Nancy J. Nersessian

Regents' Professor and
Professor of Cognitive Science
» School of Interactive Computing
» School of Public Policy

Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, Georgia 30332
nancyn@cc.gatech.edu

My research focuses on creativity, innovation and conceptual change in science. I try to understand the cognitive and cultural mechanisms that lead up to scientific innovation, both theoretical and experimental.

The practice of science involves sophisticated cognition, which only rich social, cultural, and material environments can enable. But most accounts of creativity and innovative practices tend to focus on either “cognitive” or “cultural” factors. In contrast, I seek to develop an account of how a dynamic and evolving interplay of cognition and culture support and sustain creative and innovative scientific practices.

The account I am developing brings together and integrates methodologies and conceptual frameworks from cognitive science, philosophy of science, and history of science. I draw upon four sources: 1) a range of empirical data, including historical documents pertaining to past science, ethnographic observations, and interviews relating to “science-in-action”; 2) concepts and analyses from cognitive science; 3) an extensive body of literature on scientific practices in the science studies fields; and 4) my own theoretical analysis of problems and issues, developed over the past decades. To bring together this wide range of theory, data, and methodologies, I work with a very diverse research team that has over the years consisted of cognitive scientists, theoretical psychologists, computer scientists, philosophers, historians of science, and ethnographers.

Currently, with funding from NSF, I am investigating reasoning and representational procedures in interdisciplinary research laboratories in the engineering sciences, particularly in biomedical engineering and robotics. Using a combination of ethnography, cognitive-historical analysis and theoretical frameworks from cognitive science, this research examines: 1) How researchers construct and experiment with physical and computational models to reverse engineer biological phenomena, 2) How learning proceeds in such labs, and 3) How work practices and culture support research and innovation.

One objective of this research is to extend my analysis of model-based reasoning from conceptual models to physical and computational models. Another major objective is to design and develop a new undergraduate curriculum and infrastructure that encourages and supports innovation in such interdisciplinary areas. A third major theme of my research is conceptual innovation and change in physics and physics education, specifically the use of analogical and visual models, and thought experiments/simulative models.

I hold an A.B. in Physics and Philosophy from Boston University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Philosophy from Case Western Reserve University . I am a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member (foreign) of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. I’ve held fellowship positions at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (Harvard), the Dibner Institute at MIT, the Pittsburgh Center for the Philosophy of Science, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, and the University of Leiden, the Netherlands (Fulbright Scholar). I have served as the Chair of the Cognitive Science Society (2003-4) and on its Governing Board, and as a Governing Board member of the Philosophy of Science Association.

Selected Books

  • Creating Scientific Concepts (MIT Press, 2008)
  • Model-Based Reasoning: Science, Technology, and Values (edited with L. Magnani; Kluwer 2002)
  • Model-Based Reasoning in Scientific Discovery (ed. with L. Magnani and P. Thagard; Plenum 1999)
  • Faraday to Einstein: Constructing Meaning in Scientific Theories (Kluwer, 1984, 1990)

Current Courses

Philosophy of Science, Cognitive Models of Science, Cognition and Culture, Philosophy of Cognition, Philosophical Issues in Computation, STS Perspectives on Science and Technology.

In my spare time I sing opera and other classical music. My favorite poem is Anna Akhmatova's, "The Sentence."
  Research | CV

