Team

BA Philosophy, Vienna

After having obtained her BA in Vienna, Lara is now finishing her MA in Cognitive Science at RUB, and working as a student assistant in the team. She is planning to pursue a PhD at the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy, jointly supervised with Tristan Bekinschtein at the University of Cambridge.

GA 3, 146
E-Mail: Lara.Braeuchle@ruhr-uni-bochum.de

BA Philosophy

Katharina joined us as student assistent while pursuing her MA in Cognitive Science at RUB.
GA 3, 146
E-Mail: Katharina.Heiligenbrunner@edu.ruhr-uni-bochum.de

BA & MA Philosophy, Bonn

Yizhi is a member of the Research Training Group 'Situated Cognition' and has started a PhD thesis on Mindwandering (2023-2026). Thus, his current research delves into the conceptual issues surrounding mind wandering, aiming to provide a more robust framework to better clarify the explanandum of mind wandering research. Additionally, I am investigating the agential status of mind wandering and its relationship with automaticity. This includes exploring whether mind wandering is an automatic process, in what sense it can be considered automatic, and the role that control plays within it.

GAFO 04/983
E-Mail: Yizhi.Li@ruhr-uni-bochum.de

MA Philosophy, Bochum

Nadine is our administrative manager. Her responsibilities include the administration of third-party funds, the coordination of study matters, the organization of workshops and conferences, and service & support for our international guests.

GA 3/146
E-Mail: nadine.overkamp@ruhr-uni-bochum.de

M.Sc. (Cogn.Sc.), Ruhr University Bochum
B.A. (Phil. & Economics), University of Edinburgh

Bartosz has just handed in his PhD thesis on 'Adaptivity from the Enactivist and Free-Energy Perspectives', co-supervised by Prof. Mark Sprevak (Edinburgh). Bartosz is a member of the Research Training Group on 'Situated Cognition'. In his MA thesis, he already investigated the theoretical status of the Free-Energy Principle. In his dissertation, he discusses the notion of adaptivity as it is used in the free-energy approach and the autopoietic enactive approach, pointing out problems and shortcomings and putting forward his own account.

GAFO 04/979
E-Mail: bartosz.radomski@ruhr-uni-bochum.de

MSc Cognitive Neuroscience (Sussex)
BA Philosophy, London
MA Philosophy, Birmingham

Libby is with us on a visiting fellowship from the RUB Research School and working on a PhD project investigating natural and artificial agents in the context of agential thinking in philosophy of mind and biology in general. She has obtained a MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience from Sussex and BA and MA in Philosophy from London and Birmingham.

GAFO 04/981
E-Mail: libertysevers@gmail.com

PhD, Edinburgh

Matt's research focuses three different, yet interconnected questions regarding biological systems: what are the different mechanisms by which organisms both adaptively respond to the structure in their environments and create fitness relevant structure ?; how do these mechanisms influence one another over both evolutionary and developmental timescales?; how have learning, memory, and anticipation evolved? In oder to approach these questions my research investigates lifecycles, ecology, and phenotypic plasticity in non-neuronal organisms. One such organism is P. polycephalum (acellular slime mould).

GAFO 04/421
ORC-ID: 0000-0003-2418-9330
E-Mail: matthew.sims-m4e@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
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BA Phil. & Sociology, Bielefeld
MA Philosophy, Bochum

Caroline is working on a PhD project concerning the notion of “cognitive coupling”. Enactivists describe any organism as “coupled” to its environment (Varela et al. 1991). Despite its pervasive use and task of “replacing” mental representations in explanations of cognition (Gallagher 2017), the notion has not yet been properly characterised (Schlicht & Starzak 2021). Her research fills this gap, with a particular focus on cognitive effects on coupling. Following the recent Basal Cognition paradigm (Lyon et al. 2021), she starts with unicellular paramecia (Hennessey et al. 1979) and is currently carving out principles of cognitive coupling that scale up to humans.

GAFO 04/981
E-Mail: caroline.stankozi@rub.de

PhD Phil., Ruhr University Bochum
M.A. Phil., University of Cologne

Tobias has joined the group in 2018, after having specialized on the topic of Animal Minds and Rationality. After having worked in the interdisciplinary project 'The structure and development of understanding actions and reasons' (DFG), he has managed the interdisciplinary research project 'INTERACT! New Forms of Interaction with Intelligent Systems', funded by the State of Northrhine Westfalia (2021-2024). Together with researchers from various disciplines on the RUB campus, Tobias is now forming an interdisciplinary research profile on questions to do with our social interaction with AI systems.

GB 03/140
Tel.: 0234 32 - 21206
E-Mail: tobias.starzak@rub.de

M.A. Phil./ Cogn. Sc., University of Kwa-Zulu Natal
B.A. Phil. & Psych., University of Kwa-Zulu Natal

Elmarie finished her PhD in 2020 as member of the Research Training Group on Situated Cognition. Her dissertation topic was Perceiving Agents. Situating Self and Other in a predictive coding framework, with Robert Rupert being her second thesis supervisor. She is now developing an embodied view of predictive processing that covers various facets of cognition.

GAFO 04/981
E-Mail: elmarie.venter@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
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PhD Cognitive Psychology, Padova

Qiu is a visiting postdoctoral fellow, having obtained a PhD in Psychology with a dissertation on Movement in Plants, based on experimental and theoretical work. She is now extending her work into the philosophy of plant cognition.
GAFO 04/421
E-Mail: qiuran.wang@gmail.com