The International Association for Computing and Philosophy’s executive board has selected Dr. Kathleen Creel for the 2023 Herbert A. Simon Award for Outstanding Research in Computing and Philosophy, which specifically recognizes scholars at an early stage of their academic career whose research is likely to reshape debates at the nexus of Computing and Philosophy.
Dr. Creel is an assistant professor at Northeastern University, cross appointed between the Department of Philosophy and the Khoury College of Computer Sciences. Her research explores the moral, political, and epistemic implications of machine learning as it is used in non-state automated decision making and in science. A current project focuses on defining, measuring, and ethically evaluating algorithm-derived outcome homogeneity, namely the extent to which monoculture among decision-making systems causes individuals to receive the same outcomes from multiple decision-makers. In other work, she has developed definitions of transparency for complex computational systems, argued that algorithmic arbitrariness is wrong at scale, and contended that ethically setting decision thresholds in medical settings requires the consideration of individual patient values.
Before Northeastern, she recieved her BA from Williams College in Computer Science and Philosophy. After working as a software engineer at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, she received her MA from Simon Fraser University’s Philosophy Department and her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh’s History and Philosophy of Science Department. Most recently, she was the Embedded Ethics postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. Dr. Creel will present the Simon Award Keynote Address at IACAP 2023 in Prague, 3-5 July 2023.
Please join us at IACAP 2023 to congratulate Dr. Creel on this well-deserved award. More information regarding the conference can be found here: https://www.iacap.org/iacap-2023-prague-czech-republic/