I am a philosopher of science, working on foundational issues of scientific explanation, models and understanding, particularly in the fields of neuroscience, cognitive science, biology, and AI.

One of my most distinct philosophical contributions is the development of an account of topological explanations. The topological explanations show how complex phenomena of interest depend on the topological properties (mathematically quantifiable connectivity patterns) of networks built from citation networks, predation relationships in ecology, contagion relations in epidemiology, or fMRI data sets of the brain. My account provides necessary and sufficient conditions under which network models provide genuine explanations. 

My project "Philosophical Foundations of Topological Explanations"  (Acronym: TOPEX, GA n°: 703662), which was hosted at the IHPST (CNRS-Sorbonne Pantheon Paris 1),  has been supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship, under the EU’s Horizon 2020 Programme. 

My work has been published in world-leading philosophy journals such as Philosophy of Science and Synthese, as well as in top-tier science journals such as Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, The European Physical Journal C. I have also published with international publishers such as Routledge.

Together with James F. Woodward, I'm currently guest-editing a Topical Collection in Synthese on "New Work on Networks."

I'm also a co-founder and the founding coordinator of the “East European Network for Philosophy of Science (EENPS)”, co-founder and co-convener of the annual workshop series "Scientific Understanding and Representation (SURe)", as well as the “Dutch Distinguished Lecture Series in Philosophy and Neuroscience (DDLS)”.

​I have co-edited (with Claus Hilgetag and Marc Tittgemeyer) a theme issue in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, on the topic of “Unifying the essential concepts of biological networks”.  

I received my PhD degree in philosophy from Humboldt University in Berlin. I was a visiting PhD student at King's College London where I worked with Professor David Papineau who was also one of my PhD examiners. 

I am a tea and music connoisseur and cycling enthusiast (although I'm more enthusing than riding lately). I have a modest tea collection, which contains some very good vintages of Pu Erhs (1982, 1985, 1986), Da Hong Pao, Grand Cru Gyokuros from Kagoshima and Uji regions in Japan, as well as some single estate Grand Crus (mostly Spring and Summer flushes) from Darjeeling in India and Nepal. 
 
I play guitar and keyboards. You can listen to my music on Bandcamp, where I released an EP "Mental Health", which is a musical collaboration with Kareem Khalifa, called KOKHA. You can also find my music on Soundcloud, here, and my musical collaboration with Borut Trpin, here.