Social and Political Sciences, Philosophy, and Anthropology

Photo of Professor Sabina Leonelli

Professor Sabina Leonelli

Professor of Philosophy and History of Science

s.leonelli@exeter.ac.uk

5137

01392 725137

Byrne House FF12

Overview

Note on Open Access: my publications are freely accessible from Data Studies and Open Science Studies, the ORE site of the University of Exeter, PhilSci Archive and (when not outrageously expensive) in Gold Open Access format thanks to the generous support of ERC, ESRC, EPSRC, ARC and the University of Exeter. Orcid ID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7815-6609

I am Professor of Philosophy and History of Science at the University of Exeter since 2017, having spent much of my career at this University (I first arrived in 2008). In summer 2024, I will be the Kluge Chair in Technology in Society at the Library of Congress, Washington DC. From September 2024, I will hold the Chair of Philosophy and History of Science and Technology at the Technical University of Munich, where I will co-direct a new "Public Science Lab" and the Ethical Data Initiative while maintaining a honorary affiliation with the University of Exeter.

I serve as President-Elect of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB); Council member for the Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology (DLMPST) of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology; Associate Editor for the Harvard Data Science Review; and Subject Editor for the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. I also serve in the Scientific Advisory Board for the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research and hold a Honorary Professorship at the School of History of the University of Adelaide and a Research Associature with the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dorhn in Naples. I have been elected Fellow of the Academie Internationale de Philosophie de la Science, the Academia Europaea, and the Royal Society of Biology, and member of AcademiaNet. From 2019 to 2023 I was a Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute in London and Editor-in-Chief of the international journal History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences. From 2013 to 2024 I directed the Exeter Centre for the Study of the Life Sciences (Egenis); and from 2019 to 2024 I was theme lead for the "Data Governance, Openness and Ethics" strand of the Exeter Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (IDSAI).

My research spans the fields of history and philosophy of biology, science and technology studies and general philosophy of science, and currently focuses on four interrelated strands: [1] the philosophy, history and social studies of data-intensive science and empirical inquiry, especially the impact of Big and Open Data and related AI on research and wider society, responsible data management and governance, data infrastructures and the construction of semantics to enable data linkage in the plant/agricultural sciences and biomedicine; [2] the philosophy and history of Open Science, and the scientific and social implications of implementing Open Science policies and procedures; [3] the philosophy and history of organisms as research models, with a focus on experimental organisms; and [4] the history and epistemology of thet plant sciences, especially the global circulation of plant data, its relation to biological materials and agricultural development strategies, and its significance for understanding 21st century biological research beyond the lab.

Current funded projects:

  • 2021-2026: PI of European Research Council Consolidator Grant "A Philosophy of Open Science for Diverse Research Environments" (PHIL_OS) Research Fellows: Rose Trappes and Paola Castaño. See the URL for details on the project and whole team.
  • 2024: Kluge Chair in Technology and Society, John W. Kluge Center in the Library of Congress, Washington DC. Project: "Openness, Democracy and the Evolution of Technologies of Evidence"
  • 2019-2024: Co-I on EPSRC Doctoral Training Centre on Environmental Intelligence, led by Hywel Williams

From September 2021 to June 2022, I was based in Berlin as a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, working on "Excellence and Diversity in Global Scientific Practice". I was recently the PI of the Turing Project "From Field Data to Global Indicators: Towards a Framework for Intelligent Plant Data Linkage" (2019-2022) and the European Research Council Starting Grant "The Epistemology of Data-Intensive Science" [DATA_SCIENCE] (2014-2019). I was also a Co-I on the ARC Discovery Grant Organisms and Us: How Living Things Help Us to Understand Our World, led by Rachel Ankeny (2016-2020); the ESRC Research Grant Social Sensing of Health and Wellbeing Impact from Pollen and Pollution, led by Hywel Williams (2017-2018); the Leverhulme Trust Grant Beyond the Digital Divide, led by Brian Rappert (2015-2017); the ESRC Research Grant Understanding the Use of Digital Forensics in Policing in England and Wales, led by Dana Wilson-Kovacs (2018-2021); and the British Pharmacological Society project The Future Landscape of in vivo Skills, led by Gail Davies (2016-2017).

