Research project on single case chance
This research project targets the concept of chance: numbers between 0 and 1 that can be assigned to events and that do not express a shaky personal opinion, but rather an objective characteristic of the events themselves. In the project we investigate how chances relate to the, often deterministic, mechanisms underlying the events, thereby contributing to debates over the reference class problem, randomness, and reductionism. Additionally, the research will help to improve the statistical methods by which we can determine chances, especially in the area of model selection and causal modelling using Bayesian networks.

Next to my own research the project funds two PhD students. More information can be found on the project page.

Research network on rationality and decision
Our models for theoretical rationality in reasoning have seen major changes and additions in recent years: logicians have taken a dynamic turn, and probabilists have discovered network tools and new representations of uncertainty. In 2009 Olivier Roy and me won a research grant to hold a series of workshop with a European network of experts. Our aim is to investigate how developments in modeling theoretical rationality carry over to the science of decision making. In August 29-31 we are organising a final conference. More information can be found here.

PhD supervision
Next to the two students working in my VIDI-project, I supervise a number of PhD students.

• In 2012 Pieter van der Kolk will join our department. He is going to write a PhD thesis on disagreement among epistemic peers.
• From 2011 onwards I am supervising the PhD of Hanna van Loo. She works in the groups of Robert Schoevers and Peter de Jonge, both at the Faculty of Medical Science. Her research on the epidemiology and conceptual foundations of mental disorders, specifically depression.
• Since 2009 I am collaborating with Rogier Kievit, who works in the group of Denny Borsboom we are investigating the use of measurement models for giving empirical content to positions in the reductionism debate.
• Between 2007 and 2010 I was co-supervisor of Rens van de Schoot, who works in the group of Herbert Hoijtink from Utrecht University on the project Learning More from Empirical Data Using Prior Knowledge.