Early Career Researchers' Parallel Sessions

We are delighted to announce presentations from the winners of the Call for Papers from early career scholars. These parallel sessions are split over two theatres and you can sign up to one on registration. Hear new ideas from the up and coming thinkers in the field of Philosophy. 

15.00 - 15.30
Title: AI Assistants, Virtue, the Extended Mind, and the Heart
Presenter - Dr Austen McDougal.
Austen McDougal is currently a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values, working with the Princeton Project in Philosophy and Religion. His doctoral dissertation developed a motives-first approach to both ethical theory and agency, and he is especially interested in the grounds for more compassionate ways of being oriented toward others: for showing attention, grace, and love even when these might not be deserved. An emphasis on "the heart" also guides his teaching and research on the ethics of concrete relationships, such as friends, exes, and enemies (unfortunately, not exclusive!). In this vein, he seeks to better understand the ways in which technology is reshaping how we relate to others. Prior to his current position, Austen received a PhD in Philosophy from Stanford University and a BA in Philosophy with a Certificate in Computer Science from Princeton University.

15.30 - 16.00
Title: Outsourcing the fulfilment of human capacities as the foreclosure of eudaimonia
Presenter - Bridget Brasher
Bridget Brasher is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. She completed her PhD in philosophy at Princeton University in 2023. Her research concerns ancient Greco-Roman philosophy, Indian philosophy, and the history of science. She is interested in how thinkers in ancient traditions understood the physical world. She is also interested in how and to what extent these traditions ground their ethical views in metaphysical positions about the self and the natural world. In addition to her work in ancient philosophy, she writes on contemporary feminist philosophy, especially on pornography and internet ethics.

16.00 - 16.30
Title: Me and My Friend, The Robot: On Recognising our (apparent) Mutual Love
Presenter - Ruby Hornsby
Ruby is a final year philosophy PhD student at the University of Leeds, funded by The White Rose College of Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH).  She is passionate about the ethics of love/relationships, and understanding how technology works to harm, facilitate, enhance or replace them. She recently went to a conference in Japan to discuss her research and had the privilege of being introduced to many social robots while there - including at the popular 'DAWN Avatar Robot Cafe' in Tokyo. More generally, Ruby is passionate about making philosophical academic research have impact within and beyond universities. She works closely with two research networks - The Centre for Love, Sex and Relationships and Ethical Dating Online - to organise a host of public talks and debates, as well as a number of academic workshops with industry leaders. She was also a delegate and panellist for the TV PhD programme at The Edinburgh TV Festival 2023.

15.00 - 15.30
Title: Could AI robots ever be citizens in the polity? – A View from Aristotle
Presenter - Dr Brian Wong
Dr Brian Wong is an Assistant Professor in Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. His research examines intersection of geopolitics, political and moral philosophy, and technology, with particular interests in the ethics and dynamics of authoritarian regimes and their foreign policies, responding to historical and colonial injustices, and the impact of automation on labour and human societies. Brian is also a Fellow at the Centre on Contemporary China and the World and serves on the Steering Committee of the newly established Hong Kong Ethics Lab, both at the University of Hong Kong. A Rhodes Scholar (HKSAR, 2020), Brian holds a DPhil in Politics, an MPhil in Political Theory (Distinction), and an MA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Oxford.

15.30 - 16.00
Title: AI Alignment via Virtue-Based Selected Feedback
Presenter - Carlos Mougan
Carlos Mougan is a Marie Curie Research Fellow within the NoBias European ITN and a member of the Applied Skills team at the Alan Turing Institute, where he provides advisory support. Carlos has a passion for predictive modelling and its societal impacts. His current research centres on AI alignment, fairness, and model monitoring. Carlo is especially interested in repurposing and redefining existing philosophical frameworks to monitor and align AI systems.

16.00 - 16.30
Title: Virtue in the Machine: Transcending the Value Loading Problem through Aristotelian Ethics'
Presenter - Dr Maria-Artemis Kolliniati
Dr Maria-Artemis Kolliniati is the author of Human Rights and Positive Obligations to Healthcare: Reading the European Convention on Human Rights through Joseph Raz's Theory of Rights (Nomos) and the forthcoming monograph Interpreting Human Rights (Routledge). She is an adjunct lecturer in Human Rights and Forced Migration on the MA collaborative programmes of TU Darmstadt and Goethe University Frankfurt. In Greece, she is an adjunct lecturer at the Hellenic Open University teaching Human Rights and Public Policies and at the University of Athens School of Philosophy teaching 'Ethics, Law and Politics'. Her postdoctoral research was honored by the Greek State Scholarship Foundation with a scholarship for the years 2020-2022. 

Previously, she taught Jurisprudence at the University of Glasgow Law School (2015-2016). She has also been a researcher at the University of Antwerp Centre for Law and Cosmopolitan Values (2013-2015). She holds a PhD in Political Science from the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (2018), a MA in Philosophy (2013) from the University of Athens Philosophy School, a MA in Political Science and Sociology (2011) from the University of Athens PSPA School and a BA in Political Science and Public Administration (2008) from the University of Athens School of Law Economics and Political Science. Her research interests include Human rights, Political theory, Applied Philosophy, Public Policies, Philosophy of human rights, European Convention on Human Rights, Artificial Intelligence and Philosophy, Human Rights and Glocalization.