Current Students
Josh
Grant-Young (PhD Candidate)
Josh specializes in
environmental philosophy. His PhD project
investigates the ways that environmental
themes are communicated in such public
institutions as museums, zoos and aquariums.
Josh is critical of the human vs nature
dichotomy often informing these displays.
He is designing alternative displays
that locate humans as a part of nature, rather
than in opposition to it.
Brady
Fullerton (PhD Candidate)
Brady is a photographer and
philosopher who specializes on the evolution
of aesthetic traditions. His research brings
together the philosophy of aesthetics with the
study of cultural evolution. One of his aims
is to develop methods for rigorously testing
evolutionary claims about aesthetic preference
in order to advance this field beyond
the level of "just so" story telling.
Stefan
Schneider (PhD Candidate)
Stefan works in the area of AI and machine
learning. He brings together training in
ecology and computer science to develop deep
learning algorithms capable of re-identifying
animals using camera trap images and video. He
is assisting with my research on octopus
cognition. Stefan is being co-advised by
Stefan Kremer in the School of Computer
Science. Yes, there are three Stefans involved
in this project!
Former Students
Keiran
Pattullo-Graf (MA 2016)
Keiran completed an M.A. in philosophy under
my supervision in 2016. His
thesis explored the debate between the
established agricultural industry and the
organic farming movement. Keiran focused
on the ways that opposing stakeholders in this
debate appeal to ecological science to support
their respective positions.
Jamie
Robertson (MA 2011)
Jamie is
interested in a broad range of issues in
environmental ethics and economics. Her
Masters thesis "A Case for Decision-Maker
Based Justification of Environmental
Policy," critically evaluated both David
Pearce's defense of cost benefit analysis as
well as Mark Sagoff's opposition to this
framework. After completing her MA
under my supervision in 2011, Jamie became
Coordinator of the Ethics Center at the
University of Sudbury. She later returned to
York University, where she is currently
completing a PhD in Philosophy.
Jordan
Bartol (MA 2011)
Jordan
is interested in philosophical issues in
genomics, especially as they pertain to
larger issues surrounding causation and
explanation in the philosophy of
science. His MA thesis undertook a
detailed critique of the field of
personalized genomics. Jordan completed
his MA under my supervision in 2011, and
went on to accept a prestigious PhD
scholarship at the University of Leeds. We
continued to collaborate on a project
critical of Damasio's somatic marker
hypothesis during his PhD research.
Guelph Collaborators
T.
Ryan Gregory
Ryan is an evolutionary biologist interested
in non-coding DNA, transposable elements, and
genome size. He is an adjunct professor in the
Philosophy Department at the University of
Guelph. We co-teach a graduate seminar on the
Philosophy of Biology most fall semesters
(unless one of us is on sabbatical), and he
has served on several philosophy graduate
committees. Ryan and I have co-authored
approximately five articles and continue to
collaborate on new projects.
Jonathan
A. Newman
Jonathan is a philosophically-minded ecologist
and current Dean of the College of Biological
Sciences. He holds an adjunct position in the
Department of Philosophy. In addition to an
extensive list of scientific papers and a textbook
on climate change biology, Jonathan has two
philosophical publications. One is a critical
examination of the ecosystem
concept. The other is a book on the science
and philosophy of biodiversity conservation,
co-authored with me and Gary Varner (TExas
A&M). Jonathan often serves on the
committees of my philosophy grad students.
Karl
Cottenie
Karl is another philosophical ecologist at the
University of Guelph. He specializes on the
theory of meta-community biology and has
undertaken several philosophical/conceptual
research projects. One of these is a plea for
consistent terminology of metacommunity
concepts. Another manuscript
differentiates between processes at the
metacommunity and biogeography scales . I have
co-authored approximately five articles with
Karl, including work on the nature and
existence of ecological laws. We continue to
collaborate on an analysis of biodiversity
concepts and on genome-level ecology.
Stefan
Kremer
Stefan is a computer scientist interested in
natural language processing and induction. We
have collaborated on several papers, including
a (forthcoming) simulation model of transposon
accumulation. We are co-advising Stefan
Schneider's PhD project.
Tyler
Elliott
Tyler is an expert on the molecular biology of
tranpsoable elements and is interested in the
science and philosophy of genomics. After
completing his PhD in 2016, he took a research
position the Biodiversity Institute of
Ontario. Tyler is working towards the creation
of an improved database for annotating
transposable elements.
Brent
Saylor
Brent is a PhD Candidate and bioinformatics
researcher, co-supervised by Karl Cottenie and
Stefan Kremer. We have collaborated on several
papers on conceptual issues in genomics and
ecology.
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