Rate My Professor Joeri Witteveen

Joeri Witteveen serves as Associate Professor of History and Philosophy of Science in the Department of Science Education at the University of Copenhagen. A philosopher and historian of science, he specializes in the history and philosophy of biology. His research explores epistemic and ethical tensions at the intersection of biological taxonomy, species conservation, and biodiversity assessment. Witteveen investigates how human values, priorities, aims, and interests influence the development of scientific categories and metrics, aiming to develop robust and actionable approaches for conservation policy. He earned his PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge (Trinity College) in 2013. Prior to this, he completed an MSc in Philosophy and History and Philosophy of Science at Utrecht University in 2008, and studied at Maastricht University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the London School of Economics.

Witteveen has secured several prestigious grants, including the Sapere Aude Starting Grant from the Independent Research Fund Denmark for the project "Tackling the Conservationist’s Dilemma: towards a pluralist philosophy of taxonomy for species conservation" (2023-2026), where he serves as research leader. He is also principal investigator for the Semper Ardens Accelerate Grant from the Carlsberg Foundation for "Human Variables in Biodiversity Assessment" (2025-2029). Earlier, he was Principal Investigator of the Dutch Research Council (NWO) VENI grant for "The Nature of Naming and the Naming of Nature" (2017-2022) and co-Principal Investigator for "Productive Ambiguity in Classification" (2018-2021) with collaborators from Arizona State University. His key publications include "Golden spikes, scientific types, and the ma(r)king of deep time" (2024, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science), "Teaching philosophy of science that matters" co-authored with S. Green (2023, European Journal for Philosophy of Science), "Consensus and Scientific Classification" with B. Sterner and A. Sen (2022, Knowledge Organization), "Biological markets, cooperation, and the evolution of morality" (2021, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science), and "Linnaeus, the essentialism story, and the question of types" (2020, Taxon). He serves as Associate Editor of History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences and on the editorial boards of Studies in History and Philosophy of Science and Acta Biotheoretica.