Books: The textbook Data and Society: A Critical Introduction (with Anne Beaulieu) was published by SAGE in 2021. The edited volumes Towards Responsible Plant Data Linkage (with Hugh Williamson, 2022) and Data Journeys in the Sciences (with Niccolo Tempini, 2020) and my Elements books Philosophy of Open Science (2023) and Model Organisms (with Rachel Ankeny, 2020) are now downloadable in Open Access format from Springer and Cambridge University Press. The monograph Data-Centric Biology: A Philosophical Study, published in 2016 by Chicago University Press, won the Lakatos Award in 2018 and the Patrick Suppes Prize for Philosophy of Science in 2022 (Korean and Chinese translations are forthcoming). Links to all reviews are here. I am currently working on a monograph on empiricism in the 21st century, which is a much-expanded English version of my 2018 book La Ricerca Scientifica nell'Era dei Big Data ("Scientific Research in the Era of Big Data", published in Italian by Meltemi, in French by Mimesis [2019] and in Portuguese by Editora FIOCRUZ [2022]).

Advisory / policy roles: I am interested in the governance and use of large data infrastructures and in the implementation of Open Science, and I am in regular dialogue with national governments, international bodies and scientific societies/institutions on this issue. I am a Plan S Ambassador (2019-2024) and acted as a Thinker in Residence for the 2021-2022 programme on Reproducibility and Replicability in Science by the Flemish Science Academy. I am an evaluator for the Italian National Centre for High-performing Computing, Big Data and Quantum Computing, and I serve as advisor for the FAIR-IMPACT project, the SAIL database, and the Royal Society Working Group on the Implications of Disruptive Technologies for Research, among other initiatives.

The University of Exeter presented a highly rated impact case study for REF2021 around my research and policy engagement on Open Science. In 2016-2019 I was a member of the Open Science Policy Platform of the European Commission (co-authoring, among other statements, the 2018 OSPP-REC) and in 2017-2018 I served as a key expert in the Mutual Learning Exercise on Open Science (Policy Support Facility) of the DG Research and Innovation of the European Commission. I am an alumna of the Global Young Academy, where from 2015 to 2017 I led the Open Science working group within the Research Environment thematic area. In March 2018 we launched a groundbreaking report on "Global Access to Open Software: The Forgotten Pillar of Open Science", based on a survey carried out by GYA members in Ghana, Nigeria and Bangladesh. I authored many other policy reports, available here.

Service to the history and philosohy of science: I am President-Elect of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB), due to serve as President in 2025-2027 and Past-President in 2027-2029. I am an executive board member of the PhilSci-Archive (the Open Access archive for the philosophy of science) and the executive committees of the UK Network for the Integrated History and Philosophy of Science, and the European Advanced School for the Philosophy of Biology (whose 2018 edition I organised with Thomas Reydon). I am part of the editorial board of the journals Philosophy of Science, Big Data & Society, Social Epistemology, Patterns and Data. I have been Vice President (2019-2023), senior co-Chair of the EPSA Women's Caucus (2015-2019) and member of the steering committee (2013-2017) for the European Philosophy of Science Association; and I served in the executive committee of the Society for the Philosophy of Science in Practice (whose 2011 meeting I hosted in Exeter) from 2011 to 2022. I also served as chair of the nomination committee of the Philosophy of Science Association (2019-2021). I have chaired the Grene and Callebaut Prize Committee of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB) in 2019-2021 and helped to coordinate the UK network for the History, Philosophy and Sociology of Plant Science in the early 2010s.

Service to the natural sciences: I strongly value collaboration with colleagues in the natural sciences and I am on the advisory board of the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage Database (SAIL), PomBase and the European Arabidopsis Stock Centre, among other scientific projects and institutions. Between 2009 and 2020 I served as an ex officio member of the steering committee of GARNet, for which I produced a report on data dissemination practices in plant science and organised the conference "From Big Data to Discovery", resulting in the publication of a paper on data management practices in Nature Plants in 2017.

Talks and Visiting Positions: I have been invited to present my work to a variety of audiences across several countries and institutions, including numerous leading universities, the Royal Society, the European Commission, the European Research Council, the Leopoldina, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the World Science Forum, the Indian Statistical Institute, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the International Data Curation Conference, the Philosophy of Science Association Public Forum and the Field Museum. I have held visiting positions at the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Evolution and Cognition (2005), the University of Minnesota (Centre for the Philosophy of Science, 2012), the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin (project "Sciences of the Archive", 2014; Colloquium visitor, 2019), the Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science in Gent, Belgium (2018), the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2021-22) and the Library of Congress (2024).

