New Members Appointed to the PERITIA Advisory Board

PERITIA is proud to welcome three new outstanding members to its Advisory Board: Heather Douglas, Professor of Philosophy at Michigan State University, Stephan Lewandowsky, Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Bristol, and Stathis Psillos, Professor of Philosophy of Science and Metaphysics at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

The PERITIA Advisory Board is composed of 10 high-profile scholars who are affiliated with issue specific work packages related to their interest and expertise. The board provides guidance and advice to the consortium and discusses research questions, progress and outcomes of the project

Heather Douglas is Professor of Philosophy at Michigan State University in the United States and a leading expert on questions of trust in science advice for policy. In May 2021, she gave a lecture on Trustworthy Science Advice in the PERITIA Lecture Series [Un]Truths: Trust in an Age of Disinformation. She is the author of Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal (2009) as well as numerous articles on values in science, the moral responsibilities of scientists, and the role of science in democratic societies. In 2016, she was named a AAAS fellow.

Stephan Lewandowsky is Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Bristol (UK). His research examines people’s memory, decision making, and knowledge structures, with a particular emphasis on how people update their memories if information they believe turn out to be false. He has published extensively on the variables that determine whether or not people accept scientific evidence, for example surrounding vaccinations or climate science. He is also one of the main authors of the Debunking Handbook 2020, the COVID-19 Vaccine Communication Handbook and several other practical guides on how to tackle the persistence of misinformation and spread of “fake news” in society, including conspiracy theories.

Stathis Psillos is Professor of Philosophy of Science and Metaphysics at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, and since 2013 a member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. He is the author/editor of ten books and of more than 170 papers and reviews in learned journals and edited collections, mainly on scientific realism, metaphysics of  science and the history of philosophy of science. This makes him one of the leading thinkers on questions of causation and explanation, and how science tracks truth, and thus an ideal adviser for the PERITIA project.