Members
Thomas Allmer
I am a co-director of the Institute for a Global Sustainable Information Society. My research and teaching are grounded in critical social theory and the political economy of media and communication, with a special focus on digital media and digital labour. My publications include 'Towards a Critical Theory of Surveillance in Informational Capitalism' (Peter Lang, 2012) and 'Critical Theory and Social Media: Between Emancipation and Commodification' (Routledge, 2015). My forthcoming book, Universities and Academic Labour in Times of Digitalisation and Precarisation, will be published with Routledge in 2023.
Alexander Banfield-Mumb
[coming soon]
Robert Bichler
[coming soon]
David Braunstein
David Braunstein is a PhD student at the University of Hagen, Germany.
In his interdisciplinary academic research he focuses on how society organizes economics in general and its interconnection to the environment and to ethics in particular.
He works with Luhmann‘s systems theory and with the works of Simmel while combining philosophy with sociology.
David Braunstein has also worked and published on Knowledge Management (e.g. ICKM 2016, SBPM-ONE 2018).
From 2011 to 2018 he received a scholarship from the Federal Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF), Germany.
Joseph Brenner
A U. S. citizen born in Paris, Joseph E. Brenner studied organic chemistry in the U.S. and Switzerland, followed by a career in the chemical industry. After retirement, he joined the International Center for Transdisciplinary Research (CIRET, Paris), working with its Director, the theoretical physicist Basarab Nicolescu, who introduced him to the non-standard logic of Stéphane Lupasco. Brenner then published a book, Logic in Reality, and a series of papers to up-date and make this logic available in English. Later, through contacts especially with Pedro Marijuan and Wolfgang Hofkirchner, he began to concentrate on the application of the Lupasco logic to the science and then the philosophy of information. In 2010 he started a fruitful collaboration with Wu Kun, Director of the International Center for the Philosophy of Information at the Xi’An Jiaotong University, Xi’An, China, of which he was appointed Associate Director. Recent work has emphasized Wu’s concepts of the convergence of science and philosophy, under the influence of information. Brenner has also been involved, since its formation in 2011, with the International Society for the Study of Information (IS4SI), serving as Vice-President, Transdisciplinary Projects. Also he was elected Member of the UTI Research Group after fruitful co-operation. Brenner’s current interests are in the reconceptualization of natural philosophy and the further application of his logic and philosophy (“Philosophy in Reality”) in the support of the Global Sustainable Information Society. Publications on these topics have appeared recently primarily in the Journals Information and Philosophies.
Mark Burgin†
Mark Burgin, born on 9 January 1946, passed away on 18 February 2023.
Mark Burgin received his MA and PhD in mathematics from Moscow State University, which was one of the best universities in the world at that time, and Doctor of Science (DSc) in logic and philosophy from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He was a Visiting Professor at UCLA, Professor at the Institute of Education, Kiev, Ukraine; at International Solomon University, Kiev, Ukraine; at Kiev State University, Ukraine; the Head of the Assessment Laboratory of the Research Center of Science at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Chief Scientist at Institute of Psychology, Kiev. Finally he was affiliated with UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Mark Burgin was a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, a Senior Member of IEEE, the Society for Computer Modeling and Simulation International and the International Society for Computers and their Applications, as well as an Honorary Professor of the Aerospace Academy of Ukraine. Mark Burgin was the Chair of the IEEE San Fernando Valley Computer and Communication Chapter and the Secretary of the International Society for Computers and their Applications. He was also a member of the Science Advisory Committee at Science of Information Institute, Washington.
Mark Burgin was the Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Integration, international journal Information and the International Journal of Swarm Intelligence & Evolutionary Computation, also being an Editor and Member of Editorial Boards of more than 21 journals. He was a member of Program, Organizational and Scientific Committees in more than 100 international conferences, congresses and symposia as well as the chief organizer of some of them such as Symposia “Theoretical Information Studies”, “Evolutionary Computation and Processes of Life”, and “Creativity in Education”.
Mark Burgin did research, publications, and taught courses in various areas of mathematics, information sciences, artificial intelligence (AI), computer science, system theory, philosophy, logic, psychology, cognitive sciences, social sciences, pedagogical sciences, and methodology of science. He originated such theories as the general theory of information, theory of named sets, mathematical theory of schemas, hyperprobability theory, theory of non-Diophantine arithmetics and neoclassical analysis (in mathematics), system theory of time, and theory of oracles making essential contributions to such fields as human creativity, theory of knowledge, theory of information, theory of algorithms and computation, theory of intellectual activity, and complexity studies. He was the first to discover Non-Diophantine arithmetics; the first to axiomatize and build mathematical foundations for negative probability used in physics, finance and economics; and the first to explicitly overcome the barrier posed by the Church-Turing Thesis in computer science and technology by constructing new classes of automata.
