معرفی
Dr. Cecily Whiteley serves as Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews' School of Philosophical, Anthropological and Film Studies, Department of Philosophy since 2023. Previously, she held an Isaac Newton Career Development Fellowship at Cambridge's Faculty of Philosophy and was Fellow and Director of Studies at Magdalene College.
Her educational background includes a PhD from the London School of Economics (2022) with research conducted at NYU's Centre for Mind, Brain and Consciousness during doctoral studies.
Whiteley's research program critically examines consciousness across multiple domains: investigating whether science can explain consciousness, analyzing wakefulness/sleep/dreaming states, conceptualizing depression as a consciousness disorder, and exploring metaphysical questions about natural kinds. Her work bridges philosophy of mind, psychiatry, and neuroscience through rigorous interdisciplinary analysis.
Her publications reveal a cohesive research trajectory focused on consciousness disorders and perceptual phenomena, with significant emphasis on depression's relationship to conscious states and aphantasia's implications for mental imagery. Both 2021 articles demonstrate methodological integration of philosophical analysis with empirical neuroscience findings.
Scientific recognition includes:
- Isaac Newton Career Development Fellowship (University of Cambridge)
- Women in Philosophy Fellowship (Australian National University)
She actively supervises PhD candidates including Suzuka Komatsu and has secured research support through competitive fellowships. Her depression consciousness hypothesis generated substantial academic impact with 86 Mendeley readers and Wikipedia references. Media engagement spans 5 news outlets, 46 X users, and Facebook coverage demonstrating public scholarly influence.
Whiteley's research operates within St Andrews' philosophical framework while maintaining strong interdisciplinary connections to neuroscience and psychiatry communities through her fellowship networks and collaborative publications.
