Research Projects

Environment Concepts in the Sciences

I investigate ontological, epistemological, axiological and metrological issues related to environment concepts across the life and cognitive sciences. In the coming years, I plan to extend these discussions to other sciences as well.

Trait Individuation

As part of my postdoctoral project, I am spelling out the challenges biologists face when developing general and projectable criteria for individuating ‘biological traits’ (e.g., morphological or behavioral traits) across the phylogenetic board.

Niche Construction and the Causal Structure of Evolutionary Theory (with Grant Ramsey)

We are interested in understanding how niche construction—the process by which organisms change their environment or their relations with their environment—can affect both adaptive and non-adaptive evolution, acts as a modulator of other evolutionary causes, and, more generally, how it fits into the causal structure of evolutionary theory.

Environmental Ethics Meets Philosophy of Biology (with Matthew Sims)

We intend to create more bridges between environmental ethics and the philosophy of biology. Specifically, we want to explore how theoretical and policy-oriented debates about intrinsic value could be re-framed by considering non-human organisms as bona fide agents capable of shaping their environments in pursuance of goals of their own.

Scientific Representation: The Case of Model Organisms (with Guido I. Prieto)

In this project, we mobilize and refine the DEKI account of scientific representation to clarify the representational status of ‘model organisms’ and thus build a more robust epistemology of model organism-based research in the life sciences.

History of Theoretical Biology in the 20th Century (with Stefan Reiners-Selbach, Jan Baedke, Alexander Böhm, Vera Straetmanns, and Daniel Nicholson)

Through a Digital Humanities approach, we are making strides to reconstruct the history of theoretical biology in the twentieth century. We are trying to uncover the changing landscape of actors, debates and developments in theoretical biology that explain the shift from a conceptual-philosophical field to a mathematical modeling-driven discipline.

Rediscovering Conrad Hal Waddington’s Legacies in Biology and Beyond (with Francisco Vergara-Silva)

To mark Conrad Hal Waddington’s 50th death anniversary in 2025, we are organizing the 43rd Altenberg Workshop in Theoretical Biology at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research. This interdisciplinary gathering will re-assess Waddington’s wide-ranging legacies across the sciences, the arts, and the humanities.

Fostering Metaphilosophy of Science

As a long-term goal, I am committed to promoting international efforts to put ‘Metaphilosophy of Science’—the research area that considers and advances open-ended, second-order reflections on the concepts, assumptions, aims, and methods that underpin philosophy of science itself—on the agenda of philosophers of science. While many philosophers of science have engaged in metaphilosophical reflections to some extent, a cohesive and integrated field of discourse, akin to what exists in other branches of philosophy like meta-ethics, metaepistemology, and metametaphysics, is hitherto lacking. This could provide a platform for addressing disagreements among contrasting stances in general philosophy of science and the philosophies of the special sciences, understanding the limitations of particular approaches for answering specific questions, and channeling productive discussions about the relationship between philosophy and science, as well as the role of philosophy of science in the disciplinary landscape of the 21st century.