BCN Lectures

BCN Lecture 4 September 2025 - Join in person or online!

Speaker: Roelant Ossewaarde (Researcher at the Artificial Intelligence lectorate of the Utrecht University of Applied Science)
Title: Language measurements in persons with brain damage
Time: 12:00 – 13:00
Location: Anda Kerkhoven Centre, 3227.0019
Online: https://meet.google.com/xfn-kajj-jwi

Topic: Language measurements in persons with brain damage

What you can expect to learn from this lecture: Spontaneous speech has become omnipresent as a way to communicate with AI agents powered by Large Language Models. Natural language has become a viable method to convey our thoughts and interact with machines. Brain damage can cause deterioration of the ability to use language. Linguistic technology may aid in measuring the degree to which the language use degrades; however, there is a surprisingly large gap between modern day chatbot capabilities and clinically useful measurements of language decline.In my talk I will survey the use of language software to analyze spontaneous language, and the promises of LLM linguistic processing software in this domain.

About the speaker: Roelant Ossewaarde is a researcher at the Artificial Intelligence lectorate of the Utrecht University of Applied Science (Hogeschool Utrecht). His research focuses on the application of AI methods in the linguistic domain. He recently obtained his Ph.D., on measurements of language decline associated with dementia, from the neurolinguistics department at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

BCN Lecture 9 October 2025

Speaker: Jacqueline Sullivan
Title: The Epistemology of Team Neuroscience Experiments
Time: 16:00 – 17:00
Online: https://meet.google.com/occ-cgnn-tts

Topic: The Epistemology of Team Neuroscience Experiments

What you can expect to learn from this lecture: The complexity of the brain demands collaborative approaches—no single researcher or lab can fully grasp it alone. To advance both fundamental understanding and therapeutic innovation, neuroscientists increasingly form interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary teams. These are best understood as Team Science Experiments (TSEs): not only do they involve laboratory research, but the team itself becomes part of the experimental system. While funding proposals often present idealized models of how such collaborations will function, the reality is shaped by epistemic, technological, institutional, and interpersonal challenges. Through a detailed case study, I explore how dependencies between researchers, labs, institutions, and even suppliers can both enable and constrain knowledge production. These dependencies are central to the epistemic promise of TSEs—but they also introduce significant risks and costs, both intellectual and psychological. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for designing more resilient and effective research collaborations. Ultimately, TSEs offer a powerful lens for examining how scientific knowledge is co-produced within complex social and material arrangements.

About the speaker: Jacqueline Sullivan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy, a faculty member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy (https://www.rotman.uwo.ca), an investigator at the Centre for Brain and Mind (https://www.uwo.ca/bmi/), and an Associate Member of the Western Institute for Neuroscience (https://win.uwo.ca) at the University of Western Ontario. She has a PhD in History and Philosophy of Science (2007) and an MS in Neuroscience (2003) from the University of Pittsburgh. She works on a variety of topics in philosophy of neuroscience and philosophy of psychopathology including the epistemology of neuroscientific experimentation, cognitive ontology, classification and natural kinds; and pluralism and unity in the mind-brain sciences.