Doctoral and Post-doc Researchers

Paolo is PhD student at the Université de Genève under the supervision of Prof. Paolo Crivelli, and PhD assistant at the Università della Svizzera italiana. His PhD thesis deals with the metaphysics of change in Plato's eleatic dialogues. Besides ancient philosophy, he is also interested in issues in logic and contemporary metaphysics.

Robert Michels earned his PhD in philosophy at the University of Geneva and after holding a Postdoc there and teaching in Geneva, at KIT in Karlsruhe, and at the University of Neuchâtel is now a scientific collaborator in Prof. Mulligan's project “Identity in Cognitive Science, Quantum Mechanics, and Metaphysics” at the Università della Svizzera italiana. He co-organizes the seminar of the eidos research group and works mostly on topics connected to modality and indeterminacy.

Paolo Natali is currently a postdoc at both Lugano (SNSF Project n. 207948, “The Genealogy of Modes of Being”, PI Kevin Mulligan) and Geneva (SNSF Project n. 182858, “Realisms. Universals, Relations, and States of Affairs in the Austro-German and Medieval Traditions”, PI Laurent Cesalli). He previously earned his BA (Classics) and MA (Philosophy) in Pisa, and his PhD (Philosophy) in Geneva. He has taught courses in Ancient philosophy, logic, philosophy of mind and metaphysics at the Universities of Geneva, Neuchâtel, and Lugano. He mainly works on Ancient and Austro-German metaphysics and philosophy of mind, with an eye on contemporary debates.

Alain recently joined USI Lugano to pursue his research in value theory, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. He leads the Lugano-based research project “Value Exploration”, which receives generous support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SPF, Horizon Europe transitional measures for Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions). In Fall 2022, Alain will conduct his research between USI Lugano, where he works with Prof. Kevin Mulligan, and Rutgers-New Brunswick, where he worked with Prof. Dean Zimmerman prior to joining USI Lugano. Previously, Alain was a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University, supervised by Prof. Laurie Paul. More information on Alain is available on his website.

Marta Pedroni is a PhD student at the University of Geneva and a PhD assistant at Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI). She obtained her MA in Philosophy at USI with a thesis on the emergence of spacetime in Loop Quantum Gravity. Her main interests lie at the intersection of Metaphysics and Philosophy of Physics. She is now working on the fate and role of spacetime singularities in quantum gravity.

Currently scientific collaborator in the SNF-funded project ‘Functions, Relations, and Types’, previously postdoc at the universities of Tübingen and Neuchâtel. M.Sc. in cognitive science (Osnabrück, 2005), PhD in philosophy (Washington University in St. Louis, 2012). He works mainly in metaphysics, with a special focus on properties, relations, and states of affairs.

Jonas works at the interface between metaphysics, the philosophy of physics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. After obtaining a BA and MA in philosophy from the University of Fribourg and a BSc and MSc in Nuclear Physics from the University of Geneva (at CERN on NA61 experiment/T2K), he obtained a PhD in the philosophy of science at Bristol University in December 2017 under the joint supervision of James Ladyman and Richard Pettigrew. He is now a postdoc within the SNF-funded research project 'Identity in cognitive science, quantum mechanics, and metaphysics' at the Università della Svizzera italiana.