Jonathan Waskan

I am excited to be a part of the interdisciplinary studies program at WCSU. My own journey down the path of interdisciplinarity began with simple wonder and fascination at human thought and consciousness. To turn that into a career, I earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgia State and was then (somehow) admitted to Washington University’s Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology program. I had free rein there to study connectionism (now called ‘deep learning’), human brains, old-school A.I., behavioral experimentation, and lots of philosophy.

After earning my doctorate, I did a stint at William Paterson University and then went on to the University of Illinois, where I worked in the Department of Philosophy and at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. There I researched real and artificial minds, the nature of science, and the viability of philosophy, publishing my work in top presses and journals. I also founded the Psychology of Philosophy Laboratory, home to a group of young upstarts who enjoyed performing behavioral experiments on laypeople, scientists, and philosophers alike. After a hiatus from academia, I now return to impart whatever I can about the art of interdisciplinarity.