PhD STUDENTS
ADVISOR
Siobhan F McManus Guerrero
Siobhan completed her dissertation in 2010, at UNAM and with Rasmus as advisor. She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at UNAM.
Lucas McGranahan
Lucas is a Senior Research Specialist at the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, a fellow of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at Rutgers University, a nonprofit communications professional, and a freelance academic editor. His current research focuses on (1) cooperatives and employee-owned businesses and (2) the history of modern philosophy and psychology. He received his BA in philosophy and English from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2003 and his PhD from UC Santa Cruz in 2012. He studied under Rasmus and also worked closely with David Hoy. His dissertation was titled:
William James's Evolutionary Pragmatism:
A Study in Physiology, Psychology, and Philosophy at the Close of the 19th Century
Lucas completed a book on William James (2017, Routledge):
COMMITTEE MEMBER
Víctor Rogelio Hernández Marroquín
Víctor obtained his B.Sc. degree in Biology at the Faculty of Sciences, UNAM, with a thesis about the types and causes of biological variation. He completed a master's program in Biological Sciences, with an emphasis in Experimental Biology, at the Institute of Ecology, also at UNAM. He wrote a thesis about regulatory genes involved in the development of the radical meristem of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.
He is currently in the Philosophy of Science Ph.D. program at UNAM. His dissertation deals with the explanatory role of biological variation in the controversy of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. This work also aims to contribute a conceptual framework for using biological variation in theoretical discussions in evolutionary biology.
Natalia Carrillo Martínez de la Escalera
Natalia has a bachelor degree in mathematics, and wrote an undergraduate thesis about mathematical models of the nerve pulse. For her master degree in Philosophy of Cognitive Science (2 year programme) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) she wrote a thesis on "Objectivity in the Mechanistic Model of Explanation for Neuroscience."
In 2019 she completed her dissertation in which she asked questions such as the following: How can we use discussions from Philosophy of Science (pluralism vs. monism in scientific explanation; the nature of scientific models and phenomena; pragmatism and truth) to shed light on current scientific debate around the nature of the nervous impulse? How can we make sense of two different approaches to constructing mathematical models of an excitable membrane? Which role might background assumptions and radically distinct modeling methodologies play in the production of scientific knowledge?
Édgar Octavio Valadez Blanco
Octavio completed his PhD in Philosophy of Science at UNAM in Mexico City, with the project "Complexity and Transdisciplinarity: Theory and practice of cancer as a complex problem." Octavio obtained his B.Sc. degree in Basic Biomedical Research at UNAM with his thesis work "Cancer as a complex disease: networks and levels of organization" (2008), with Germinal Cocho Gil as advisor. In 2010, he obtained his Masters in Philosophy from the UAM-Iztapalapa and was awarded the UAM academic merit medal. His thesis (advised by Mario Casanueva) addressed the scientific explanation of cancer based on the model of "part-whole science" proposed by Rasmus (Winther 2011, Synthese), which develops a pluralistic research horizon.
Octavio's main academic interests are the complexity of cancer; he intends to contribute to a critical focus on the theories and practices in the scientific disciplines related to cancer research-, especially the biomedical sciences. This critical approach has in part evolved from Octavio's great concern for the deep contradictory realities prevailing in Mexico, which has also prompted him to undertake studies on politics and pedagogy.
UNDERGRADUATES
Misa Hayashi
Misa's main research reads as a narrative which seeks to arrive at a pragmatic solution to the problem of human essence, and by doing so, develop criteria which will assist in making a decision as to who or what might be designated human in the post-human future. She proposes a pluralistic concept of human which will serve to eliminate existing problems in the ways the human concept has been manipulated in the past and present, to designate those we wish to demean or exploit, as “other.” She argues that the pluralistic concept of human, which might be used as a model to decide what post-human organisms will be designated “human” or “not human,” will serve to improve upon the social relations of the present and post-human future.
Misa received her B.A. in Philosophy at UCSC in 2017. In 2018, she was awarded the UCSC Chancellor’s Award for her published senior thesis (advised by Rasmus), “Designating ‘Human’ Versus ‘Other’ in a Post-Human World: A Pragmatic Approach to the Problem of Human Essence.” She presented her work at the 2018 UCSC Philosophy Department’s Undergraduate End-of-the-Year Colloquium, as well as UCSC’s Extrav(m)aganza, a student print org celebration.
She is currently pursuing her MA degree in Philosophy at King’s College London.
Lia Azul Salaverry
Lia was a triple major in Philosophy, Sociology, and Legal Studies and is active in many student organizations. Among her activities, Lia was the President of the Legal Education Association for Diversity (LEAD) and was the financial chair on its founding board in the 2011-2012 academic year. Lia who is interested in technology and social justice, was also part of the Everett Program at UC Santa Cruz which prepares students to create their own social justice ventures using information technology. In June 2014, she won the Fanny Carruthers Award in the Sociology Department at UCSC.
Senior Thesis
Accountable Technologies:
An Interdisciplinary Investigation into the Design and Engineering of Transportation Systems
Select papers published by Lucas:
2020. Meaningful Labour, Employee Ownership, and Workplace Democracy, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 21:4, 389-397
RASMUS GRØNFELDT WINTHER
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