Acknowledgments from PSA Executive Director

Welcome to Seattle and the Twenty-Sixth Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association and the Fiftieth Anniversary of PSA’s first Biennial Meeting, which took place in Pittsburgh in October of 1968. We have grown from a meeting of two concurrent sessions over two and a half days, with a total of thirty papers, to a meeting of 10 concurrent sessions over three and a half days, with over 400 papers and 110 posters.

Needless to say, planning a PSA meeting is a huge undertaking, requiring the dedication, wisdom, and resourcefulness of a large number of people. I am proud to have played a role in planning PSA2018, and I am deeply indebted to all those who have helped to make this meeting a success. First and foremost, I would like to thank the PSA2018 Program Committee, and especially its chair, Kevin Elliott. This year’s program is the largest ever, and Kevin and the excellent Program Committee he assembled were somehow able to read through many, many more symposium proposals and contributed papers than ever before, and come up with an exceptional program, and they did all of this ahead of schedule. Kevin started as chair even before the 2016 meeting in Atlanta and has worked tirelessly since then. His gracious geniality, acumen, and patience has made him a pleasure to work with over the past two years. I would also like to thank the Poster Forum Chair, Doreen Fraser, as well as the entire Poster Forum Committee. They, too, had to work through almost double the number of poster proposals, and their hard work and Doreen’s astute judgment and creative vision has resulted in another outstanding Poster Forum.

I also owe thanks to various people who have been helping to run the PSA behind the scenes. I owe enormous gratitude to Alec Julien for helping to design everything associated with the PSA over the past six years, including everything at this meeting, and for doing so with enormous alacrity and patience, with last minute jobs entailing long hours to meet deadlines. This meeting would also not have been possible without the skillfulness, creativity, shrewdness, and diligence of our two associate directors, Andy Bridges and Sarah Lipman. I have relied on them throughout the past three years in too many ways to count. I am indebted as well to the two sharp, reliable, and overly modest UMBC students, Tyler Karlsen and Joe Smith. Alec, Sarah, Andy, Tyler, and Joe have worked long hours, at night, over the weekend, and between their other jobs or classes. I cannot thank each of them enough.

Others have helped in various ways with specific parts of the program. Much thanks is owed to Alison Wylie, who has helped in so many ways with numerous aspects of this meeting. She and the rest of the Public Forum Committee — Heather Douglas, Katie Plaisance, Laura Ruetsche, and Alan Richardson — organized our second Public Forum. Alison, the Public Forum Committee, Andrea Woody, and the University of Washington’s Philosophy Department, Science, Technology, and Society Studies Department, and Simpson Center have all worked hard to help publicize the event. Alison also helped organize the recording of our plenary events. Her knowledge of Seattle, her keen insight, and her organizational skills have been invaluable. I am also appreciative of the local arrangements committee, Ben Feintzeig, Paul Franco, Carole Lee, Conor Mayo-Wilson, and especially Andrea Woody, who despite being chair and Editor-in-Chief of Philosophy of Science, was always helpful with anything asked of her throughout the leadup to the meeting. I am also immensely thankful to Jay Malone and Ryan Feigenbaum from HSS for their sage advice and generosity in coordinating this joint meeting.

Thanks also to: the PSA Social Media Committee, Lynn Chiu, Adrian Currie, Sabina Leonelli, Carlos Mariscal, Janet Stemwedel, and especially Soazig Le Bihan, for organizing the social media for PSA2018; a subcommittee of the PSA Outreach and Engagement Committee, Julia Bursten, Melissa Jacquart, and Michael Weisberg, for organizing our first Post-Meeting Workshop; the other members of the Underrepresented Philosophy of Science Scholars Mentoring Initiative Committee (UPSS), Soazig Le Bihan, Ayelet Shavit, Darcy McCusker, and especially Alisa Bokulich, for initiating our first mentoring program at PSA2018; the PSA 50th Anniversary Committee, Michael Dietrich and John Beatty, for helping to plan our anniversary; the PSA Lectures and Awards Committee, James Justus, Kareem Khalifa, Charlotte Werndl, and especially Edouard Machery, for reading many, many excellent papers to decide on the PSA Early-Career and Graduate Student essay prizes; the chairs of the Women’s Caucus, Julia Bursten and Anya Plutynski, and chairs of the Joint Caucus for Socially Engaged Philosophy and History of Science, Rob Wilson, Sean Valles, and Rachel Ankeny, for organizing the caucus events; Rachel Ankeny for once again helping to identify sessions to cross-list between the HSS and PSA programs; the interest group lunch hosts and the cognate societies for helping to enrich the program; and all the participants in the plenaries and special sessions: Barry Madore, Sibylle Anderl, Sandra Mitchell, Chris Smeenk, James Owen Weatherall, Heather Douglas, Eric Horvitz, Sabina Leonelli, David Danks, Andrea Woody, Fred Kronz, Marsha Richmond, Michael Weisberg, Rachel Ankeny, Roberta Millstein, Julia Bursten, Thomas Cunningham, Kristin Johnson, Angela Potochnik, Melissa Jacquart, Ayelet Shavit, Matthew Slater, Wendy Wasman, Rob Wilson, Chris Young, and David Johnson.