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Research

I pursue an approach to philosophy of science that is grounded on the empirical study of scientific practices, as informed by historical research, ethnographic methods used in the social and anthropological studies of science and technology, and collaboration with practicing scientists. I have a strong interest in the following topics:

  • Open Science and transformations in research systems (see www.opensciencestudies.eu)
  • Epistemic injustice and epistemic diversity in global research
  • Ethics and Governance of Data and AI
  • Data-intensive science and AI-powered research
  • Philosophy, history and social studies of biology, biomedicine, epidemiology, environmental science, data science and toxicology
  • Research data sharing and re-use (see www.datastudies.eu)
  • Bioinformatics and Data Semantics systems in Biology and Biomedicine
  • History and Epistemic Status of Model Organism Research
  • History, Philosophy and Sociology of Plant Biology and Biomedicine
  • The Role of Embodied Knowledge and Skills in Scientific Understanding
  • Abstraction and Modelling Processes in Biology
  • Science Policy and the Globalisation and Political Economy of Scientific Research
  • Distributed Cognition and Division of Scientific Labor
  • Unity, Disunity and Integration in Science
  • Early American Pragmatism

I taught data ethics and governance to postgraduate students in data science in the College of Engineering and Mathematics (2018-2021), and bioethics to second-year undergraduate students in the College of Biosciences (2009-2013).

Research group links

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Supervision

Philosophy, history and social studies of data-intensive science, bioinformatics, experimental research on organisms and model systems, translational research and Open Science

Role of digital technologies in shaping scientific research and communication

Impact of automation and artificial intelligence on knowledge production and scientific methods

Projects concerning plant biology, including its relations to agriculture and data science

Global governance, science and democracy

General philosophy of science (especially philosophy of science in practice)

Science and Technology Studies

Pragmatism and empiricism

Research students

As first supervisor:

Arthur Vandervoort

Nathanael Sheehan

Emma Cavazzoni

Fotis Tsiroukis

Joyce Acquah

As second or co-supervisor:

Alex Mussgang (University of Edinburgh, philosophy of machine learning)

Maria Volkova (University of Exeter, AI monitoring and immigration)

Cassandra Bird (ethics of data modelling)

Abhi Navaneethanathan (data fusion in oceanography)

Former PhD students:

Elis Jones ("The Significance of 'Value' to Coral Reef Scientists", completed 2023)

Dook Sheperd (University of Adelaide, "The Honeybee as a Model of Cognition", completed 2022)

Miguel Lopez Paleta (UNAM, Mexico; "The Chicken as an Experimental Organism", completed 2020)

Stefano Canali (University of Hannover, "Causality and Epistemology of Data in Exposomics Research", completed 2019)

Necmiye Ackali (experimental philosophy, completed 2021)

Gregor Halfmann ("Data processing in ocean science", completed 2018)

Nicholas Binney ('History and philosophy of diagnosis: the case of heart failure', completed 2017).

James Lowe ('Normal development, preformation and epigenesis in early 20th century experimental biology', completed 2015).

Tarquin Holmes ('Wildtype in the history of biology', completed 2016)

Jo Donaghy ("Researchers' Assumptions and Mathematical Models: A Philosophical Study of Metabolic Systems Biology", completed 2014).

Pietro Berti ('Fuelling Expectations: UK Biofuel Policy', completed 2014).

Sara Green (Aarhus, Denmark; 'Systems biology and the quest for organising principles'', completed 2014).

Luca Iori (PhD at the University of Bologna; 'Nazareno Strampelli and the development of agricultural genetics in Italy, 1910-1950', completed 2013).

Aleksandra Sojic (PhD at SEMM, Milan; 'Bio-ontologies and breast cancer research', completed 2012)

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Publications

Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.

| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2002 | 1983 |

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

  • Ankeny RA, Leonelli S. (2020) 7. Valuing Data in Postgenomic Biology:, Postgenomics, De Gruyter, 126-149, DOI:10.1515/9780822375449-008.
  • Ankeny RA, Leonelli S. (2020) Model Organisms, Cambridge University Press, DOI:10.1017/9781108593014.
  • Arnaud E, Laporte M-A, Kim S, Aubert C, Leonelli S, Miro B, Cooper L, Jaiswal P, Kruseman G, Shrestha R. (2020) The Ontologies Community of Practice: A CGIAR Initiative for Big Data in Agrifood Systems, Patterns, volume 1, no. 7, pages 100105-100105, article no. 100105, DOI:10.1016/j.patter.2020.100105. [PDF]
  • Parry G, Benitez-Alfonso Y, Gibbs DJ, Grant M, Harper A, Harrison CJ, Kaiserli E, Leonelli S, May S, McKim S. (2020) How to build an effective research network: lessons from two decades of the GARNet plant science community, Journal of Experimental Botany, volume 71, no. 22, pages 6881-6889, DOI:10.1093/jxb/eraa397. [PDF]
  • Leonelli S. (2020) Preface: A roadmap for readers.
  • Leonelli S. (2020) Learning from Data Journeys, Data Journeys in the Sciences, Springer International Publishing, 1-24, DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-37177-7_1. [PDF]
  • CODATA Coordinated Expert Group, Berkman PA, Brase J, Hartshorn R, Hodson S, Hugo W, Leonelli S, Pfeiffenberger H. (2020) Open Science for a Global Transformation. [PDF]
  • Ankeny RA, Leonelli S. (2020) Using Repertoires to Explore Changing Practices in Recent Coral Research, Why Study Biology by the Sea?, University of Chicago Press.
  • Arnaud E, Laporte M-A, Kim S, Aubert C, Leonelli S, Cooper L, Jaiswal P, Kruseman G, Shrestha R, Buttigieg PL. (2020) The Ontologies Community of Practice: An Initiative by the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture, Patterns.
  • Open Science Policy Platform EU, Leonelli S. (2020) Progress on Open Science: Towards a Shared Research Knowledge System. Final Report of the Open Science Policy Platform, European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. [PDF]
  • Leonelli S. (2020) Scientific Research and Big Data, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2020 Edition). [PDF]
  • Leonelli S. (2020) Introduction: Learning from Data Journeys, Data Journeys in the Sciences, Springer.
  • Leonelli S, Tempini N. (2020) Data Journeys in the Sciences, Springer, DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-37177-7.
  • Boumans MJ, Leonelli S. (2020) From Dirty Data to Tidy Facts: Clustering Practices in Plant Phenomics and Business Cycle Analysis, Data Journeys in the Sciences, Springer.

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

  • Leonelli S. (2014) Scientific Organisations as Social Movements: Reflections on How Social Theory Can Inform the Philosophy of Science, Building Bridges - Connecting Science, Technology and Philosophy, VU University Press, 39-52.

2013

2012

  • Leonelli S. (2012) Karen-Sue Taussig: Ordinary Genomes: Science, Citizenship and Genetic Identities, Acta Biotheoretica, volume 60, no. 3, pages 319-322, DOI:10.1007/s10441-012-9150-8. [PDF]
  • Leonelli S, Bastow, Ruth. (2012) Making Data Available for All, GARNet. [PDF]
  • Leonelli S. (2012) Introduction: Making sense of data-driven research in the biological and biomedical sciences, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C :Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, volume 43, no. 1, pages 1-3.
  • Leonelli S. (2012) Review of ‘Ordinary Genomes: Science, Citizenship, and Genetic Identities’ by Karen Sue-Taussig, Acta Biotheoretica.
  • Leonelli S. (2012) Classificatory Theory in Data-Intensive Science: The Case of Open Biomedical Ontologies, International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, volume 26, no. 1, pages 47-65.
  • Leonelli S. (2012) When Humans Are the Exception: Cross-Species Databases at the Interface of Biological and Clinical Research, Social Studies of Science, volume 42, no. 2.
  • Leonelli S, Ankeny R. (2012) Re-Thinking Organisms: The Epistemic Impact of Databases on Model Organism Biology, Studies in the History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, volume 43, pages 29-36.

2011

2010

  • Patton L. (2010) Henk W. de Regt;, Sabina Leonelli;, Kai Eigner (Editors). Scientific Understanding: Philosophical Perspectives. 352 pp., illus., bibls., index. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009. $65 (cloth), Isis, volume 101, no. 4, pages 932-933, DOI:10.1086/659733. [PDF]
  • Leonelli S. (2010) Machine Science: The Human Side, Science, volume 330, no. 6002.
  • leonelli S. (2010) Key ethical concerns that should travel between e-social and e-natural science. [PDF]
  • Bastow R, Leonelli S. (2010) Sustainable Digital Infrastructure, EMBO Reports, volume 11, no. 10, pages 730-735.
  • Leonelli S. (2010) Packaging Data for Re-Use: Databases in Model Organism Biology, How Well Do Facts Travel? The Dissemination of Reliable Knowledge, Cambridge University Press.
  • Leonelli S. (2010) Documenting the Emergence of Bio-Ontologies: Or, Why Researching Bioinformatics Requires HPSSB, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, volume 32, no. 1, pages 105-126.
  • Leonelli S. (2010) The Commodification of Knowledge Exchange: Governing the Circulation of Biological Data, The Commodification of Academic Research, Pittsburgh University Press.

