Kathleen Creel, PhD

Dr. Kathleen A. Creel is the Embedded EthiCS fellow at Stanford University based in the Center for Ethics in Society (EiS) and the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI).Her current research explores the moral, political, and epistemic implications of machine learning as it is used in non-state automated decision making and in science. Dr. Creel has other ongoing projects on early modern philosophy and general philosophy of science.

Dr. Creel’s work broadly concerns philosophy of machine learning, ethics of AI, and general philosophy of science. Her main interests include examining such topics as how humans can best use computation to understand themselves and their world, how can we gain scientific understanding with opaque, black-box computational methods, and what ways of explaining machine learning best serve scientific and public life. In answering these sorts of questions, Dr. Creel connects traditional topics in philosophy of science such as explanation, reference, and natural kinds with a practice-based approach to the study of methods in contemporary machine learning. By examining these epistemic and normative questions, she outlines more fruitful uses of machine learning for human flourishing.

Dr. Creel holds a PhD in History & Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, MA in Philosophy at Simon Fraser University, and BA in Computer Science & Philosophy at Williams College. She’s also worked with MIT’s prestigious Lincoln Laboratory as a software engineer.