Carrie Figdor

Carrie Figdor is a professor of philosophy at the University of Iowa.

Her research focuses on the philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and ethics. Before pursuing a career in philosophy, Figdor was a journalist with the Associated Press for eleven years. She went on to receive a master's degree and doctorate in philosophy from the City University of New York Graduate Center in 1997 and 2005, respectively. After receiving her master's degree in philosophy, she accepted a position as an adjunct professor at the College of Staten Island, and later a position as adjunct professor at Rutgers University. (She also served as a visiting assistant professor at Duke University for a term.) a member of the American Philosophical Association, the Society for Philosophy and Psychology (where she has served on the executive committee and co-chaired the Diversity Committee), the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and the Philosophy of Science Association.

Apart from her primary interests, Figdor has taken a quantitative approach to examining the gender gap in philosophy as a field, finding that the stage of education where the gap grew the most was between those taking introductory philosophy courses and those pursuing undergraduate degrees in philosophy, finding further that the size of this gap was reduced in schools with a high proportion of women philosophy faculty.

Figdor's research has been recognized and disseminated through a series of invited talks at universities across the country. She, for instance, delivered a keynote speech at the 30th Boulder Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science in October 2014, a conference that addressed the historical and philosophical questions raised by cognitive neuroscience. Figdor also delivered a talk at Rice University in March 2014 on gender diversity in philosophy. In addition to these invited talks, Figdor also participated in a yearlong residency as a Scholar at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh from fall 2013 until summer 2014.

Publications Figdor's professional philosophical work has been published in a number of refereed journals, including The Journal of Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Neuroethics, and The Journal of Mass Media Ethics. In this volume she aims to develop a theoretical foundation for scientific attempts to explain the relationship between the mind and the brain, focusing on the differences between processes and objects. It is billed as the "first book to examine how mathematical models provide an important new kind of evidence for mental capacities in nonhumans."

As a journalist for a wire service, Figdor's journalistic work was published in a wide variety of places.