EDUCATION

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PhD,  University of California,  Davis, Spring 2023

Philosophy

Dissertation Title: Implementation and Interpretation: A Unified Account of Physical Computation

Committee Members: Zoe Drayson (chair), Corey J. Maley, William Ramsey, Elaine Landry, Rohan French, and Hanti Lin

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MA, University of California, Davis, Spring 2019

Philosophy

Master's Thesis: Existential Introduction & Justification for Believing

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BA, California State University, Sacramento, Spring 2016 

Philosophy [Ethics, Politics, & Law] - Magna Cum Laude​

Senior Thesis: Organs for sale: Markets without limits

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APPOINTMENTS

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2023-2025: Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Modeling Interdisciplinary Inquiry

Washington University in St. Louis

Psychological & Brain Sciences & Philosophy

Mentor: Jeff Zacks | Dynamic Cognition Laboratory

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2018-2023: Graduate Student Teaching Assistant

University of California, Davis

Philosophy & Cognitive Science

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HONORS & AWARDS

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School of Ideas in Neuroscience | 2024

Nencki Open Lab in Warsaw, Poland

Funded  Visiting Lecturer on Metatheory in Neuroscience

Nomination: 2022-2023 Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award

Nominated for Minds, Brains, & Computers, Spring 2022

NSF Travel Grant | 2022

Philosophy of Science Association Meeting: $432.87

John Templeton Foundation / Duke University Project Grant | 2022

Computation and Systematicity in Human Behavior: $17,720

Summer Seminars in Neuroscience and Philosophy at Duke University (SSNAP)| 2022

Funded Fellow | Honorarium: $1,000

Graduate Student Fellowship | 2020

UC Davis | $7,500

Nammour Award | 2016

Awarded for the best essay on a philosophical topic during Spring semester | $100

CSUS Perry Weddle Award | 2015

Awarded for the best essay on a philosophical topic during Fall semester | $100

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PUBLICATIONS

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Journal Articles:​

Williams, Danielle J. (forthcoming). Two senses of medium independence. 

Mind & Language​

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Williams, D. (2022). Markov blankets: Realism and our ontological commitments. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 45, E217. doi:10.1017/S0140525X22000255​

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Book Chapters:

Russin, J., McGrath, S., Williams, D., Elber-Dorozko, L. (forthcoming). 'From Frege to ChatGPT: Compositionality in Language, Cognition, and Deep Neural Networks' in Felipe De Brigard and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (eds.) Neuroscience & Philosophy. MIT Press.

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Williams, D. and Piccinini, G. (2024) Philosophy and Technology in Chan Sin-Wai, Mak Kin- Wah, and Leung Sze Ming (eds) Routledge Encyclopedia of Technology and the Humanities. Routledge.

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Williams, Danielle J. and Drayson, Zoe (2023). ‘The nature of the predictive mind: Realism and instrumentalism in Bayesian cognitive science’, in Tony Cheng, Ryoji Sato, and Jakob Hohwy (eds.) Expected Experiences: The Predictive Mind in an Uncertain World. Routledge.

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Public Writing:

Williams, Danielle J. (2024). 'It takes two to make a view go right'. The Brains Blog. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.14986.68806​

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​Williams, Danielle J. (2024). 'We've been here before: AI promised human-like machines – in 1958' in The Conversation (also available in Popular Science)​

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Papers under review: 

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1. A paper on realism  (Under Review after R&R) 

2. A paper on implementation and cognitive science (Under Review)

 

Papers in progress: 

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1. Three questions about physical computation (revisions in progress)

2. A paper on abstraction in scientific modeling  (in progress)

3. A paper on AI and Cognitive Science (In progress, Invited Book Chapter)

4. A paper on computatioanl neuroscience and explanation (in progress)​

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SERVICE

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Founding and organizing member of the Society for Philosophy and Neuroscience (SPAN)

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Peer Review:

Minds & Machines

Synthese

British Journal for Philosophy of Science

Philosophical Psychology

Mind & Language

WIREs Cognitive Science

CUP Elements in Philosophy Series

Philosophical Quarterly

Cogent Humanities

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Program Committee

7th International Conference on the History and Philosophy of Computing

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Conference Organizer

The Society for Philosophy and Neuroscience Conference | 2025

Location Announced Soon. 

