Outreach

I regard philosophy and science as forms of inquiry that belong in public life, not only within universities. Public engagement is therefore more than a matter of communicating academic results or encouraging people to enter academic programmes. It also requires listening carefully to questions arising outside the academy and allowing those encounters to shape one’s own research.

Over the years, I have organised public conferences, seminars in homes and community settings, and exhibitions presenting scientific ideas to wider audiences. These activities have brought me into conversation with people from varied intellectual, professional, and religious backgrounds.

Physics and Philosophy Conferences

Between 2012 and 2015, I organised three international conferences on physics and philosophy. Open to scholars from several disciplines and to members of the public, the conferences explored contrasting conceptions of nature, including perspectives often neglected in mainstream Anglophone philosophy of physics. These events helped to establish the interdisciplinary direction of my later work, bringing contemporary physics into conversation with metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and theology.

The conferences were supported by the Analysis Trust, the Scots Philosophical Association, the Mind Association, the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance, and the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion.

Philosophy Begins at Home

In 2014–15, with support from the John Templeton Foundation through the Scientists in Congregations project at St Andrews, I organised a year-long series of seminars on naturalism, science, religion, and the mind. The meetings were held in the hospitable setting of a family home and were open both to local residents and to university students.

The informality of the setting encouraged conversations that would have been difficult to reproduce in a lecture theatre. These encounters subsequently influenced my work on mind, nature, and the relationship between academic inquiry and forms of common life.

Science in Public

My early career in theoretical physics also gave me opportunities to present scientific research to wider audiences. I have particularly enjoyed explaining how physicists construct, test, and use theoretical models—and challenging simplified pictures of scientific practice that can sometimes shape philosophical discussion.

Royal Society Exhibitions

Among my most memorable experiences of public scientific engagement were exhibitions at the Royal Society in London and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. On both occasions, I was part of Ulf Leonhardt’s Invisibility Science group, presenting research on transformation optics and the physics of invisibility to public audiences.