I would also like to thank the PSA Governing Board members for their help in innumerable ways over the past two years: Alisa Bokulich, Anjan Chakravartty, Hasok Chang, Megan Delehanty, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Edouard Machery, Wendy Parker, Laura Ruetsche, Janet Stemwedel, Michael Weisberg, Ken Waters, and Alison Wylie. Finally, I am especially grateful to Sandy Mitchell for her hard work, thoughtful guidance, and generosity over the past two years. The presidency of the PSA is not just an honorific; it is a working position. It has been a pleasure to work side-by-side with Sandy over the last two years, and our weekly skype meetings have been among the most rewarding aspects of my job.

Given rising conference expenses, support from our sponsors is crucial to keeping meeting affordable. I would like to thank the following for their sponsorship of the meeting: National Science Foundation; Microsoft; UC Irvine Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science; University of Washington Department of Philosophy; University of Washington Department of History; University of Pittsburgh Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences; Carnegie Mellon University Department of Philosophy; Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh; Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science; University of Chicago Press Journals; Elsevier; University of Calgary Department of Philosophy; Rotman Institute of Philosophy at Western University; University of Pittsburgh Department of History and Philosophy of Science; University of Pittsburgh Department of Philosophy; Patrick Suppes Center for History & Philosophy of Science at Stanford University; University of Pennsylvania Department of Philosophy; UC Davis Department of Philosophy; University of Washington Walter Chapin Simpson Center For The Humanities; University of Washington Science, Technology, and Society Studies; and especially UMBC for providing generous institutional support that has allowed me to do what I can to help fulfill the goals and mission of the PSA.

Most significantly, it is you, the participants, who make this meeting a success. It is your research, insights, and discussions that constitute the meeting. My heartfelt thanks go especially to you, the members of the PSA.

Jessica Pfeifer
PSA Executive Director

Acknowledgments from PSA2018 Program Chair

I would like to thank the many people who have contributed to creating the program for PSA2018. I am especially grateful to the PSA2018 Program Committee for the enormous amount of work they put into reviewing all the submissions we received. It was a pleasure to work with them, and their responsiveness and good advice made my job much easier. I would also like to thank Wendy Parker (the Program Chair for PSA2016), who provided guidance throughout the entire process. She went above and beyond the call of duty by creating written notes to guide me and future program chairs through our tasks. I am grateful to Sandy Mitchell, our PSA President, for giving me this opportunity and for providing helpful advice. Most of all, I want to thank Jessica Pfeifer for the enormous amount of time that she has put into making this conference happen. Seeing all her efforts behind the scenes (including all the time she put into guiding me through the various stages of my work) has given me new appreciation for what an amazing Executive Director we have. Jessica’s assistant, Tyler Karlsen, also graciously helped me figure out how to work with our new online system for generating the program. Finally, I am grateful for everyone who submitted papers or symposia for the PSA2018 Meeting. I’m delighted by the breadth of topics represented at the meeting, which is made possible by your contributions and commitment to the PSA.

Kevin Elliott
PSA2018 Program Chair

Acknowledgments from PSA2018 Poster Forum Chair

I would like to thank the members of the PSA Poster Forum committee for their help in promoting the event and, first and foremost, the careful thought and time that they devoted to the review process. We were pleased to receive substantially more submissions than in 2016, but this increased the workload for the reviewers, and I appreciate the commitment demonstrated by the entire committee. Thank you to Kevin Elliott and Sandy Mitchell for support of various kinds. I am grateful to Jessica Pfeifer for the comprehensive logistical support that she and her team at the PSA office provided. Jessica was always ready with quick answers to my questions, and her wizardry with space planning allowed us to accept the maximum possible number of posters.

Doreen Fraser
PSA2018 Poster Forum Chair