My central area of research is the philosophy of mind and psychiatry. My work has focused on the nature of mind itself, especially on emergence, and on the wide variation among mental phenomena: how the capacities of the mind can sometimes fail, how they can function differently in different creatures, and what practical consequences these ideas have. This underpins my interest in mental disorders, altered states of consciousness, animal cognition and consciousness, and their connection to bioethics.

My work in the philosophy of mind and psychiatry falls into two sub-areas: the mind-body problem and the variety of mental phenomena, ordered and disordered. In the philosophy of mind, I have clarified what emergence means while also defending the thesis that the mind should be understood as a strongly emergent phenomenon. This work connects to my work elucidating the concept of ‘brute facts’ since underpinning the question of emergence are questions about scientific explanation, and what kinds of entities are basic or ‘brute’. My research on the nature of the mind led to the question of how mental processes can go awry. This precipitated my interest in the philosophy of psychiatry. Here I have pursued four themes: the nature of mental disorders, altered states of consciousness, animal cognition and consciousness and the implications of some of these ideas for bioethics. In terms of how we should conceptualize mental disorders I defend a process metaphysics framework for understanding them that connects to an emergentist view of the mind. The question of how consciousness can be modified by external stimuli, and whether these modifications can have a therapeutic value led me to think about non-ordinary states of consciousness and, subsequently, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Questions about the nature of animal cognition and consciousness and how they differ from human consciousness, led me to question what the implications of these differences are for our ethical obligations toward animals. Lastly, these ideas about the variety of mental processes connect to bioethical questions, e.g., about informed consent in psychedelic-assisted therapy.

My second research area is metaphilosophy, with a particular focus on the nature of philosophy and the demographics of the discipline. In relation to the latter, I co-direct the Demographics in Philosophy Project alongside Eric Schwitzgebel and Björn Freter. Over the past few years, we have collaborated closely with the American Philosophical Association, the British Society for Women in Philosophy (SWIP), and the Canadian Association of Philosophy, working on developing a best practices framework aimed at fostering greater inclusivity and diversity in our discipline. Our next focus will be to approach top 20 U.S. universities (PG-20) to encourage them to adopt the proposed framework

All this work is fired by the fundamental interest that underlies all of my research: exploring how empirical evidence can inform our metaphysical frameworks while addressing crucial practical and ethical concerns.