[photo description: photo of Jingyi, who is smiling into the camera in front of an ocean, as the sun sets.]
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I am a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science (LPS) at UC Irvine. I primarily work on social epistemology and philosophy of physics. I also have interests in general philosophy of science, feminist philosophy, philosophy of race, Asian/American philosophy, and mathematical physics. I'm working on two graduate emphases, one in Physics and one in Race and Justice Studies. I'm co-advised by Cailin O'Connor and James Owen Weatherall. In September 2023, I will start as Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics.
My work focuses on clarifying the structures of our social and physical worlds. As a scientifically-informed philosopher, I do so in two ways. First, I employ network models to address questions such as: How do social identities and social injustice impact knowledge production in a group? Does diversity improve group learning? How do we promote such diversity? This work is at the intersection of social epistemology, network modeling, and the philosophy of race and gender. Second, I use geometric and topological methods to study foundational questions in physics, especially in spacetime theories and statistical mechanics. This work is in the philosophy and foundations of physics. In both areas, I use mathematical tools to think about philosophically interesting questions, and philosophically reflect on the applicability of models that purport to represent or explain reality. Read more about my research here. I'm passionate about structurally shifting academia into a more welcoming space for minoritized populations. I served on the Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) leadership team from 2018-2021, including co-directing it in 2020-21. I designed the LPS climate committee in 2020 and chaired it in 2021-22. I also serve on the Underrepresented Philosophy of Science Scholars (UPSS) Committee at the Philosophy of Science Association. Read more about my service work here. I proposed, designed, and successfully taught a brand-new class on Asian American Philosophy at UC Irvine in Summer 2022. I am quite proud of how it turned out. You can read more about the class and other teaching-related things here. I received my M.A. in Social Science from the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences at UC Irvine. Before coming to Irvine, I spent a year as an M.A. student at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy. Before that, I received my B.A. from Middlebury College, double majoring in philosophy and mathematics. Here is my CV, and here is my Google Scholar profile. My Erdős number is 3. (Paul Erdős—>James Milne Anderson—>Stephen D. Abbott—>me.) My name (Jingyi Wu) is pronounced roughly as jing-yee woo. I go by Jingyi. My email address is Jingyi.Wu@uci.edu. I use she/her/hers pronouns. |
Recent and upcoming talks!
March 24, 2023, I am giving a virtual talk at the Pittsburgh Formal Epistemology Workshop, on "Modeling Injustice in Epistemic Networks."
March 24, 2023, I am giving a virtual talk at the Pittsburgh Formal Epistemology Workshop, on "Modeling Injustice in Epistemic Networks."
News!
February 2023 I wrote a public-facing piece, "Modeling Injustice in Epistemic Networks," introducing my dissertation work. It was published as part of a symposium series on the Brains Blog, with commentary from Kevin Zollman. You can read the piece here.
February 2023 A white paper I co-authored as part of the massive international inter-disciplinary Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Project is now published in Galaxies. The title is "The Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration: History, Philosophy, and Culture." You can read it here (open access).
December 2022 My paper with Cailin O'Connor titled "How Should We Promote Transient Diversity in Science?" is now published in Synthese. You can read it here (open access).
August 2022 Cailin O'Connor, Paul Smaldino, and I have a forthcoming chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Cultural Evolution. The title is "The Cultural Evolution of Science." You can read it here.
April 2022 My paper, "Epistemic Advantage on the Margin: A Network Standpoint Epistemology" is recently published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. In this paper, I use network models to show how marginalized social groups can know more, because their testimony is ignored or devalued. You can read it here (open access).
Nov.-Dec. 2021; April 2022 I received the 2021 Hanneke Janssen Memorial Prize in history and philosophy of physics for my paper "Explaining Universality: Infinite Limit Systems in the Renormalization Group Method." The paper was recently published in Synthese. You can read the paper for free here and the jury report here. This paper was also recognized by the Justine Lambert Prize in foundations of science at UC Irvine in April 2022. You can read the news release here.
February 2023 I wrote a public-facing piece, "Modeling Injustice in Epistemic Networks," introducing my dissertation work. It was published as part of a symposium series on the Brains Blog, with commentary from Kevin Zollman. You can read the piece here.
February 2023 A white paper I co-authored as part of the massive international inter-disciplinary Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Project is now published in Galaxies. The title is "The Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration: History, Philosophy, and Culture." You can read it here (open access).
December 2022 My paper with Cailin O'Connor titled "How Should We Promote Transient Diversity in Science?" is now published in Synthese. You can read it here (open access).
August 2022 Cailin O'Connor, Paul Smaldino, and I have a forthcoming chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Cultural Evolution. The title is "The Cultural Evolution of Science." You can read it here.
April 2022 My paper, "Epistemic Advantage on the Margin: A Network Standpoint Epistemology" is recently published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. In this paper, I use network models to show how marginalized social groups can know more, because their testimony is ignored or devalued. You can read it here (open access).
Nov.-Dec. 2021; April 2022 I received the 2021 Hanneke Janssen Memorial Prize in history and philosophy of physics for my paper "Explaining Universality: Infinite Limit Systems in the Renormalization Group Method." The paper was recently published in Synthese. You can read the paper for free here and the jury report here. This paper was also recognized by the Justine Lambert Prize in foundations of science at UC Irvine in April 2022. You can read the news release here.