Mark Burgin authored and co-authored more than 500 papers and 21 books, including “Semitopological Vector Spaces:Hypernorms, Hyperseminorms and Operators”(2017), “Functional Algebra and Hypercalculus in Infinite Dimensions: Hyperintegrals, Hyperfunctionals and Hyperderivatives“(2017), “Theory of Knowledge: Structures and Processes” (2016), “Structural Reality” (2012), “Hypernumbers and Extrafunctions: Extending the Classical Calculus” (2012), “Theory of Named Sets” (2011), “Measuring Power of Algorithms,Computer Programs,and Information Automata” (2010), “Theory of Information: Fundamentality, Diversity and Unification” (2010), “Neoclassical Analysis: Calculus Closer to the Real World” (2008), “Super-recursive Algorithms” (2005), “On the Nature and Essence of Mathematics” (1998), “Intellectual Components of Creativity”(1998), “Fundamental Structures of Knowledge and Information” (1997), “Non-Diophantine Arithmetics or is it Possible that 2 + 2 ≠ 4” (1997), “Introduction to the Modern Exact Methodology of Science” (1994), “The World of Theories and Power of Mind”(1992) and “Axiological Aspects of Scientific Theories” (1991).
Mark Burgin was for years Board Member of the Internatonal Society for the Study of Information (IS4SI), elected for its Presidency for the period 2023-2025, Editor of the World Scientific Series in Information Studies with so far 14 volumes, Chief Information Scientist at GSIS and Project leader there with Wolfgang Hofkirchner on a Single Integrated Science of Information (SISI).
We will miss him.
Jaime F. Cárdenas-García
Jaime F. Cárdenas-García in retirement is a Visiting Research Scientist in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland – Baltimore County and a Member of the Academy of Sciences of Ecuador. After obtaining his BSME, MS and PhD degrees from the University of Maryland in College Park he joined the faculty at Colorado State University as an Assistant Professor. After which Prof. Cárdenas-García transferred to Texas Tech University where he spent the majority of his academic career as Assistant, Associate and Full Professor. Other academic appointments have been at the University of Maryland in College Park, University of Florida in Shalimar and the University of Texas in Brownsville.
Currently his focus is on a fundamental approach to the topic of Information, emphasizing Bateson’s difference which makes a difference. This has led to a novel paradigm which begun by defining the fundamental problem of the science of information, discovering info-autopoiesis and to developing a phenomenology of information.
Access to publications:
Gerhard Chroust
Em.Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Gerhard Chroust, MSc
Gerhard Chroust is an Austrian systems scientist and Professor Emeritus for Systems Engineering and Automation at the Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Austria. From 1966 to 1991 Chroust worked at the IBM Laboratory Vienna, from 1992 until 2007 he was tenured Professor in Linz. He is a specialist in formal definition of software development processes and worked in the last years on the impacts of human behaviour and cultural differences on system development. Since 2007 he also performs research on disaster management and in the last few years on issues of human aging, especially in view of supporting humans by information technologies. Since 2017 he took part in the Europe-wide Project my-AHA focussed on reduce frailty of older citizens by computer-supported health monitoring and disease prevention.
Peter Crowley
Dr. Peter Crowley, Secretary, NGO Committee on the Family at the United Nations Office Vienna, is a Philosophy Graduate, University College Dublin, Psychology Graduate, University of Duesseldorf Germany, and holds a Ph.D. in Communication Science from the University of Salzburg, and is currently guest Lecturer in Communication Science at the University of Salzburg on: ‘Digitalisation and the Sustainable Development of Social Movements’.
Peter has served as an NGO affiliate representative to the United Nations, since 1987, and is a former Chairperson of the Vienna NGO Committee on the Family. He has participated in various United Nations Expert Group Meetings, on family issues from 1983 to 2012, and was further responsible for the submission of yearly oral NGO statements to the United Nations Commission for Social Development, 2000 – 2004 in New York. Peter is the editor of a study ‘Documenting Contributions of Civil Society Organisations to the Well-Being of Families’ www.10yearsIYF.org in 2004, and author of the study update, to observe the 20th anniversary of the United Nations International Year of the Family in 2014 https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/family/docs/IDF2014/PeterCrowley.pdf. He is further editor, since 2009, of ‘Families International’ a quarterly bulletin, published online by the Vienna NGO Committee on the Family www.viennafamilycommittee.org.
Peter’s research and publications, also focus on the concept of Civil Society as a ‘Resource Entity’ as further documented, by the knowledge resource contributions of numerous digital networks, set up to facilitate the above mentioned research, and which continue to be maintained by the Vienna NGO Committee on the Family, of Civil Society Organisations worldwide, such as www.civilsocietynetworks.org, www.10yearsIYF.org and www.20yearsIYF.org.
Civil Society, as a ‘Resource Entity,’ can be understood, not as an antipode to, but as an extension, and expansion of the concept of Civil Society as a ‘Discourse Entity’, which is more often associated with the Concept of Civil Society of Habermas, as a “network of associations that institutionalises problem-solving discourses on questions of general interest inside the framework of organised public-spheres.” (Habermas, J. 1996, p.367)
Department of Systems Analysis, Faculty of Informatics and Statistics, University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic
The Department of Systems Analysis focuses on systems cognition and development, directed mainly into the field of social systems. On this basis, the department develops a broad concept of informatics. The department has three main areas of interest: system sciences, information systems and management of information systems. In the area of system science the issues of soft systems methodologies, theory of information and selected topics of cybernetics are developed. In the area of information systems, their audit, risk analysis and support of managerial work are focused on. As for the management of information systems the applications of information management, knowledge management and changes in knowledge society are studied.
