The 11th VMST conference (“Matt-Fest”) was hosted at UT Dallas in May 2023. This was a fantastic conference that celebrated Matthew J. Brown’s contributions to the Center for Values as its former director (2011-2022). Friends, mentors, and colleagues of Dr. Brown presented on a wide range of topics related to values in science, scientific pluralism, and pragmatism. Some photos of this event are below (photo credit to Kareem Khalifa)
The honoree Matt Brown (Southern Illinois University) responds to the presentations
Keynote speaker: Kareem Khalifa (UCLA) on inquiry and epistemic priority
Keynote speaker: Heather Douglas (Michigan State University) on accountability for big science
Keynote speaker: Don Howard (University of Notre Dame) on Quine, Dewey, and naturalism
Keynote speaker: Jamie Shaw (Leibniz University Hannover) on Feyerabend’s experiments in living
Keynote speaker: Carla Fehr (University of Waterloo) on race, gender, and artificial intelligence
Keynote speaker: Jacob Stegenga (University of Cambridge) on arguments about the islanders of Moa
Keynote speaker: Joyce Havstad (University of Utah) on pluralism and monism
Keynote speaker: Dan Hicks (UC Merced) on Feyerabend’s anarchism
Greg Lusk (Durham University) and Kevin Elliott (in absentia) on values in the context of scientific assessment
Victoria Min-Yi Wang (University of Toronto) on Fleck and science communication
Sarah Wieten (Durham University) on covertly wishing for causes
Adrian Erasmus (University of Alabama) on p-hacking
Ian Peebles (Princeton University) on race, well-being, and cognitive enhancement
Britta Bolander (University of Utah) on the cognitive metaphor
Gabriele Contessa (Carlton University) on pragmatism and public trust
Bennett Knox (University of Utah) on moral imagination in psychiatry
Paul Howatt (Indiana University) on Dewey’s theory of democracy
Robert Kok (University of Utah) on tropical diseases and the parisitological perspective
Dustin Gray (UC Santa Cruz) on surveillance and internet privacy
Hannah Allen (University of Utah) on moral imagination
T. J. Perkins (University of Utah) on moral imagination
Jonathan Tsou (University of Texas at Dallas) on Feyerabend’s realism
Left (front to back): Kareem Khalifa, Robert Kok, Richard Townsend (Center for Values Associate), Frederick Grinnell (Center for Values Associate), Arlin Khan (2023 Marvin and Kathleen Stone Research Fellow), Paul Howatt, Bennett Knox, Victoria Wang, Hannah Allen, Sarah Wieten
Right (front to back): Matthew Brown, Sabrina Starnaman, Heather Douglas, Don Howard, Jonathan Tsou, Jamie Shaw, Greg Lusk, Britta Bolander, Jacob Stegenga, Adrian Erasmus
Matt Brown and Kareem Khalifa