Emily Sullivan, associate professor of philosophy at Utrecht University, is the winner of the 2025 Herbert A. Simon Award for Outstanding Research in Computing and Philosophy.

The Simon Award “recognizes scholars at an early stage of their academic career whose research is likely to reshape debates at the nexus of Computing and Philosophy.” It is awarded by the International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP).

Professor Sullivan works at the intersection of philosophy and data and computer science. Her current project is on machine learning models.

In its prize announcement, IACAP said:

[Sullivan’s] research explores the ways that AI technology mediates knowledge, understanding, and our practice of giving and receiving explanations. Her work focuses on the way that AI changes how we do science, which calls us to rethink existing philosophical frameworks surrounding the nature of explanation, idealization, and scientific understanding. At the same time, she considers how normative issues in ethics and epistemology shape the answers to these questions. 

Professor Sullivan will present the Simon Award Keynote Address at the upcoming IACAP conference at the University of Twente this July.

Further information here.