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Technology & Society: AI & Finance | 2024

Washington University in St. Louis

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Berkeley Stanford Davis Graduate Conference | 2022

University of California at Davis

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Philosophy of Science Association 

Underrepresented Philosophy of Science Scholars

Mentor | 2024 - current

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PRESENTATIONS

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Upcoming, Title: TBD
Author Meets Critic Session on Mazviita Chirimuuta's book "The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience" 116th Annual Meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology | April 2025

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Presentation, "Burning the Bridge: Why a theory of implementation can't help computational neuroscience"  Philosophy and Neuroscience at the Gulf, 7th Annual Meeting of the Deep South Philosophy and Neuroscience Workgroup | October 2024

 

Invited Lecture, "What do theories of physical computation have to do with neuroscience?" at the School of Ideas in Neuroscience, Nencki Open Lab, Poland | July 2024

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Invited Lecture, "Why do we think of the brain as a computer?" at the School of Ideas in Neuroscience Seminar | July 2024

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Presentation, "How to be a realist about computational neuroscience" at the annual meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SPP) | June 2024

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Invited Micro Talk, "We've Been Here Before." at the AI + Society Brunch  | May 2024

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Invited Presentation, "New Language of Thought | Same Critique" at the Mini-Conference on Modal Logic and Connectionism" at the University of Houston | April 2024

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Invited Colloquium, "How to be a realist about computational neuroscience" at The Edinburgh University Cognitive Science Society Meeting | April 2024

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Presentation, 'Thinking about Levels'  at the 115th Annual Meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology | March 2024

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Invited Colloquium, 'What philosophers can offer collaborative neural engineering' | California State University, Sacramento | March 2024

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Colloquium Talk, 'Marr's levels are not levels of abstraction' at Washington University in St. Louis, Philosophy Department Colloquium | November 2023

 

Invited Presentation
Conference topic: the role of representation and computation in the study of language and mind at the Philosophy Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia |  June 2023
(unable to attend due to postdoc relocation time frame)
 

Presentation, "Anti-anti individualism about computational implementation" at the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology | March 2023

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Symposium Presentation, "Physical Signatures of Computation" at the Philosophy of Science Association Biennial Meeting | 2022.

Symposium participants: Gualtiero Piccinini, Neal Anderson, David Barack, Paula Quinon, J. Brendan Ritchie, Pawel Stacewicz, and Danielle J. Williams

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Colloquium Talk, "Implementation, Individuation, and Triviality in Computational Theories" at the Chico State University Philosophy Colloquium Series | November 2022

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Presentation, "What a theory of computation can't be if the brain is a computer" at Philosophy and Neuroscience at the Gulf, 5th Annual Meeting of the Deep South Philosophy and Neuroscience Workgroup | 2022

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Presentation, "There cannot be a mechanism only theory of computation" at the 37th-Annual CHPS Conference, Philosophy of Cognitive Neuroscience: Content, Self, and Cognitive Ontology | 2022

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Joint Presentation, "Marr, instrumentalism and Bayesian cognitive science" at the 96th Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association |  July 2022 (with Zoe Drayson) 

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Presentation, "There cannot be a mechanism only theory of computation" at the Rotman Graduate Student Conference, Rotman Institute of Philosophy | May 2022

 

Presentation: “Minds, Understanding, and Artificial Intelligence” presented at the UCD Undergraduate Philosophy Conference | Spring 2016

 

Presentation: “McCausal Impotence: How Your Chicken Sandwich Matters” presented at the CSUS Nammour Symposium | Spring 2016

 

