Péter Szegedi

Péter Szegedi holds an MSc degree in physics at the Loránd Eötvös University of Science, Budapest and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences with a thesis on deterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics. He is an associate professor of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Eötvös University. His main interests are interpretations of quantum theory and the determinism in physics. He has been carrying out and coordinating philosophy of science research projects in the department. Since 1975 he taught courses on history and philosophy of physics and on general philosophy of science at the Faculty of Sciences of the university.

Emial: pszegedi@caesar.elte.hu

Andrei Krennikov

Andrei Khrennikov studied at Moscow State University, Department of Mechanics and Mathematics, in the period 1975–1980. In 1983 he received a PhD in mathematical physics (quantum field theory) from the same department. He started his teaching and research career at Moscow University for Radio-Electronics and Automatics and in 1990 he became full professor at Moscow University for Electronic Engineering. He started his career abroad at Bochum University and since 1997 he is professor of applied mathematics at Linnaueus University, South-East Sweden, since 2002, the director of the multidisciplinary research center at this university, International Center for Mathematical Modeling in Physics, Engineering, Economics, and Cognitive Science. His research interests are multi-disciplnarity, e.g., foundations of quantum physics and quantum information, foundations of probability (in particular, studies on negative probabilities), cognitive modeling, ultrametric (non-Archimedean) mathematics, dynamical systems, infinite-dimensional analysis, quantum-like models in psychology, economics and finances. He is the author of about 400 papers and 16 monographs in journals in mathematics, physics, biology, cognitive science, economics, and finances.

Email: Andrei.Khrennikov@msi.vxu.se

Andy Adamatzky

Andrew Adamatzky is Professor in Unconventional Computing in the Department of Computer Science, amir of the Unconventional Computing Centre, and a member of Bristol Robotics Lab. He does research in reaction-diffusion computing, cellular automata, physarum computing, massive parallel computation, applied mathematics, collective intelligence and robotics. He is one of the founders of unconventional computing thinking in natural sciences.

Email: andrew.adamatzky@uwe.ac.uk

Yuval Jobani

Yuval Jobani is assistant Professor in Jewish Philosophy and Education at Tel Aviv University, where he also heads the Interdisciplinary Studies Section in the Department of Hebrew Culture Studies. Jobani was a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow under the supervision of Prof. Michael Walzer at the Institute for advanced study in Princeton (2008-2010) and a visiting scholar at Brandeis University (2010-2011). His research interests include the variety of Jewish secularisms, religion and the public sphere as well as religion and education in contemporary society. His publications include; The Role of Contradictions in Spinoza’s Philosophy: The God Intoxicated Heretic (Routledge, 2016), “On Scholars and Soldiers” in The Jewish Political Tradition, vol. 3 (forthcoming, Yale University Press), "The Secular University and Its Critics" (Studies in Philosophy and Education, 2016) and “The Lure of Heresy: A Philosophical Typology of Hebrew Secularism in the First Half of the Twentieth Century” (The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, 2016). Jobani’s research is supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and he holds a European Union Marie Curie grant for the study of Jewish secularism (2012-16). He was also awarded a grant from the Israel Science Foundation (2015-2018) for a book project he is currently completing with Nahshon Perez: Women of the Wall: Navigating Religion in the Public Sphere (under contract with Oxford University Press).

Email: jobani@post.tau.ac.il

Andrei G. Zavaliy

He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the City University of New York, and is currently an Associate Professor of philosophy and religion at the American University of Kuwait. His research interests include the history of world religions, moral psychology, philosophy of religion, and the applicability of the experimental methods to philosophical controversies, especially in ethical theory. He serves as an Associate Editor of the International Journal of the Humanities and as the member of the editorial board of the Online Dictionary of Intercultural Philosophy.

Email: azavaliy@auk.edu.kw

Andrew Wilson

Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (andrew.wilson@ecfr.eu) and Reader in Ukrainian Studies at University College London. He has worked extensively on the comparative politics of the post-Soviet states since 1990. His latest book Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship was published by Yale University Press in October 2011. His other recent books include The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation  (Yale UP, third edition, 2009), Ukraine’s Orange Revolution  (Yale UP, 2005) and Virtual Politics: Faking Democracy in the Post-Soviet World (Yale UP, 2005). His publications at ECFR include Dealing with Yanukovych’s Ukraine, The Limits of Enlargement-lite: EU and Russian Power in the Troubled Neighbourhood , Meeting Medvedev: The Politics of the Putin Succession  and Can the EU Win the Peace in Georgia? (all available at www.ecfr.eu). His essay ‘Ukraine at Twenty’ will be published in the December edition of Russia in Global Affairs.

