Participants

spiral

Alvaro Moreno

Cluster:
Evolutionary Origins and Transitions of Agency
Project:
Integration and individuation in the origin of agency
Role:
Subaward Principal Investigator

Alvaro Moreno Bergareche is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Born in Donostia-San Sebastián, he is a specialist in the areas of Philosophy of Science & Philosophy of Biology, Artificial Life, Complex Systems and Philosophy of Cognitive Science. Professor Moreno has been the principal investigator in many funded projects (funding institutions include: Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, Basque Government, University of the Basque Country), and participated to several others, including European research networks. He has also participated as Review Expert in the evaluation of proposals submitted to the European Commission for funding and/or review of projects being funded by the Commission). He has organized many international conferences and workshops on the relation between Artificial Life and AI, philosophy of biology and cognitive science, and complex systems at large. He has been member of the organizational and/or program committee of more than 20 international conferences, and he is since many years regular member of the program committee of the Artificial Life conferences (ALIFE) and the European Conferences on Artificial Life (ECAL). He has organized a Doctorate Program on Complex Systems, awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Education, and has supervised many PhD theses, most of them obtaining the highest marks. He is also co-founder of the Spanish Network of Cognitive Sciences (http://retecog.net) and has been actively involved in the dissemination of science, and he led the project for the creation of the Museum of Science in San Sebastian (Spain) (www.miramon.org). His work has received a growing international recognition, which is confirmed by the invitations he regularly receives to give lectures in different countries, and the numerous national and international awards he received.bHe has developed, together with numerous collaborators and students, both local and international, a distinctive interdisciplinary research line on Biological Autonomy, which bridges philosophy and science and has obtained significant international projection. This achievement is reflected in the creation of the IAS–Research Centre for Life, Mind & Society (http://www.ias-research.net), which has become a reference in Europe in its domain.

Headshot of Lenny Moss

Lenny Moss

Cluster:
Agency and Directionality in Development
Project:
Cellular agency in multicellular development and cancer

Lenny Moss studied biology and chemistry at San Francisco State University, doctoral studies in biophysics and biochemistry at UC Berkeley, completing his doctorate in cell biological research at the Lawrence Berkeley Labs. He the did post-doctoral research in human developmental cell biology at UC San Francisco Medical Center and a second PhD in philosophy at Northwestern University. Moss was a professor of philosophy for over 20 years at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Exeter. His interests and publications range from philosophical and theoretical biology to philosophical anthropology, social ontology, philosophy of mind and critical social theory with an overarching interest in bringing together questions of naturalism and normativity, and non-reductively bridging the chasm between “nature” and “culture”. He is the author of "What Genes Can’t Do" (MIT, 2003). A new book entitled "The Gambit of Geist – Naturalism, Normativity and the Hybrid Hominin" is presently in preparation.

Headshot of Matteo Mossio

Matteo Mossio

Cluster:
Agency and Directionality in Development, Evolutionary Origins and Transitions of Agency, Higher-Level Agency and Directionality in Ecology and Earth Science
Project:
An organizational account of ecological functions, Intrinsic purposiveness and the shaping of development, Integration and individuation in the origin of agency, Open-ended evolution and organizational closure

Matteo Mossio is Chargé de recherche (tenured) at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), full member of the IHPST (https://ihpst.pantheonsorbonne.fr/), Paris, France. Matteo Mossio works mainly in philosophical and theoretical issues related to biological autonomy. He published several articles in international philosophical and scientific journals as well as chapters in collective volumes. In 2015, he published (together with Alvaro Moreno) a full monograph on the theory of autonomy (https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789401798365). Matteo Mossio obtained funding for and took part in numerous research projects in France and abroad. He attended or organised over 90 national and international seminars, workshops, symposia and summer schools, and served as a reviewer for many international philosophical and scientific journals. He supervised several PhD and Master students. He regularly teaches in the Philosophy Program of the University of Paris 1 Panthéon – Sorbonne.

