Team

BA Philosophy, Vienna
MA Cognitive Science, RUB

After having obtained her BA in Vienna, Lara has just finished her MA in Cognitive Science at RUB, and supports the team as a student assistant. She has now started a PhD project at the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy, in the team of Prof. Lucia Melloni at RUB.

E-Mail: Lara.Braeuchle@ruhr-uni-bochum.de

Kayla holds a BA in Philosophy from Bryn Mawr College where she focused on the work of continental German thinkers (mostly Heidegger), and an MSc in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania where she specialized in data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence. From 2023-2025 she was an AI Engineer and worked on perceptual AI, AI explainability, and US government-partnered projects. She is now pursuing an MA in Philosophy with a focus on Theoretical Philosophy at RUB and supporting the team as student assistant.

GA 3, 146
E-Mail: kayla.carnation@rub.de

After having obtained his PhD in Philosophy in Bochum under the supervision of Tobias Schlicht and Daniel C. Dennett (Tufts Unicversity) with a thesis on predictive processing and consciousness, he moved to Brussels as a Postdoc to work in the ERC Advanced Grant EXPERIENCE led by Prof. Axel Cleeremans. He returned to RUB in October 2025 as Akademischer Rat.
GA 3, 129
E-Mail: krysdolega@pm.me
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Franziska has just finished her BA with a thesis on Quantum physical approaches to consciousness. Second examiner was Prof. Paavo Pylkkänen (University of Helsinki). Franziska now starts her MA and supports the team as student assistant.

GA 3, 146
E-Mail: franziska.klasen@rub.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

Bartosz has just finished his PhD with a thesis on 'Adaptivity from the Enactivist and Free-Energy Perspectives', co-supervised by Prof. Mark Sprevak (Edinburgh). Bartosz was 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. He is now a Postdoctoral Fellow in the team.

GA 3, 129
E-Mail: bartosz.radomski@rub.de

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

Libby is a visiting fellow from Lisbon, funded by 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. She has just obtained a writing-up fellowship from the Konrad Lorenz Institute Vienna where she is currently finishing her thesis.

GA 3, 129
E-Mail: libertysevers@gmail.com

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. Despite its pervasive use and task of “replacing” mental representations in explanations of cognition, the notion has not yet been properly characterised. Caroline's research fills this gap, with a particular focus on cognitive effects on coupling. Following the recent Basal Cognition paradigm, she starts with unicellular paramecia and is currently carving out principles of cognitive coupling that scale up to humans. Caroline has obtained funding for international research visits in Paris, Copenhagen and London during her PhD.

GA 3, 129
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.

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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. Elmarie will be on leave in 2026.

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.
E-Mail: qiuran.wang@gmail.com