologies Fields (2011), Understanding Public Debate on Nanotechnologies. Options for Framing Public Policy, co-edited with Sarah Davies (2010), and Implementing the Precautionary Principle, Perspectives and Prospects, co-edited with E. Fisher and J. Jones, E.Elgar Publishers (2006).

David A. Stone

David A. Stone holds two interdisciplinary degrees from the University Professors Program at Boston University. His MA employed phenomenology to explore the interrelationships of law and psychiatry (forensic psychiatry). His PhD explored technology through hermeneutic phenomenology (Heidegger), sociology of work, organizational behavior, substantivist economics, economic history, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence, looking specifically at the limits and possibilities of expert systems. David has subsequently conducted research and taught at Boston University, Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, Tufts School of Medicine, and Sheffield University (UK). He has also served as director of the Fenway Community Health Center Research Department, the Harvard Violence Prevention Project, the Pediatric and Adolescent Health Research Center, and the South East European Research Centre (Greece). He has conducted research, published, and taught in over 7 disciplines. David is currently the Associate Vice President for Research at Northern Illinois University and serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Harvard-wide Center for the Study of Placebo and the Therapeutic Encounter. He is also Associate Professor in the College of Health and Human Sciences at Northern Illinois University.

Joerg Chet Tremmel

Joerg Chet Tremmel is a Professor of Intergenerationally Just Policies at the Eberhard Karls University Tuebingen, Germany. He holds two PhDs, one in Philosophy from the University of Duesseldorf, Germany (2008) and a second in Political Science from the University of Stuttgart (2005). He completed an MA in Political Science at Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-University of Frankfurt (2003) and an MBA in Economics at the European Business School, Oestrich-Winkel (1998). His Master’s thesis in political science "Sustainability as an analytical and political category" won the Proctor & Gamble Award for exceptional final theses in environmental science. Joerg’s most salient book in English is "A Theory of Intergenerational Justice" (London: Earthscan). He is also the editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal "Intergenerational Justice Review". Research interests include: Political Theory; Political Philosophy (esp. the problem of ‘Short-termism’ of political systems), Applied Ethics (esp. Generational Ethics and Climate Ethics; Epistemology.

Karsten Weber

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Kyle Whyte

Kyle Whyte is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Michigan State University and affiliated faculty for Peace and Justice Studies, Environmental Science and Policy, the Center for Regional Food Systems, and American Indian Studies. He is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Dr. Whyte writes on sustainability issues, especially environmental justice in relation to Indigenous peoples and public policy ethics, and the philosophy of technology. His articles have appeared in journals such as Synthese, Human Ecology, Journal of Global Ethics, American Journal of Bioethics, Journal of Agricultural & Environmental Ethics, Philosophy & Technology, Ethics, Place & Environment, Environmental Justice, and Continental Philosophy Review. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the Spencer Foundation. Kyle is a member of the American Philosophical Association Committee on Public Philosophy, Michigan Environmental Justice Work Group, Michigan Climate Coalition and organizing committee for the annual Growing Our Food System conference in Lansing, Michigan.