Graduate Student Spotlight: Liam Bright
Originally from London, Ph.D. student Liam Bright sat down to talk about his time at CMU, research, travel, and his future at the London School of Economics.
What brought you to Carnegie Mellon University?
I first came to Carnegie Mellon for a summer school in logic after graduating from Warwick University where I had earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. I had first heard about the Philosophy Department’s Summer School in Logic and Formal Epistemology through Walter Dean, the departmental logician at Warwick.
At the point at which I applied for the summer school I had been out of academia for a year. I had worked as an accountant at a prison, but I wanted to get back into philosophy and remembered Walter mentioning the summer school at CMU. I got here and loved it. I made friends and found the studies so interesting, so I resolved I would apply for the Ph.D. program once I completed my master’s at the London School of Economics (LSE). I started the Ph.D. program here in 2012.
Tell us about your research and what your focusing on here. What projects have you been working on, with whom?
Broadly speaking, I work on the social epistemology of science (SES). Professor Kevin Zollman is my advisor. In SES, we are interested in how it is that scientists working together are able to produce and disseminate knowledge. In particular, we look at ways in which the social structure affects their ability to do that – that is, how do institutions, funding, culture, incentives and other variables affect their behavior? One goal is for us to think about ways scientific research can be more successful or less successful depending on potential arrangements of these factors.
When I was here for the summer school, Kevin was one of the teachers I had, and he showed us computer simulations of social groups, with a simplified model of how the communication networks in a community could be structured. I'm very interested in applying this kind of model to a scientific community. More generally than just this particular kind of simulation modelling, I’m interested in applying the kinds of mathematical tools used by economists and sociologists to some of the questions that have been studied by philosophers of science.
For instance, in some of my own work I have looked at proposals for reducing the rate of fraud or research misconduct in scientific publications. Through using the kind of tools economists have developed to think about how people respond to changing incentives, I was able to give reasons to doubt some of the more popular proposals that have been forward by philosophers and sociologists of science. Ever since the replication crisis – the repeated failure of scientists in many fields to successfully replicate previously established and widely believed results – there has been a lot of attention paid to potential reforms to science's social structure, in the hope that they might make its results more secure. I think this is important stuff, so I am proud to be a part of that conversation, and glad that my work at Carnegie Mellon has put me in a position to contribute.
What would you say you are most proud of from your time at CMU?
I got engaged this year! Meeting my fiancée is something I’m pretty proud of!
Academically speaking, though, I have taken an interest in Africana traditions of philosophy, and works produced by and concerning people of African descent, usually post eighteenth century. I think this tradition is under valued and people tend to not take it seriously. I’m quite proud that I’ve managed to integrate works from that tradition into the kind of questions of interest of philosophers of science and social epistemologists. Some people have seen that and thought it was interesting, so I am proud that I’ve been able to get people to pay attention to those perspectives where they didn’t before.
Have you gotten to travel while working on your studies and research?
I’ve gotten to travel to many places and academic conferences. I’ve visited many states, Canada (Vancouver), and Europe (Munich, Holland, Austria, and Vienna). One of the best things about the program is that it allows for funding for travel. Not only is the travel exciting, but I’ve gotten to see and meet friends from afar to converse with them about what I’ve learned. Because of those experiences, I feel like I have a network of people around the world that I can talk to about things that I consider important and fascinating. It’s a feeling of international friendship and solidarity and that is very valuable to me.
What are you plans for post-graduation?
I’m excited to say I have accepted a job at LSE where I earned my master’s degree. I will be an Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method beginning in the autumn of 2018.
The funny thing about that is that while I was at LSE I was talking to the program director about my goal of teaching philosophy. He felt it his duty at the time to warn me about the dire state of the job market – he said that he would support me, but that I shouldn’t go into the field thinking that I would certainly get a job in philosophy, and if I did get one, it would never be at a place like LSE. That was the responsible thing to tell me given the information he had at the time – but here we are!
What are your hobbies and interests outside of the academic space?
When I think about my interests, I tend to like the sublime and ridiculous, but not much in between. So outside of academia and philosophy, I enjoy comic books and silly films that don’t require much thought. I also have always been varying degrees of politically active. I enjoy following and getting involved with politics.
What is your favorite thing about CMU? Your favorite thing about Pittsburgh?
Honestly, my favorite thing about CMU has been the philosophy degree program itself. I think that different people require different things and different styles of supervision. Personally, I wanted to learn how to use the tools I found interesting,and be able to apply them as I saw fit. That’s exactly what the department has let me do. I was given a lot of freedom to decide how to use these resources and tools I was trained in, and I very much have appreciated that.
As for Pittsburgh, I really like the aesthetic – the look of the city. Someone once said it’s “scruffy but nice,” and I think that’s just exactly right. One thing about London is that it’s a very disjointed city; it doesn’t have a “look,” whereas Pittsburgh largely has a distinctive look. I like it and I think there’s been a lot done to maintain it. It’s also a city I have found to be friendly, and one that has it’s own culture and expresses itself through its look and people.