Background and activities
My research interests combine philosophy of science, research ethics and art. I have a joint honours masters degree in Math and Physics (Warwick, 2000), an MA in Philosophy (UC San Diego, 2006) and a PhD in Philosophy and Science Studies (UC San Diego, 2009). The PhD discusses the The use of race as a variable in biomedical research. It proposes that there is a process for embedding everyday ideas in scientific contexts, thereby making these ideas possible to think of (and measure) as if they were scientific concepts -I understand this process by analogy to found art as resulting in "found science". The upshot is that the same idea can give rise to multiple concepts that are founded in different disciplinary domains differently in order to support different normative-epistemic functions; thus a term like "race" or "work" or "wellbeing" may tag concepts that are doing very different work in different scientific contexts even though they stay tagged by the same, ordinary term.
My postdoctoral work enriched my interests in interdisciplinarity, language and expression, to include material culture, performance and performativity. In the last years I have been working as a philosopher in different interdisciplinary science-based projects with the aim of reflecting on the ethical and methodological issues that arise in science and technology innovation. I am interested in the normative implications of using different expressive and/or material technologies and in how to understand and develop our range of response/abilities in research and innovation through humanities and arts resources.
Scientific, academic and artistic work
Displaying a selection of activities. See all publications in the database
Journal publications
- (2016) Is it possible to give scientific solutions to Grand Challenges? On the idea of Grand Challenges for life science research. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. vol. 56.
- (2015) Joint first editors of a Special Section on "Interdisciplinary Integration: The Real Grand Challenge for the Life Sciences?". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. vol. 56.
- (2012) How Ordinary Race Concepts Get to Be Usable in Biomedical Science: An Account of Founded Race Concepts. Philosophy of science (East Lansing). vol. 79 (5).
- (2012) The Nazi Cosmetic: Medicine in the Service of Beauty. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. vol. 43 (3).
- (2011) Hunting causes and using them: Is there no bridge from here to there?. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science. vol. 25 (3).
Part of book/report
- (2016) Genetics and Racial Minorities in the United States. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies.
- (2014) Interdisciplinarity In Action. Philosophy of Social Science: A New Introduction.
- (2012) Beauty and health as medical norms: The case of Nazi medicine. HEALTH, ILLNESS AND DISEASE:PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS.
- (2012) Crossover Research: Exploring a Collaborative Mode of Integration. Little by Little. Expansions of Nanoscience and Emerging Technologies.
Others
- (2016) Embodying Responsible Research and Innovation: Towards a Sciences, Humanities and Arts Knowledge Exchange. 4. Society for Socially Relevant Philosophy of/in Science and Engineering (SRPoiSE) and Center for Values in Medicine, Science and Technology in Dallas ; 2016-05-19 - 2016-05-22.
- (2016) Facing Animals. Philosophy Seminar Series, University of Kassel ; 2016-10-20 - 2016-10-20.
- (2016) Modulating values by managing human and animal faces: Considering Technologies of effacement. Society for Social Studies of Science Annual meeting ; 2016-08-31 - 2016-09-03.
- (2016) On the boundaries of genetics research> Reflections on what Health is. Forskningskafe . NTNU Medsinsk Biblioteket og Forskningsdagene; Work Work. 2016-09-27 - 2016-09-27.
- (2016) Understanding the role of care in research: The case of animal research. Apeiron Student Society ; 2016-09-28 - 2016-09-28.
- (2016) Use your mind: Exercises in positive thinking from the early 20th century until now. Utilitarianism and Medicine: Past and Present Perspectives ; 2016-05-11.
- (2016) Weeding out the sea: Understanding ecologies of value around Norwegian seaweed. IFR seminaret ; 2016-11-09.
- (2015) Co-authoring across the sciences and humanities –and why it is so hard!. Performing ELSA special workshop ; 2015-02-01 - 2016-02-02.
- (2015) Explicating Ethics: The case of animal research ethics. Center for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences (CELL), University of Hannover ; 2015-10-22 - 2015-10-22.
- (2014) Ideobics. Performance Philosophy School of Athens [Kunstnerisk og museal presentasjon] ; 2014-03-15 - 2014-03-16.
- (2014) Interpreter -- in Tino Sehgal's This Progress. This Progress [Kunstnerisk og museal presentasjon] . Tino Sehgal; Asad Raza and NEON foundation; 2014-10-04 - 2014-10-28.
- (2014) Ethical Principles in the Use of Animals in Research: From Implicit to Explicit. FELASA/AAALAC Working Group on Harm-Benefit Analysis ; 2014-04-29.