2009

  • Leonelli S. (2009) The Role of Bio-Ontologies in Data-Driven Research: A Philosophical Perspective, pages 1-1, DOI:10.1038/npre.2009.3646.1.
  • . (2009) Scientific Understanding, DOI:10.2307/j.ctt9qh59s. [PDF]
  • Leonelli S. (2009) An HPSSB (history, philosophy and social science of biology) approach to biomedical ontologies, 2009 5th IEEE International Conference On E-Science Workshops, 9th - 11th Dec 2009, 2009 5th IEEE International Conference on E-Science Workshops, DOI:10.1109/esciw.2009.5407978. [PDF]
  • de Regt H, Leonelli S, Eigner K. (2009) Focusing on Scientific Understanding, Scientific Understanding: A Philosophical Perspective, Pittsburgh University Press.
  • Leonelli S. (2009) The Impure Nature of Biological Knowledge, Scientific Understanding: A Philosophical Perspective, Pittsburgh University Press.
  • Leonelli S. (2009) The Role of Bio-Ontologies In Data-Driven Research: A Philosophical Perspective, International Conference of Biomedical Ontologies, Buffalo, Ny, 24th - 26th Jul 2009, Nature Precedings Collection. [PDF]
  • de Regt H, Leonelli S, Eigner K. (2009) Scientific Understanding: A Philosophical Perspective, Pittsburgh University Press.
  • Leonelli S. (2009) On the Locality of Data and Claims About Phenomena, Philosophy of Science, volume 76, no. 5, pages 737-749.
  • Leonelli S, Howlett P. (2009) Editorial: How Well Do 'Facts' Travel?, Graduate Journal of Social Science, volume 6, no. 2 (Special Issue), pages 1-2.
  • Leonelli S. (2009) Centralising Labels to Distribute Data: The Regulatory Role of Genomic Consortia, The Handbook for Genetics and Society: Mapping the New Genomic Era, Routledge, 469-485.

2008

  • Leonelli S. (2008) Circulating Evidence Across Research Contexts: The Locality of Data and Claims in Model Organism Biology, LSE Working Papers on the Nature of Evidence: How Well Do ‘Facts’ Travel?, no. 25. [PDF]
  • Leonelli S. (2008) Regulating Data Travel in the Life Sciences: The Impact of Commodification, LSE Working Papers on the Nature of Evidence: How Well Do ‘Facts’ Travel?, volume 27, no. 08. [PDF]
  • Leonelli S. (2008) Bio-Ontologies as Tools for Integration in Biology, Biological Theory, volume 3, no. 1, pages 8-11.
  • Leonelli S. (2008) Performing abstraction:: two ways of modelling Arabidopsis thaliana, BIOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY, volume 23, no. 4, pages 509-528, DOI:10.1007/s10539-007-9081-y. [PDF]

2007

  • Cox FM, Schmidt-Hannisa HW. (2007) Introduction, Money and culture, Peter Lang Pub Inc, 11-14.
  • Leonelli S. (2007) Cultivando Hierba, Produciendo conocimiento. Una historia epistemologica de Arabidopsis thaliana, Variedad Sin Limites. Las Rapresentaciones en la Ciencia, Universidad Autonoma de Mexico y Editor Limusa.
  • Leonelli S. (2007) What is in a Model? Using Theoretical and Material Models to Develop Intelligible Theories, Modeling Biology. Structures, Behaviour, Evolution, MIT Press.
  • Leonelli S. (2007) Arabidopsis, the botanical Drosophila: from mouse cress to model organism, Endeavour, volume 31, no. 1, pages 34-38, DOI:10.1016/j.endeavour.2007.01.003. [PDF]
  • Leonelli S. (2007) Naar een Open Dialoog Tussen de Wetenschap en de Wetenschapsstudies, Algemeen Nederland Tijdschrijft Wijsbegeerte, volume 99, no. 3, pages 237-240.
  • Leonelli S. (2007) Growing weed, producing knowledge: an epistemic history of Arabidopsis thaliana, Hist Philos Life Sci, volume 29, no. 2, pages 193-223. [PDF]

