College: Trinity Hall
Supervisors: Hasok Chang and Jeremy Butterfield
Thesis topic: Building Black Holes: Analogue experiments and analogical reasoning
Research interests: Analogical reasoning; analogue experimentation; philosophy of modelling, measurement and simulation
Contact: gef30@cam.ac.uk
Personal webpage: graceefield.wordpress.com
Education
MPhil with Distinction, History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine – University of Cambridge, 2019
HBSc, Physics and Philosophy – University of Toronto, 2018
Research
My PhD focuses on the role of analogy in modern science, especially in modern physics. Analogy has recently been brought into the limelight by the rise of analogue gravity, a controversial new field of physics that uses table-top 'model black holes' to probe the behaviour of astrophysical black holes.
But does it make sense to draw conclusions about astrophysical black holes, incredibly massive far-away features of spacetime, based on experiments that we run on models in a lab on Earth? And more generally, what does it ever mean to take one system to stand in for another? In my research, I am using analogue black hole experiments as a case study to draw specific conclusions about the first question, and general conclusions about the second. Both questions relate to issues in philosophy of simulation, philosophy of modelling, philosophy of Bayesian and inductive inference, and philosophy of cosmology.
Science communication, policy & outreach
Alongside my PhD research, I do extracurricular work in science writing, science policy, and science outreach. I have written for The Conversation and the Varsity Science section, and I have contributed and edited for Bluesci, Cambridge's science magazine. In 2019-2020, I co-organized an interdisciplinary panel session titled Rationality, Science and Equal Representation, which focused on the relationship between rationality and bias in both science and HPS. Since September 2020, I have been the Finance and Fundraising Lead for the Cambridge University Science and Policy Exchange, and in Autumn 2021 I participated in their Policy Challenges Programme as a researcher on local area energy planning.
Talks
(University of Western Ontario, 2022) “Putting theory in its place: The relationship between universality arguments and empirical constraints” at the Western University Philosophy of Physics Reading Group.
(Université de Rennes, 2021) “Putting theory in its place: The relationship between universality arguments and empirical constraints” at the 17ème Journées de la Matière Condensée New Challenges for Analogue Gravity Workshop.
(McGill University, 2021) “Analogue experiments: Empirical evidence or an amusing feat of engineering?” at the McGill University Cosmology Seminar.
(University of Urbino, 2021) “The latest frontier in analogue gravity: New roles for analogue experiments” at the XXIV International Summer School in Philosophy of Physics.
(Caltech, 2021) “On the status of quantum tunneling times” at the Caltech Philosophy of Physics Reading Group
(University of Oxford, 2020) "Putting theory in its place: the relationship between universality arguments and empirical constraints" at The Oxford Philosophy of Physics Graduate Conference.
(Radboud University, 2019) "Putting theory in its place: the relationship between universality arguments and empirical constraints" at The Hanneke Janssen Memorial Prize Ceremony.
(University of Cambridge, 2019) "Analogue experiments: empirical evidence or an amusing feat of engineering?" at The Cambridge-LMU Meeting on Black Hole Physics.
(University of Geneva, 2019) "Analogue experiments: empirical evidence or an amusing feat of engineering?" at The Epistemology of Analogue Simulation Workshop.
(ETH Zurich, 2019) Poster presentation "Interpretations of quantum mechanics and the quantum tunnelling time controversy" at Solstice of Foundations Summer School.
(University of Toronto, 2017) Poster presentation "Reflectionless Tunnelling for Bose-Einstein Condensates" at The Conference on Quantum Information and Quantum Control VII.
Publications
Field, Grace E. and Emilie Skulberg. “A Film Review of Black Holes: The Edge of All We Know, directed forthcoming by Peter Galison. Collapsar, Sandbox Films, 2020”. Endeavour (forthcoming).
Field, Grace E. “Putting theory in its place: The relationship between universality arguments and empirical 2021 constraints”. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. https://doi.org/10.1086/718276.
Field, Grace E. “The latest frontier in analogue gravity: New roles for analogue experiments”. Preprint. 2021 http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/20365/.
Field, Grace E. “On the status of quantum tunnelling times”. Preprint. http://philsci- 2020 archive.pitt.edu/18446/.
Science Writing
2022. "Archaeology and public benefit". CSaP News (March).
2021. "To save forests, researchers are hooking trees up to Twitter". The Conversation (October).
2020. "Review: How is the Scientific Method Doing? – Sabine Hossenfelder". Bluesci Magazine 48 (May): 2.
2020. "More valuable than oil: data and the individual". Varsity (January).
2019. "Seeing the universe through sound". Varsity (March).
2019. "Analogue gravity: empirical evidence or an amusing feat of engineering?". Varsity (February).
Grants & awards
(2019-2023) Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholarship – University of Cambridge
(2021-2023) SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship – Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
(2019) Hanneke Janssen Memorial Prize – Radboud University
(2019) Rausing Prize for highest performance in dissertation component of HPSM MPhil – University of Cambridge
(2019) Best Talk award at the Murray Edwards College Graduate Symposium – Murray Edwards College, Cambridge
(2018-2019) Stephan Körner Scholarship – Murray Edwards College, Cambridge
