Austin A. Baker

Website: austinabaker.com (Note: I don't frequently update PhilPeople. See my website for up-to-date information)

I'm a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oslo and am part of the GoodAttention Project, funded by the European Research Council. From January 2025, I'll be an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Moravian University.

I work on topics in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, social philosophy, and epistemology. My current project investigates how (often implicit) social prejudices shape patterns of nonverbal communication.

I received my PhD in Philosophy and Graduate Certificate in Cognitive Science from Rutgers University and my undergraduate degree from the University of Edinburgh. I was also a member of Chaz Firestone's lab in the Johns Hopkins Psychological and Brain Sciences Department from 2018-2019, where I conducted the empirical work for my Graduate Certificate. After finishing my PhD in philosophy, I further trained as a cognitive scientist in the role of Postdoctoral Associate at the Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science (RuCCS) before joining the philosophy department at the University of Oslo in the fall of 2022.

My research addresses social bias and discrimination through the interdisciplinary lenses of philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, political science, and law. My recent work examines the way social prejudices (sexism, racism, etc.) influence basic mental processes, including perception, attention, and nonverbal communication. I've explored the legal implications of this research as well, arguing that philosophically and empirically-grounded accounts of social bias can meaningfully inform policies aimed at reducing discrimination. Much of my philosophical work on law and public policy has focused on discrimination against queer and transgender people.

Pronouns: They/He