Research
My research pursues two connected questions: what constitutes genuine scientific progress, and how should we build AI systems that advance it? These questions organize everything I do across philosophy of science, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science.
On the scientific progress side, my dissertation developed a novel operative account that foregrounds engineering practice, material construction, and public engagement alongside traditional theoretical reasoning. I draw on historical resources from William Whewell and Rudolf Carnap, and on empirical work in science communication, to show that dialogical engagement with diverse communities is itself a driver of cognitive scientific progress.
On the AI side, I design minimal agent simulations and study interactive computational media—including video games—to investigate how cognition emerges from embodied, situated interaction rather than internal representational processes alone. This work applies advances in agentic AI to cognitive science and extends to philosophical analysis of digital environments as sites where computational systems mediate genuine cognitive and ethical engagement.
Research Areas
Scientific Progress
My dissertation, Engineering Progress in Science (University of Cincinnati, 2025), develops an operative account of scientific progress. Dominant accounts in the literature privilege theoretical discovery—the accumulation of true beliefs, new laws, or improved explanations. I argue instead that scientific works, including instruments, models, calibration routines, and experimental systems, constitute epistemically significant achievements comparable to theoretical contributions. On this account, scientific progress consists in the systematic expansion of both practical-operative and intellectual capacities.
This framework reconceives engineering not as applied science but as a form of inquiry that generates its own distinctive knowledge. The material construction and calibration of scientific instruments represent cognitive achievements that standard philosophies of progress have systematically overlooked. I draw on historical resources from William Whewell’s account of induction and scientific discovery and Rudolf Carnap’s logical frameworks to recover underappreciated philosophical tools for understanding conceptual change and its role in progress.
This line of research also extends to the epistemic dimensions of science communication and public engagement. In “Leveraging Participatory Sense-Making and Public Engagement with Science for AI Democratization” (with Tim Elmo Feiten, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 2025), I draw on enactive cognitive science to argue that dialogical engagement between researchers and communities is not merely an ethical obligation but a cognitively generative practice—one that constitutes a genuine form of scientific progress. An ongoing collaborative project, A Guide for Academic Researchers Conducting Science Outreach (under contract with Cambridge University Press), extends this work into practical guidance for researchers seeking to integrate public engagement into their scholarly practice.
Embodied AI & Computational Cognition
A second line of research develops an empirical program at the intersection of artificial intelligence and embodied cognitive science. I design and run minimal agent simulations as a method for applying recent advances in agentic coding to embodied cognition research. These simulations serve as controlled environments in which to test hypotheses about how cognition emerges from the dynamic coupling of agents with their environments, rather than from internal representational processes alone.
This research draws on dual training in philosophy and robotics and intelligent autonomous systems (M.Eng., 2024) to bridge the gap between philosophical theories of embodied and enactive cognition and the practical tools now available in agentic AI systems. The aim is to use computational modeling not merely as illustration but as a genuinely experimental method for advancing cognitive science.
This work extends to philosophical analysis of interactive computational media, especially video games, as environments where AI-driven systems mediate genuine cognitive and ethical engagement. I am developing a phenomenological account of struggle, striving, and self-development in soulslike and competitive online video games—arguing that these digitally mediated interactions constitute a novel site for understanding how computational agents and human cognition intersect.