Machiel Keestra

Machiel Keestra is Central Diversity Officer and (tenured) assistant professor at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies of the University of Amsterdam, researcher at the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation and member of the research group Neurocultures & Neuroaesthetics at the UvA. He studied philosophy in Amsterdam and Heidelberg (Germany). He also obtained a propaedeutic degree in Psychology in Amsterdam. His PhD thesis (defended Jan. 2014) 'Sculpting the Space of Actions. Explaining Human Action by Integrating Intentions and Mechanisms' covered an interdisciplinary approach to human action, integrating insights from philosophy of cognitive neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience of action, philosophy of action and action. Formerly a staff member of the International School of Philosophy in Leusden (NL) and the General Studies dept. of the University of Amsterdam he taught and organised many courses and seminars on philosophical, scientific and cultural subjects. His research covers the history of science, the history of philosophy (mainly Aristotle, Hegel and contemporary philosophy), the philosophy of language, tragedy (modern and ancient) and the tragic, the philosophy of action and the philosophy of neuroscience. He teaches in the Natural & Social Sciences BSc program, Brain and Cognitive Sciences MSc program and the Interdisciplinary Honours program. He has been elected President of the international Association for Interdisciplinary Studies (2014-2016) and founding board member of the global Inter- and Transdisciplinary Alliance. In addition to his academic work he is co-founder of the Keti Koti Table foundation, developing a post-slavery reconciliation dialogue method to mitigate racism, discrimination and stereotyping via personal dialogue and narrative.