Email: andrew.wilson@ecfr.eu

Gëzim Alpion

Educated at the Universities of Cairo and Durham, Dr Gëzim Alpion is Lecturer in Sociology in Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. Alpion specializes in the sociology of success, religion, nationality, media and authorship and is considered as “the most authoritative English-language author” on Mother Teresa. Initially published by Routledge in London, New York and New Delhi, his controversial study ‘Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity?’ (2007 & 2008) was released in Italian by Salerno Editrice in Rome in 2008. Alpion’s other publications include two collections of essays ‘Foreigner Complex’ (2002) and ‘Encounters with Civilizations: From Alexander the Great to Mother Teresa’ (2011). In his politically-incorrect plays ‘Vouchers’ (2001) and ‘If Only the Dead Could Listen’ (2008), which have been successfully performed across the UK, Alpion addresses the topical issue of the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers in the West. Alpion is currently developing the idea of “fame capital” as a variable in an intranational and international context, and exploring the significance of Mother Teresa’s “dark night of the soul” in a post-modernist context.

Email: g.i.alpion@bham.ac.uk

Michael Huemer

Received his B.A. from UC Berkeley in 1992 and his Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 1998. He is presently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado. He is the author of Skepticism and the Veil of Perception (2001), Ethical Intuitionism (2005), and more than forty academic articles in epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy.
Email: owl232@earthlink.net

Walter Block

Walter E. Block is Harold E. Wirth Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics, College of Business, Loyola University New Orleans, and senior fellow at the Mises Institute. He earned his PhD in economics at Columbia University in 1972. He has taught at Rutgers, SUNY Stony Brook, Baruch CUNY, Holy Cross and the University of Central Arkansas. He is the author of almost 500 refereed articles in professional journals, two dozen books, and thousands of op eds. He lectures widely on college campuses, delivers seminars around the world and appears regularly on television and radio shows.  He is the Schlarbaum Laureate, Mises Institute, 2011; and has won the Loyola University Research Award (2005, 2008) and the Mises Institute’s Rothbard Medal of Freedom, 2005; and the Dux Academicus award, Loyola University, 2007.

Prof. Block counts among his friends Ron Paul and Murray Rothbard. He was converted to libertarianism by Ayn Rand. Block is old enough to have once met Ludwig von Mises, and shaken his hand. Block has never washed that hand since.  So, if you shake his hand (it’s pretty dirty, but what the heck) you channel Mises.

Block is a leading Austrian School economist and an international leader of the freedom movement. His earliest work Defending the Undefendable (first edition Fleet 1976, latest edition Mises 2008, translated in 12 languages) is now, more than 30 years later, still regarded as a classic of libertarianism. This collection of essays, which argues in behalf of societal villains as economic scapegoats based on the principles of nonaggression, forces its reader to think and to rethink his initial knee-jerk emotional responses, and to gain a new and far sounder appreciation of economic theory and of the virtues and operations of the free market economy. Block’s writing was inspired by Henry Hazlitt, the author of the most widely read economics text Economics in One Lesson. Block’s latest book is: Yes to Ron Paul and Liberty.

Block has been a fixture in the libertarian movement for some four Decades. He actually met Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek, and was friends with, and mentored by, Murray Rothbard.  His contributions to academic libertarianism and to Austrian economics have been prodigious. Block’s writings continue to challenge the conventional wisdom (or ignorance) of how economics works and will retain its freshness for decades to come.  His public speaking style has been described as a combination of that of Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce and Murray Rothbard.

Dr. Block has written over 500 articles for peer reviewed refereed journals, some two dozen books, and literally thousands of op eds for magazines and newspapers. Block appears widely on radio and television. He is a contributor to such scholarly journals as The Review of Austrian Economics, Journal of Libertarian Studies, The Journal of Labor Economics, and the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. He is currently Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics, College of Business Administration, at Loyola University New Orleans.

Gábor Gángó

Philosopher (promoted in 2004) and a historian of ideas (promoted in 1997). He taught at the universities of Szeged, Vienna and Miskolc, spent his research stays in Vienna, Warsaw, Edinburgh and Wolfenbüttel and lectured, among other places, in Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, Nancy, Montréal and Buenos Aires. At the early stage of his career, he worked on 19th century history of ideas in Austria and Hungary. Recently, he has pursued research into Kant, the intellectual constellation of Weimar Germany and the cultural critique of capitalism. His last book: Marxismo, cultura, comunicación. De Kant y Fichte a Lukács y Benjamin. Transl de Martín Koval et al., ed. de Miguel Vedda, Buenos Aires, Herramienta, 2009.
Email: gaborgango@yahoo.com