curriculum vitae
EDUCATION
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
MA, University of California, Davis, Spring 2019
Philosophy
Master's Thesis: Existential Introduction & Justification for Believing
BA, California State University, Sacramento, Spring 2016
Philosophy [Ethics, Politics, & Law] - Magna Cum Laude
Senior Thesis: Organs for sale: Markets without limits
APPOINTMENTS
2023-2025: Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Modeling Interdisciplinary Inquiry
Washington University in St. Louis
Psychological & Brain Sciences & Philosophy
Mentor: Jeff Zacks | Dynamic Cognition Laboratory
2018-2023: Graduate Student Teaching Assistant
University of California, Davis
Philosophy & Cognitive Science
HONORS & AWARDS
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
PUBLICATIONS
Journal Articles:
Williams, Danielle J. (forthcoming). Two senses of medium independence.
Mind & Language
Williams, D. (2022). Markov blankets: Realism and our ontological commitments. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 45, E217. doi:10.1017/S0140525X22000255
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.
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.
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.
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
Williams, Danielle J. (2024). 'We've been here before: AI promised human-like machines – in 1958' in The Conversation (also available in Popular Science)
Papers under review:
1. A paper on realism (Under Review after R&R)
2. A paper on implementation and cognitive science (Under Review)
Papers in progress:
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)
SERVICE
Founding and organizing member of the Society for Philosophy and Neuroscience (SPAN)
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
Program Committee
7th International Conference on the History and Philosophy of Computing
Conference Organizer
The Society for Philosophy and Neuroscience Conference | 2025
Location Announced Soon.
Technology & Society: AI & Finance | 2024
Washington University in St. Louis
Berkeley Stanford Davis Graduate Conference | 2022
University of California at Davis
Philosophy of Science Association
Underrepresented Philosophy of Science Scholars
Mentor | 2024 - current
PRESENTATIONS
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
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
Invited Lecture, "Why do we think of the brain as a computer?" at the School of Ideas in Neuroscience Seminar | July 2024
Presentation, "How to be a realist about computational neuroscience" at the annual meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SPP) | June 2024
Invited Micro Talk, "We've Been Here Before." at the AI + Society Brunch | May 2024
Invited Presentation, "New Language of Thought | Same Critique" at the Mini-Conference on Modal Logic and Connectionism" at the University of Houston | April 2024
Invited Colloquium, "How to be a realist about computational neuroscience" at The Edinburgh University Cognitive Science Society Meeting | April 2024
Presentation, 'Thinking about Levels' at the 115th Annual Meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology | March 2024
Invited Colloquium, 'What philosophers can offer collaborative neural engineering' | California State University, Sacramento | March 2024
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
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
Colloquium Talk, "Implementation, Individuation, and Triviality in Computational Theories" at the Chico State University Philosophy Colloquium Series | November 2022
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
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
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)
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
PANELS, COMMENTS, & DISCUSSIONS
Discussant: "Predictive Processing’s Flirt with Transcendental Idealism"
Neural Mechanisms Online, a webinar series on the philosophy of neuroscience | 2024
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
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
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)
Panelist, 'Generative AI Panel Discussion' at the AI Digital Health Summit, Washington University in St. Louis | 2023
Panelist, Graduate Student Panel at the Cognitive Science Conference, University of California, Davis | 2023
Commentator, "Why we cannot resolve the scientific realism debate" at the American Philosophical Association | 2023 Central Division Meeting
Commentator: " What Justifies the Model-to-Mechanism-Mapping Requirement?" at the American Philosophical Association | 2022 Central Division Meeting.
Discussant: "Computation with Neural Manifolds"
Neural Mechanisms Online, a webinar series on the philosophy of neuroscience | January 2021.
Commentator: "Opening up the Openness of Joint Attention"
American Philosophical Association | 2021 Eastern Division Meeting.
POSTERS
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
Poster Session: "The mechanistic account of computation and the implementation relation" at the American Philosophical Association | 2022 Central Division Meeting
(INVITED) SESSION CHAIR
Session Chair, "Unraveling Discovery Dynamics in Open Science Partnerships" at the 57th Cincinnati Philosophy Colloquium Series: Explanation and Complexity in Biology and Psychology | 2023
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
AFFILIATIONS
Reading Groups
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
From Deep Learning to Rational Machines
A reading group on Cameron Buckner's book on machine learning
Online, Summer 2024
Interdisciplinary Philosophy of Science Reading Group
Features members from philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, and physics.
WashU, Fall 2023 - current
MENTaL Reading & Research Group (Mind, Epistemology, Neuroscience, Thought, and Language)
UCD, Founding member, Spring 2018 - 2023
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
Areas of Specialization
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE:
COMPUTATION
THE COGNITIVE SCIENCES
NEUROSCIENCE
PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Human Subjects Research Training
CITI Program Course:
Social & Behavioral Research