   Online Publications

  1. Nersessian, N.J. & Chandrasekharan, S. (in press). Hybrid Analogies in Conceptual Innovation in Science, To appear in Cognitive Systems Research Journal, Special Issue: Integrative Analogy. [ PDF ]
  2. Nersessian, N.J. & Patton, C. (in press). Model-based reasoning in interdisciplinary engineering: Cases from biomedical engineering research laboratories, To appear in The Handbook of the Philosophy of Technology & Engineering Sciences, A. W. M. Meijers, ed., Springer. [ PDF ]
  3. Harmon, E. & Nersessian, N.J. (2008). Cognitive partnerships on the bench top: Designing to support scientific researchers. In Proceedings of DIS'08, ACM [ PDF ]
  4. Nersessian, N. J. (2007). "Mental Modeling in Conceptual Change" to appear in The Handbook of Conceptual Change, S. Vosniadou, ed. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. In press. [ PDF ]
  5. Nersessian, N. J. (2006). The Cognitive-Cultural Systems of the Research Laboratory. Organization Studies, 27(1), pp. 125-145.[ PDF ]
  6. Nersessian, N. J., Kurz-Milcke, E. & Davies, J. (2005). Ubiquitous computing in science and engineering research laboratories: A case study from biomedical engineering. In G. Kouzoulis et al., (Eds.), Knowledge in the New Technologies Berlin: Peter Lang Publishers. pp. 167-198.[ PDF ]
  7. Nersessian, N. J. (2005). Interpreting scientific and engineering practices: Integrating the cognitive, social, and cultural dimensions. In Scientific and Technological Thinking, M. Gorman, R. Tweney, D. Gooding, & A. Kincannon, eds. (Erlbaum). pp. 17-56. [ PDF ]
  8. Kurz-Milcke, E., Nersessian, N. J., & Newstetter, W. C. (2004) What has history to do with cognition? Interactive methods for studying research laboratories. To appear in Cognition and Culture, special issue on Cognitive Anthropology of Science, Christophe Heintz, ed., 4:663-700. [ PDF ]
  9. Nersessian, N. J., Kurz-Milcke, E., Newstetter, W. C., & Davies, J. (2003). Research laboratories as evolving distributed cognitive systems. Proceedings of The 25th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. pp.857-862. [ PDF ]
  10. Nersessian, N. J., Newstetter, W. C., Kurz-Milcke, E. & Davies, J. (2003). A Mixed-method Approach to Studying Distributed Cognition in Evolving Environments. Proceeedings of the International Conference on Learning Sciences. pp. 307 - 314. [ DOC ]
  11. Craig, D. L., Nersessian, N. J., & Catrambone, R. (2002). Perceptual simulation in analogical problem solving. In: Model-Based Reasoning: Science, Technology, & Values. 167--191. Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers, New York. [ PDF ]
  12. Nersessian, N. J. (2002). Maxwell and "the Method of Physical Analogy": Model-based reasoning, generic abstraction, and conceptual change. In: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science and Mathematics, D. Malament, ed. 129--166. Lasalle, Il: Open Court. [ PDF ]
  13. Nersessian, N. J. (2002). The cognitive basis of model-based reasoning in science. In Carruthers, P., Stich, S. & Siegal, M. (eds.) The Cognitive Basis of Science. 133--153. Cambridge University Press. [ PDF ]
  14. Nersessian, N. J. (2002). Kuhn, conceptual change, and cognitive science. In: Thomas Kuhn, T. Nichols, ed. Contemporary Philosophers in Focus Series, Cambridge University Press.pp. 178-211 [ PDF ]
  15. Griffith, T. W., Nersessian, N. J., & Goel, A. (2000). Function-follows-form transformations in scientific problem solving. In Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 196--201. Mahwah, New Jersey. [ PDF ]
  16. Nersessian, N. J. (1999). Model-based reasoning in conceptual change. In Magnani, L., Nersessian, N. J., & Thagard, P. (eds.) Model-Based Reasoning in Scientific Discovery. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York. 5--22. [ PDF ]
  17. Nersessian, N. J. (1998). Conceptual change. In Bechtel, W. & Graham, G. (eds.) A Companion to Cognitive Science. Blackwell, Malden, MA. 155-166. [ PDF ]
  18. Nersessian, N. J. (1995). Should Physicists Preach What They Practice? Constructive Modeling in Doing and Learning Physics. Science & Education, 4(3), 203-226. [ PDF | PS ]
  19. Nersessian, N. J. (1992). How do scientists think? Capturing the dynamics of conceptual change in science. In Giere, R. N. (ed.) Cognitive Models of Science. University of Minnesota Press. Minneapolis, MN. 3--45. [ PDF ]
  20. Nersessian, N. J. (1992) In the theoretician's laboratory: Thought experimenting as mental modeling. PSA, 2, 291--301. [ PDF ]