Dr Sabina Leonelli

Biography

I moved from Italy to London in 1997, to undertake a BSc course in History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science at the STS Department of University College London. Thanks to my great teachers, those three years had a crucial influence on my intellectual development. After graduation, I earned an MSc in History and Philosophy of Science at the London School of Economics and I worked as a research assistant to Hasok Chang in the 'Measurement' project at the Centre for the Philosophy of Natural and Social Science. I carried out my doctoral research in the Netherlands as part of the project ‘Understanding Scientific Understanding’ based at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, with Henk de Regt and Hans Radder. From 2002 to 2007, I have served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Graduate Journal of Social Science and I followed the training provided by the WTMC (Netherlands Graduate School for Science, Technology and Modern Culture). Before arriving in Exeter, I worked as a research officer in the Leverhulme/ESRC project ‘How Well Do ‘Facts’ Travel?’ based at the Department of Economic History of the London School of Economics and headed by Mary Morgan.

From 2013 to 2016, I serve as Associate Editor of the journal History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences. I also serve on the executive boards of the Society for the Philosophy of Science in Practice, the plant community GARNet and the journals The Reasoner and Medicina e Storia. I am a member of the Global Policy group of the Global Young Academy, where I coordinated the GYA position on Open Science in 2012. Further, I am involved in the co-ordination of the UK Network for Integrated History and Philosophy of Science (meeting annually), the European Advanced Seminar in the Philosophy of the Life Sciences (meeting biannually) and the newly formed network for the History, Philosophy and Sociology of Plant Science in the UK (which I founded). Aside from acting as the Director of Postgraduate Studies in my department, and convening and co-teaching some of our MA degrees, I offer an 'experimental' course to third-year philosophy students, in which they get to do original research and produce professional papers. The best outputs of the course are published on the digital platform Pragmatism Tomorrow, which I edit and coordinate.

I am a member of the Philosophy of Science Association, the European Philosophy of Science Association, the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology, the British Society for the Philosophy of Science, the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology and the Society for the Philosophy of Information. I serve as a referee for Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Science, Synthese, Erkentniss, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, European Journal for the Philosophy of Science, International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Biology and Philosophy, Social Studies of Science, BioSocieties, Poetics, Science, Technology and Human Values, the National Science Foundation, the BBSRC, NWO, the Konrad Lorenz Institute and the Graduate Journal of Social Science.