Curriculum

I am an expert in causation, causal inference, and scientific methodology. More generally, I am a philosopher of science specialised in causality and related issues-such as explanation, evidence, or probability-as they arise in the sciences, especially the social, biomedical, and policy sciences. I have developed an strong international network, having held positions at leading institutions in French and Flemish speaking Belgium, UK, Italy, the US.

I completed my PhD in June 2005 (Louvain, Belgium). I then joined the Philosophy department at Kent for a project funded by the British Academy and Louvain. The project investigated causality and probability in the social and health sciences and had numerous outputs: one co-edited a book, four papers and 2 events organised. The project was extended thanks to funding from Kent and from Louvain. I then held a Postdoctoral Fellowship of the Belgian National Science Foundation to work on a project on explanation and validity in the social, health and public health sciences. The main output was the publication of my monograph Causality and Causal Modelling. Measuring Variations (Springer 2009). The book develops a novel and thought-provoking view of causal reasoning in quantitative analysis in the social sciences. This view relies on the notion of variation and breaks down the received view that sees in regularity and invariance the key notions in causal reasoning. My monograph is currently used in a seminar at masters level on research methods at the Institute of Demography (Louvain). As part of a British Academy Small Research Grant, I organised the Causality Study Fortnight (Canterbury, 8-19 September 2008). The event was composed of 2-day tutorials, 3-day international conference, and 5-day advanced research seminars. I then returned to Kent as research associated, to work on a project on causality in the biomedical sciences and public health funded by the British Academy. The main output has been the co-edited volume Causality in the Sciences (Oxford University Press 2011), which is rapidly becoming the standard reference in the field. I have been postdoctoral fellow at the Free University of Brussels, working on a project on causal inference in social and molecular epidemiology, funded by the Marie Curie Actions and the FWO during the academic year 2012-2013.

For more information, visit my home page