Jan-Willem Romeijn
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About me
I am an assistant professor on a tenure track at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

News
Some recent and upcoming events:

  • Last year I won a VIDI grant from the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research (NWO) for a research project on single-case chance. Have a look at the page of the project for a brief description.
  • This year I have given talks at the PSSA conference in South Africa, at a conference on Novel Predictions in Duesseldorf, a conference on Discovery in the Social Sciences in Leuven, a workshop on Possibility in Utrecht and one on Deliberation at the London School of Economics. See my page with talks for the slides.
  • I also presented a paper on Frequencies, Chances, and Undefinable Sets and at the Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy for an audience of statisticians and philosophers. The presentation was filmed and will be available on the web shortly. Slides can be found here.
  • In September and October of this year I will visit the Formal Epistemology Center at Carnegie Mellon University. In transit I will attend the Progic conference at Columbia University.

Research interests
My research revolves around probability theory and scientific method. Topics of specific interest are statistical inference, inductive logic, model selection, logical and probabilistic reasoning, causal and probabilistic modelling, and experimentation. I have an interest in general philosophy of science, but most of my work work relates to methodological and metaphysical problems in specific sciences, primarily physics and psychology.

Short biography
I studied at Utrecht University, where I graduated cum laude in both physics and philosophy. After that I worked as a financial consultant for two years. From 2000 to 2004 I worked on a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Groningen, for which I graduated cum laude in 2005. The first two years after that I lectured in philosophy of science and statistics at the Psychology Department of the University of Amsterdam. Until 2009 I carried out a research project on the intersection of cognitive psychology and philosophy of science in the University of Groningen. From this year onwards I will work on a research project concerning single-case chance and statistics. More information can be found in my CV and in my List of Publications.

News from the past
Selected links that once were news:

  • Together with Ernst Wit and Edwin van den Heuvel I organised a conference on model selection entitled All models are wrong, which was held in Groningen in March 2011.
  • In October 2011 the local television network TV-Noord dedicated an edition of their science programme Adamsappel to probability and statistics. Enjoy the interview with footage from the casino and the racing track.
  • In July 2010 I gave a presentation in a workshop on Concrete Causation at the Ludwig-Maximilians university in Munich. My presentation was filmed and can be viewed here.
  • In February 2010 I won the university-wide Lecturer of the Year Awards. Have a look at my 7-minute lecture on Reasoning with Probabilities. (Downloading Silverlight normally takes only a few seconds.)
  • Last year Olivier Roy and I won a grant for furthering Internationalisation in the Humanities. See more details on my page with Projects.
  • I appeared on local television to talk about the direction of time. Have a look at Adamsappel and fast forward to 6:40 minutes, which is where the part on the philosophy of time starts.