About Me
I am an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Colby College and affiliated faculty at the Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence. My research explores how we understand and model cognitive capacities, and how we understand and interact with artificial intelligence. One strand of my work focuses on internal representations that structure the behavior of biological and artificial systems. Another focuses on how embodiment and expressive movement shape cognition. I have a special interest in studying the mind in dance, and have developed a novel approach to the computational analysis of human movement. I regularly collaborate across disciplines, contributing philosophical perspectives to projects working to simulate neural systems and apply new machine learning methods. At Colby, I teach courses in philosophy of mind, AI, cognitive science, and dance. Before joining the Colby faculty, I completed a postdoctoral fellowship in computational neuroscience at UPenn, where I also received my PhD in Philosophy, and I hold a JD from Yale Law School.
Research
Selected Publications
Rethinking Artificial General Intelligence: Beyond Anthropomorphism (Invited chapter for Introducing Philosophy of Mind, Today, Routledge),
-- 2025 (forthcoming)
Understanding Complexity Through Affordances (with Sonia Roberts),
-- 2025 Minds and Machines
Computational kinematics of dance: distinguishing Hip Hop genres (with Tony Liu, Jordan Matelsky, Felipe Parodi, Brett Mensh, John Krakauer and Konrad Kording),
-- 2024 Frontiers in Human Robotics and AI
Commentary on Favela and Machery, "Investigating the concept of representation in neural and psychological sciences
-- 2023 The Brains Blog
Three Aspects of Representation in Neuroscience (with Ben Lansdell and Konrad Kording),
-- 2022 Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Creativity in AI Dance Art
-- 2022 International Conference on Computational Creativity
Natural information, factivity and nomicity
-- 2021 Biology and Philosophy
Referee Report of (hypothetical) Philosophy-101 Textbook, by Professor Unspecified
-- 2021 Teaching Philosophy
Spanish Translation by Fredy H.P. Galindo
-- 2023 Cuestiones Filosophia
Teaching
I strive to empower my students to let their curiosity and passion drive their education. My courses challenge students to consider a topic from multiple disciplinary and cultural perspectives, and I incorporate hands-on interaction with emerging technologies, helping to build broadly applicable skills and knowledge.
Courses Taught
AI and Human Values
Central Philosophical Issues: Mind, Body and Machine
Philosophy of Cognitive Science
Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of Dance
Philosophy of Emotion
Philosophy of Visual Perception
Bodes and Power
Ethics
CV
You can view my CV below or download the PDF here.
For inquiries about consulting, see this page.
About Now
That's a wrap on my 5th semester at Colby! Glad to have time for research and reflection in January under the low sun, bare branches, and cold clarity.
New paper with Sonia Roberts on comparing complexity across biological and artificial agents now available at Minds & Machines!
Looking forward to seeing my chapter on "Rethinking AGI: Beyond Anthropomorphism" come out soon for a Routledge coursebook Introducting Philosophy of Mind, Today
Heading to this year's Eastern APA conference to give comments on a paper about Virtual Embodied AI -- expecting an interesting discussion!
Continuing some projects on computational analysis of dance and other complex human movement, working on some theory-side and some praxis-side problems.
The motion lab continues to develop. 3D pose pipeline in the performing arts center is up and running, with some tinkering to do to improve accuracy. I contributed to a recent Dance Magazine article on AI-Assisted Motion-Capture Technology. And check out this SciTube animation about the "computational kinematics" paper from last year!
I've got three courses on deck for the Spring: "Mind Body & Machine," "Philosophy of Dance" and "Philosophy of Science"