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Dana Matthiessen

  • Teaching Assistant Professor

I am broadly interested in the history and philosophy of experimentation and data-gathering in the sciences, My research tends to focus on uses of scientific representations, technological developments in biology, and early modern scientific thought. My work emphasizes how the way we conceive of and represent natural phenomena depends on the historical development of specific ways of interacting with and collecting data from them. I am also deeply invested in my role as an educator and seek opportunities for pedagogical development alongside these pursuits.

Selected Undergraduate Courses:

Race: History, Biology, Psychology, Philosophy
 
Living with Technology
 
Thinking About the Environment

 

 

    Education & Training

  • PhD, History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 2022
  • MA, Philosophy, Georgetown University, 2015
  • BA, Philosophy, Wesleyan University, 2009
Representative Publications
(Forthcoming) "Understanding Phenomena Through Integrated Practices: Uses of Deep Learning in Structural Biology", in D. Rowbottom, A. Curtis-Trudel, and D. Barack, The Role of AI in Science: Epistemological and Methodological Studies, Routledge.
 
(Forthcoming) "Representational Content in Minds and Models: Latent Influences and Explanatory Challenges", in Z. Kondor & I. Danka (eds), Representation in Ab/Use, Bloomsbury.
 
(2024) "Crystallizing Techniques: Sample Preparations, Technical Knowledge, and the Characterization of Blood Crystals, 1840-1909, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
 
 
(2022) "Empirical Techniques and the Accuracy of Scientific Representations", Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, Part A, 94: 143-157