Rate My Professor Dean Rickles

Dean Rickles serves as Professor of History and Philosophy of Modern Physics at the University of Sydney, within the School of History and Philosophy of Science in the Faculty of Science. He earned his PhD from the University of Leeds, with a thesis on conceptual issues in quantum gravity supervised by Steven French. Following this, he undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Calgary, where his work spanned philosophy and health sciences, applying complex systems theory to population health research. In 2007, Rickles took up a lectureship in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney. He subsequently received a five-year Australian Research Council Australian Research Fellowship in 2008 and a four-year ARC Future Fellowship commencing in 2014, the latter providing funding of $847,035 for his research projects.

Currently, Rickles is Co-Director of the Sydney Centre for Time, an interdisciplinary initiative examining the nature, origins, and human experience of time. His primary research specializations lie in the history and philosophy of modern physics, particularly quantum gravity, string theory, spacetime symmetries and structure, dualities in theoretical physics, and the foundational questions of physical theories. Rickles' contributions to these areas have been recognized with the History and Philosophy of Science Medal awarded by the Royal Society of New South Wales in 2021. He has authored several influential monographs, including Symmetry, Structure, and Spacetime (2007), A Brief History of String Theory: From Dual Models to M-Theory (2014), Covered with Deep Mist: The Development of Quantum Gravity (1955-2015) (2015), and The Philosophy of Physics (2016). Additionally, he edited The Ashgate Companion to Contemporary Philosophy of Physics (2011) and has published numerous peer-reviewed papers in prestigious journals such as Foundations of Physics, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, and European Physical Journal H. Notable articles include "Mirror Symmetry and Other Miracles in Superstring Theory" (2010). Through his scholarship, Rickles has shaped key debates on the historiography, conceptual foundations, and philosophical implications of quantum gravity and related fields, exerting considerable influence on the philosophy of physics community.