2006

  • Leonelli S. (2006) Forming Civic Consciousness: A Participant’s View on the European Social Forum. [PDF]

2005

2004

  • Leonelli S. (2004) Introducing the GJSS: Why a Graduate Journal on Interdisciplinary Methodology?, Graduate Journal of Social Science, volume 1, pages i-vii, article no. 1.

2002

  • Leonelli S. (2002) Understanding Infrared Metaphysics: Melloni’s Quest for Identity, Measurement in Physics and Economics Discussion Paper Series, volume DP MEAS 22, no. 02.

1983

  • MORGAN JA. (1983) RESPONSIBILITY, CME-CHARTERED MECHANICAL ENGINEER, volume 30, no. 9, pages 14-14. [PDF]

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External impact and engagement

I am very interested in the social and political roles of science (understood in the broad sense of 'wissenschaft'), and keen to engage with policy makers, publishers, industries and institutions involved in the governance of multidisciplinary research, in particular open science guidelines and practices, incentives and conditions for data science and the automation of knowledge production, the management of data centres and infrastructures, the implementation of Open Data and Open Science, the transformation of Big Data into knowledge, and questions relating to translational research and the digital divide. I regularly tweet on my engagement activities as @sabinaleonelli .

Unti 2020, I was a member of the Open Science Policy Platform instituted by the European Commission in 2016 to assist with the implementation of Open Science policies. I acted as the Chair of its Open Science Publishing Working Group in 2017 and the Rapporteur for its Integrated Advice (which produced the OSPP-REC for the Competitiveness Council) in 2018.

I have also been a key expert in the Mutual Learning Exercise in "Open Science: Incentives and Rewards" organised by the DG Research and Innovation of the European Commission for 14 member states (Austria, Armenia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland), which took place in 2017-2018, and a member of the Science Board of the European Open Science Cloud pilot project (2017-2019).

From 2019 to 2021, I am a Plan S Ambassador. In 2018 I co-authored the Young Academies Statement on Plan S, and continue to be actively involved in discussions on the future of scholarly publishing (see my 2019 interviews for ORION and the International Science Council).

I have been invited to present my work to a variety of learned societies, funding bodies and governmental agencies (such as the Royal Society, the European Research Council, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Swiss National Research Council, the National Library of Medicine, the AHRC, the Indian Statistical Institute), as well as prominent Open Science conferences and policy events in Europe (e.g. EU Presidency Amsterdam Open Science Conference, April 2016; Berlin 13 Conference Open Science, March 2017), and I regularly participate in public consultations by the UK government, European Commission and international organisations such as OECD and ICS.

Until 2017, I was an elected member to the Global Young Academy where I led the Working Group on Open Science. Key outputs included the GYA positions statements on Open Science and Open Data, and the GYA Report on Global Access to Research Software. In the fall of 2015, I represented the GYA at the World Science Forum in Budapest, and in 2017 I delivered a keynote lecture at the World Science Forum in Jordan (full text here). In 2016, I co-chaired the Position Statement on Open Data by European Young Academies of Science and the GYA, and presented it to EU Commissioner Moedas at the European Commission Open Science Conference in Amsterdam.

Since 2009 I also serve as an ex officio member of the steering committee of GARNet, for which I produced a report on data dissemination practices in plant science, and with whom I hosted the workshop "From Big Data to Discovery" in April 2016.

You can listen to a summary of my views on Open Data in this SAGE podcast, released in September 2013, and this LSE Impact Blog on "To what are we opening science?", from May 2015.

I discussed the philosophy of data science in this Mendelpod interview, recorded in April 2014, and this edition of the "Philosophy of Data" series of the LSE Impact Blog, published in January 2015.

I am also strongly committed to enhancing the visibility and numbers of women in science as well as the humanities, and I have been senior co-Chair of the Women's Caucus of the European Philosophy of Science Association (2015-2019).

