DIRECTOR

Erica is an interdisciplinary scientist interested in the evolution of communication and social cognition. She is Professor of Cognitive Science, Anthropology, Animal Behavior, Psychology, and Informatics at IU Bloomington and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. She works with many animal species, including humans, chimpanzees, orangutans, dogs, and birds. She runs the COMPARE lab and collaborates with the Indianapolis Zoo.

Erica co-directs the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI), and chairs the Evolution of Language (EVOLANG) conference series.

DIRECTOR

Jacob is an interdisciplinary scientist interested in culture, cognition, complexity, and computation. He is Professor of Cognitive Science and Informatics at IU Bloomington and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Jacob blends computational and mathematical methods with qualitative and philosophical insights to study collective intelligence, the evolutionary dynamics of ideas, the co-construction of culture and mind, non-ordinary states of consciousness, and alternative approaches to AI. He is also working to reimagine social science as a science of the possible. He directs the ESOTERIC lab at IU.

Jacob co-directs the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI).

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW

Jes Golden (formerly Jes Heppler) is an interdisciplinary scholar-practitioner interested in embodied phenomenology in Buddhist and Jewish meditation. They earned a PhD in Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley and wrote a dissertation investigating the embodied phenomenology of intuition and its epistemic and social implications. Currently, Jes explores frameworks for understanding bodily awareness across advanced meditation states in collaboration with the Meditation Research Program at Harvard Medical School/Mass General Hospital. Jes is also researching the relationship between cosmological frame and contemplative experience, especially in neo-Hasidic Jewish contemplative practices.

Additionally, Jes is a dedicated Jewish meditation practitioner and teacher, serving as Adjunct Faculty at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality where they teach regularly for IJS' young adult (20s and 30s) community online and in-person on retreat. Jes is also a rotating teacher at Or HaLev.

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW

Luke is an interdisciplinary scientist interested in cognition, collective intelligence, and behavioural ecology. He integrates empirical data collection with computational modelling to investigate how behaviour shifts under perturbations such as transmissible disease, environmental patterning, and psychiatric illness. His work has examined diverse systems including ants, psychosis in humans, and AI.

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW

Justin is a literary critic and philosopher of emotion. His work in historical poetics and cognitive literary studies brings idealist traditions into conversation with post-phenomenological continental philosophy to ask how feeling and embodiment bear on questions of reality and experience, with particular attention to collective modes of thinking and feeling, including impersonality and intersubjectivity. One line of this research focuses on developing what Justin calls “the poetics of possibility.” In this project, he asks what kinds of evidentiary and modal claims poetry can support by reading T. S. Eliot’s early philosophy of modality alongside contemporary work in affective science and philosophy of mind. At the Center, Justin also works on computational approaches to modeling poetic form across historical periods in order to scale close reading for large verse corpora and to support collaborations between literary study and AI research. Justin holds a B.S. in Biochemistry with a minor in Mathematics from Duquesne University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia.

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW

Daniel’s work integrates linguistics, mathematics, philosophy, and computer science. He studies semantics, semiotics, and the formal structures of meaning and reasoning, and develops mathematical frameworks to understand representation, generalization, learning, and adaptation in natural and artificial intelligence. He is also an alumnus of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute. Outside of work, he is an avid film lover who maintains he might have become a cinematographer in another life, and is often found working in a bookstore, a café, or a bookstore café.

SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMMER

Avi is a scientific programmer and researcher working in the ESOTERIC Lab and the Center for Possible Minds. He combines his academic interests in applied category theory, formal logic and cognitive tools with extensive industry experience developing software applications. He is building an AI-powered research tool for the Diverse Intelligences field as well as collaborating on a project to improve AI performance for tasks involving complex abstraction and analogy. Independently, he is also working on a novel formalism for human-centric knowledge representation with the long-term goal of creating digital tools to improve the quality of human thinking.

Outside of his technical work, Avi is a contemplative who teaches imaginal and devotional spiritual practices from a non-dogmatic esoteric perspective. In this capacity, he is a founding board member of the Consciousness Explorers Club.

FINANCIAL MANAGER

Amanda handles the grants and finances for the Center for Possible Minds. She is also the Associate Director for Administration for the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute. Outside of work, Amanda is a drummer and avid photographer.

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

Sarah is a Ph.D. candidate in musicology with a minor in media studies at the IU Jacob’s School of Music. Her research interests include exploring the intersections of cybernetics and experimental art, emphasizing questions of agency. She is also an alumna of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute. Outside of work, Sarah enjoys scuba diving, good food, running, swimming, and going on adventures with her husband, Brian, and Manford, their charismatic Shetland sheepdog.