Organization of the PhilInBioMed Network

The PhilInBioMed International Network is structured around three entities, the Members, the Steering Committee and the Scientific Committee. The members are at the heart of PhilInBioMeds activities. They collaborate on various subjects, exchange ideas and once a year they come together at the PhilInBioMed Network Meeting.

The Steering Committee

The Steering Committee is composed of 14 members, one from each of the participating institutions. It treats topics that pertain to the organizational structure or the general management of the network. Questions that might be addressed by the Steering Committee include the admission of new member institutions, the time and location of the next PhilInBioMed Network Meeting or the exchange of students and staff between the different member institutions.

The members of the Steering Committee are:

Lucie Laplane

Institute for History and Philosophy of Science and Techniques (IHPST), CNRS & University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (France)

Thomas Pradeu

ImmunoConcept, CNRS & University of Bordeaux (France)

The Scientific Committee

The Scientific Committee has an advisory role to the network. Its members are either philosophers who are interested in science and publish in science journals or scientists who publish in philosophy journals or have co-authored papers with philosophers.

The members of this committee accept:

  1. to promote interactions between philosophy, biology, and medicine in their own research environment;
  2. to be occasionally solicited as referees for a limited number of abstract submissions for PhilInBioMed conferences or workshops

The members of the Scientific Committee are:

Ralph Adolphs

Ralph Adolphs is a Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Biology at the California Institute of Technology. Furthermore he is the Director of the Emotion and Social Cognition Lab, which investigates the neural underpinnings of human social behavior. He is also a member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.

Catherine Belzung

Catherine Belzung is Professor in Neuroscience at University of Tours and at Institut Universitaire de France, and Director of Imaging and Brain (iBrain, Inserm Unit 1253). She is a member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.

Alexander Bird

Alexander Bird is Peter Sowerby Professor of Philosophy and Medicine at King’s College (London, UK). His research deals with philosophy of science, metaphysics and epistemology. He is member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.

Mina Bissell

Mina Bissell is Distinguished Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She has pioneered the field of tumor microenviornment and has significantly advanced the fields of breast cancer research. She is a member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.

Carl Craver

Carl Craver

Carl Craver is a Philosopher of Neuroscience at the Washington University in St. Louis, USA. One of his research interests is the study of deficits in agency and moral reasoning in people with amnesia. He is a member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.

Richard Creath

Richard Creath is a Philosopher of Science and President’s Professor at the School of Life Science at the Arizona State University and a member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.

Ford Doolittle

Ford Doolittle is a Professor Emeritus at the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology of the Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. He thinks about “function” in genomics, microbial communities, natural selection and definitions of “life”. He is a member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.

Stuart Firestein

Stuart Firestein is the Chair of Columbia University’s Department of Biological Sciences where he and his colleagues conduct research on the vertebrate olfactory system. He is a member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.

Eugene Koonin

Eugene Koonin is a Senior Investigator at the National Center for Biotechnology Information and head of the Evolutionary Genomics Research Group. He is a member of the PhilInBiomed Scientific Committee.

Kevin Laland

Kevin Laland is Professor of Behavioural and Evolutionary Biology at the University of St Andrews. His lab studies evolution and animal behavior with a focus on animal social learning, niche construction and the evolution of human cognition. He is a member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.

Deborah Mayo

Deborah Mayo is Professor Emerita in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech. Her research topics include underdetermination, the role of novel evidence, and the nature of scientific progress. She is a member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.

Margaret McFall-Ngai

Margaret McFall-Ngai is Professor and Director of the Pacific Biosciences Research Center at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. Her research focuses on host responses to interactions with beneficial microbes. She is a member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.

Samir Okasha

Samir Okasha is Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Bristol (UK) and a specialist of foundational and conceptual questions surrounding evolutionary theory. He is a member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.

Duygu Özpolat

Duygu Özpolat is a Principal Investigator and Hibbitt Fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole, USA. As a developmental biologist she holds a passion for live-imaging embryos and regeneration. She is a member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.

Diane Pataki

Diane Pataki is Professor of Biological Sciences and Associate Vice President for Research at the University of Utah. She studies human-environment interactions related to urban biodiversity, resource use, and landscape design. She is a member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.

Kenneth F. Schaffner

Kenneth F. Schaffner is Distinguished University Professor at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science of the University of Pittsburgh, USA. He is a specialist of philosophy of biology and philosophy of medicine and is member of the PhilInBIoMed Scientific Committee.

Elliott Sober

Elliott Sober is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA. He is one of the founders of the field of philosophy of biology, and a specialist of evolution. He is a member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.

Miriam Solomon

Miriam Solomon is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at Temple University, Philadelphia. Her research interests are in philosophy of science, philosophy of medicine, history of science, epistemology, gender and science and biomedical ethics. She is a member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.

Joan Strassmann

Joan Strassmann is a Professor of Biology at the Washington University in St. Louis, USA. She is an Evolutionary Biologist interested in cooperative alliances, multicellularity and social evolution. She is a member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.

Michel Vervoort (1970-2022)

Michel Vervoort (1970-2022) was a Professor in Biology (Evolution, Genetics, Eco-Devo) at Paris-Diderot University and Institut Jacques Monod, and co-leader of the team “Evolution and Development of Metazoans“, Paris, France. He was a member of the PhilInBioMed Scientific Committee.