Finally, I am part of the steering committees of the following organisations within my field: the PhilSci-Archive, the Society for the Philosophy of Science in Practice (SPSP), the UK Network for Integrated History and Philosophy of Science (UK iHPS) and the European Advanced School for Philosophy of Biology (EASPB). From 2014 to 2017, I served on the steering committee of the European Philosophy of Science Association.

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Teaching

Modules taught

  • SOCM013 - Independent Study in Sociology and Philosophy
  • SOCM016 - Cultures of the Life Sciences
  • SOCM033 - Data Governance and Ethics
  • SOCM904 - Dissertation
  • SOCM945 - Philosophy of Science

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Biography

I moved from Italy to London in 1997, to undertake a BSc course in History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science at the STS Department of University College London. Thanks to my great teachers, those three years had a crucial influence on my intellectual development. I then earned an MSc in History and Philosophy of Science at the London School of Economics and I worked as a research assistant to Hasok Chang in the 'Measurement' project at the Centre for the Philosophy of Natural and Social Science. I carried out my doctoral research in the Netherlands as part of the project ‘Understanding Scientific Understanding’ based at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, with Henk de Regt and Hans Radder. Between 2002 to 2007, I founded and served as the Editor-in-Chief for the Graduate Journal of Social Science and I followed the training provided by the WTMC (Netherlands Graduate School for Science, Technology and Modern Culture) and the Flemish-Dutch Graduate Network for the philosophy of science. Before landing in Exeter in 2008, I worked as a research officer in the Leverhulme/ESRC project ‘How Well Do ‘Facts’ Travel?’ based at the Department of Economic History of the London School of Economics and led by Mary Morgan.

I have been funded by several public and private bodies, including the European Research Council (Starting and Consolidator awards), the ESRC, the British Academy, the Alan Turing Institute, the EPSRC and the Leverhulme Trust, to carry out a variety of projects in the history, philosophy and social studies of science - especially biology, biomedicine and data science. Details of current projects, publications and other resources (including media, blogs and videos of lectures) are available here. I am a fellow of the Academie Internationale de Philosophie de la Science, the Academia Europaea and the Royal Society of Biology. 

Aside from my main scholarly activities as a philosopher and historian of science, I have a strong interest in science policy and governance, inspired by my scholarly work on the epistemic, social and ethical dimensions of automation and data-intensive research. I have authored several policy reports, including one on the impact of big data on biomedicine for the Swiss government in 2017, one on Global Access to Research Software for the Global Young Academy in 2018, and three reports for the European Commission Mutual Learning Exercise "Open Science: Incentives and Rewards" in 2017 and 2018; and one for the Thinkers Programme of the Belgian Academy of Science in 2022. From 2012 to 2017 I was a member of the Global Young Academy, leading on their Open Science activities; from 2016 to 2020 I was a member of the Open Science Policy Platform of the European Commission.

I am Editor-in-Chief of the journal History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, for which I also served as Associate Editor from 2013 to 2018; and Subject Editor for the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. I serve on the executive boards of the Society for the Philosophy of Science in Practice, the PhilSci-Archive (the open access archive for philosophy of science), the plant community GARNet and the journals Science, Technology and Human Values; The Reasoner; Big Data and Society; Social Epistemology; Data and Medicina e Storia. From 2013 to 2017 I served on the steering committee of the European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA), as the Senior Co-Chair of the EPSA Women's Caucus (2015-2019), and EPSA VicePresident (2019-2023). Further, I am involved in the co-ordination of the UK Network for Integrated History and Philosophy of Science (meeting annually), the European Advanced Seminar in the Philosophy of the Life Sciences (meeting biannually) and the network for the History, Philosophy and Sociology of Plant Science in the UK.

In the past, I have coordinated the postgraduate teaching in SPA and have served as diversity and inclusivity officer for the department. At the undergraduate level, I have offered an 'experimental' course to third-year philosophy students, in which they got to do original research and produce professional papers (the best outputs are published on the digital platform Pragmatism Tomorrow). I continue to teach classes at MA level, including a module on Data Ethics and Governance as well as a long-running module on Cultures of the Life Sciences.

I am a member of the Philosophy of Science Association, the European Philosophy of Science Association, the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology, the British Society for the Philosophy of Science, the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Society of Biology and the Society for the Philosophy of Information. I frequently serve as a referee for several journals in the philosophy, history and social studies of science, as well as funding bodies from the UK, EU, USA, Canada, Italy, Netherlands, France, Germany and Belgium. I aim to referee at least one paper every month, though I frequently referee more.

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