Presentation: “Knowledge as Justified True Belief” at the Pacific University Undergraduate Philosophy Conference | Spring 2016

 

Presentation: “Gettier’s Problem: The Problem with the Gettier Problem” presented at CSUS Perry Weddle Colloquium | Fall 2016

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PANELS, COMMENTS, & DISCUSSIONS

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Discussant: "Predictive Processing’s Flirt with Transcendental Idealism"

Neural Mechanisms Online, a webinar series on the philosophy of neuroscience | 2024

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Commentator, 'Neural Network Modeling as Task Analysis, Not Mechanistic Explanation'  at the 115th Annual Meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology | March 2024

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Invited Commentator, St. Louis area Philosophy of Science Association (SLaPSA) book symposium on The Physical Signatures of Computation: A Robust Mapping Account' by Neal Anderson and Gualtiero Piccinini | March 2024

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Invited Commentator, Society for the Metaphysics of Science 'Is Computation Essentially Medium-Independent?', American Philosophical Association | 2024 Central Division Meeting

with Lawrence Shapiro (chair), Zoe Drayson (Speaker), & Corey Maley (Speaker)

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Panelist, 'Generative AI Panel Discussion' at the AI Digital Health Summit, Washington University in St. Louis | 2023

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Panelist, Graduate Student Panel at the Cognitive Science Conference, University of California, Davis | 2023

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Commentator, "Why we cannot resolve the scientific realism debate" at the American Philosophical Association | 2023 Central Division Meeting 

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Commentator: " What Justifies the Model-to-Mechanism-Mapping Requirement?" at the American Philosophical Association | 2022 Central Division Meeting.

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Discussant: "Computation with Neural Manifolds"

Neural Mechanisms Online, a webinar series on the philosophy of neuroscience | January 2021.

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Commentator: "Opening up the Openness of Joint Attention" 

American Philosophical Association | 2021 Eastern Division Meeting.

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POSTERS

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Poster Session, "Implementation, individuation, and triviality in computational theories" at the The Society for Philosophy and Psychology (ESP/EPP) | July 2022
-Declined presentation due to inability to travel

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Poster Session: "The mechanistic account of computation and the implementation relation" at the American Philosophical Association | 2022 Central Division Meeting

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(INVITED) SESSION CHAIR

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Session Chair, "Unraveling Discovery Dynamics in Open Science Partnerships" at the 57th Cincinnati Philosophy Colloquium Series: Explanation and Complexity in Biology and Psychology | 2023

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Book Symposium Chair, "Cognitive Ontology: Taxonomic Practices in the Mind-Brain Sciences" at the American Philosophical Association Pacific Division Meeting | 2023

 

Book Symposium Chair, "The Nature of Physical Computation," by Oron Shagrir at the American Philosophical Association | Pacific Division Meeting, 2022

Symposium participants: Oron Shagrir, Rosa Cao, Frances Egan, Corey J. Maley, and Danielle J. Williams

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AFFILIATIONS

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Reading Groups

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Philosophy, Computation, and Neuroscience Reading Group (PCN)

A reading group hosted by me and Carl Craver geared toward Grad Students on topics centering around the use of computational modeling and AI in neuroscience.

WashU, Scheduled for Fall 2024 

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From Deep Learning to Rational Machines

A reading group on Cameron Buckner's book on machine learning

Online, Summer 2024

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Interdisciplinary Philosophy of Science Reading Group

Features members from philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, and physics.

WashU, Fall 2023 - current

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MENTaL Reading & Research Group (Mind, Epistemology, Neuroscience,  Thought, and Language)

UCD, Founding member, Spring 2018 - 2023

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Professional Organizations

Philosophy of Science Association: 2019 - Present

American Philosophical Association: 2012 - Present

Southern Society for Philosophy & Psychology: 2024 - Present

Society for Philosophy and Psychology: 2024 - Present

Society for Philosophy and Neuroscience: 2024 - Present