James Owen Weatherall

James Weatherall is a physicist, mathematician, and philosopher. He holds a permanent position as Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Irvine, with a primary appointment in the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science and a courtesy appointment as Professor of Mathematics.

Weatherall is interested in a range of topics in the philosophy of science, with special focus on the mathematical and conceptual foundations of modern physics, including general relativity and quantum field theory. He has also worked on issues in the history and philosophy of economics, the role and public understanding of science in democratic societies, and the history of philosophy of science. Weatherall is currently writing a biography of the mathematician John von Neumann and a monograph on the philosophy of cosmology, among other projects.

Weatherall received an A.B. in Physics and Philosophy and an A.M. in Physics from Harvard University, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University, a Ph.D. in Mathematics and Physics from the Stevens Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of California, Irvine.