Headshot of Vidyanand Nanjundiah

Vidyanand Nanjundiah

Cluster:
Agency and Directionality in Development
Project:
Cellular agency in multicellular development and cancer

I studied physics and mathematics as an undergraduate (Bombay University) and took a doctoral degree in physics (University of Chicago). My research has been in developmental biology initially, and subsequently in evolutionary biology. My main interest has been the development and evolution of social behaviour in the social amoebae, with a particular emphasis on how single cell properties, especially their heterogeneities, are correlated with collective behaviour. I enjoy teaching and writing for non-specialists.

Stuart Newman

Stuart Newman

Cluster:
Agency and Directionality in Development
Project:
Cellular agency in multicellular development and cancer
Role:
Subaward Principal Investigator

Stuart A. Newman is a professor of cell biology and anatomy at New York Medical College, Valhalla, New York. His early scientific training was in chemistry (A.B., Columbia, Ph.D., University of Chicago), but he moved into biology, both experimental and theoretical. He has contributed to several fields, including biophysical chemistry, embryonic morphogenesis, and evolutionary theory. His theoretical work includes a mechanism for patterning of the vertebrate limb skeleton based on the physics of self-organizing systems, and a physico-genetic framework for understanding the origination of animal body plans. His experimental work includes the characterization of the biophysical process of “matrix-driven translocation” of cells. Newman has also written on ethical and societal issues related to research in developmental biology and was a founding member the Council for Responsible Genetics (Cambridge, Mass.). He is an external faculty member of the Konrad Lorenz Institute, Klosterneuburg, Austria, and editor of the institute’s journal Biological Theory.

Head shot of Dan Nicholson

Daniel Nicholson

Cluster:
Agency and Directionality in Development
Project:
Cellular agency in multicellular development and cancer

Daniel J. Nicholson is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at George Mason University. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Exeter, an M.A. in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Leeds, and an M.Biol. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Bath. Dr. Nicholson's research is characterized by a strongly interdisciplinary engagement with the conceptual foundations of the life sciences—an engagement that combines and integrates historical, philosophical, and theoretical approaches. A central organizing theme of his research is the ontology of living systems, particularly the ways in which organisms differ from other complex organized systems like machines, and on the epistemic implications of these differences. His work can be regarded as a concerted attempt to revive an organism-centred philosophy of biology capable of overcoming the mechanicist and reductionist limitations of late twentieth-century biology.

Nei Nunes-Neto

Nei Nunes-Neto

Cluster:
Higher-Level Agency and Directionality in Ecology and Earth Science
Project:
An organizational account of ecological functions

I am Associate Professor of Epistemology of Science and Science Education at the School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Federal University of Grande Dourados (UFGD), Brazil. I am affiliated to the Graduate Studies Program in History, Philosophy, and Science Teaching (Federal University of Bahia and State University of Feira de Santana). My research interests are in science education research, philosophy of biology and ethics. Also, I'm a researcher of the National Institute of Science and Technology in Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Studies in Ecology and Evolution (INCT IN-TREE), funded by the Brazilian agencies CNPq and CAPES, and gathering 200 researchers from different fields.

Laura Nuño de la Rosa

Laura Nuño de la Rosa

Cluster:
Directionality in Genomics and Macroevolution
Role:
Cluster Coordinator

Laura Nuño de la Rosa is a philosopher of biology working on the history and philosophy of developmental biology and evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). Graduated in Humanities, in 2010 she obtained a Master’s Degree in Biophysics at the Autonomous University of Madrid. In 2012 she obtained a Ph.D. on the problem of organismal form in contemporary biology, at the Complutense University of Madrid and the Paris 1-Sorbonne University. After enjoying postdoc positions at the KLI Institute (Klosterneuburg, Austria) and the University of the Basque Country, in 2015 she joined the Department of Logic and Theoretical Philosophy at the Complutense University. Her current interests combine research on the recent history of evolutionary biology with the study of epistemological and ontological issues in contemporary biology, as well as the social implications of biosciences, including synthetic biology, theories of reproduction, and the sciences of the COVID-19 pandemic.