José María Díaz Nafría
Ph.D in Telecommunication Engineering by the Technical University of Madrid; M.Sc. & B.Sc. in Philosophy by the National University for Distance Education, UNED; M.Sc.& B.Sc. in Telecommunication Engineering by the University of the Basque Country.
He is currently a Professor at the Open University of Madrid, Spain; a Visiting Professor at the Munich University of Applied Science, Germany; a Visiting Researcher at the National University of Santa Elena, Ecuador; and Honorary Fellow at the University of León. Between 1997 and 2009, he was an Associate Professor at the University Alfonso X el Sabio. In 1996, he worked as researcher at the Vienna University of Technology; between 1997 and 2002, at the Technical University of Madrid. He has been invited Professor at several universities in Germany, Austria, Sweden and Ecuador.
He is board member of the Institut für Design Science (Germany), the International Society for the Study of Information (Austria), and is president of the BITrum-Research Group for the interdisciplinary study of information (Spain). He belongs to the editorial boards of the scientific Journals TripleC, IRIE, and glossariumBITri.
His research focuses on the interdisciplinary study of information, communication, perception, systems and complexity.
Amin Elfeshawi
Amin Elfeshawi is a political scientist and Islamic religious education teacher. He is conducting research on salafism, jihadism, modern Islamic thinkers, interreligiousness and migration pedagogy. He is working at the Private University of Education, Diocese of Linz. He is also a doctoral student and lecturer at the University of Vienna.
Elfeshawi worked for years in the prevention and deradicalization of jihadist extremism in the judicial context. His publications can be found at the following link: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amin-Elfeshawi
Peter Fleissner
Born 1944 Peter Karl Fleissner retired October 2006 from his chair (Design and Assessment of New Technologies, since 1990) at the University of Technology in Vienna, Austria, after seven years of work as a temporary agent for the European Union (1997-2000 Head of the Department “Technology, Employment, Competitiveness and Society” of the Seville based Institute for Prospective Technological Studies of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in Spain; 2000-2004 Head of the Department “Research and Networking” of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia). Before, he had worked for the Austrian Academy of Sciences, for the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria, as research scholar at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria. He is an elected Member of the Leibniz-Sozietät, Berlin, Germany; was a Member of the Board of Directors of the research institute of the Black Sea Economic Association (ICBSS), in Athens, Greece, and of the Advisory Board of the United Nations University/College of Europe (Bruges, Belgium). He has successfully managed more than 27 research projects, often internationally composed. He has worked as a consultant for Siemens, Munich, for ORF (Austrian Radio and Television), for the Science Center, Berlin, for the Institute for Systems Technology and Innovation Research, ISI, Karlsruhe, for the Austrian Chamber of Labour, and for the Austrian Association of Industrialists. He is the author of hundreds of book chapters, articles in scientific journals and research reports.
Christian Fuchs
Christian Fuchs is a professor at the University of Westminster, where he is the co-director of the Communication and Media Research Institute.
His research is on critical theory, the political economy of communication, and digital media & society.
Raffaela Giovagnoli
Raffaela Giovagnoli is Professor of Social Ontology and Social Epistemology at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. She got the Master in Sociology at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, the PhD in Philosophy at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and the Post-doc in Philosophy at the University of “Roma Tre”. She has been visiting researcher at the University of Frankfurt, University of Pittsburgh and UC Berkeley. Her latest books in English are “Computing Nature”, edited with Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, Springer Sapere 2013, “Representation and Reality in Humans, Other Living Beings and Intelligent Machines”, Springer Sapere 2017 and “The Logic of Social Practices” edited with Robert Lowe, Springer Sapere, 2020. She is the author of several publications in international journals.
Annette Grathoff
Annette Grathoff studied Biology and did her PhD in Germany. Very soon she developed an interest in understanding life and behaviours in ecological systems from a systemic point of view and specialized in Chemical Ecology with her doctoral thesis where she examined changes in communities of planktonic freshwater bacteria under the influence of Iris pseudacorus and Mentha aquatica, plants which are often used in constructed wetlands for waste water treatments.
During her time in Germany she was searching for communities of fundamental research on system- and self-organization and a happy coincidence led her to Austria. Now she is living and working in Vienna where she initiated the project “Evolution of Information Processing Systems”, a long term literature research work aimed at finding and consecutively publishing what is already known about how systems – viewed from an evolutionary perspective, i.e. starting with basic physical and physicochemical dynamics and then developing biotic and cultural properties – gain and lose stability.
Alongside GSIS she is affiliated with further internationally organized research communities specialized on theoretic and applied systemic research and the study of information: IS4SI (where she has the honorary office of General Secretary), ISSS, the community around Austrian systems scientist Ludwig von Bertalanffy and with the Institut für Design Science, Munich.
Teresa Guarda
Teresa Guarda received her PhD in Systems and Information Technologies in 2015 from Minho University. She is researcher in ALGORITMI Research Centre of Minho University, Portugal, (research team Intelligent Data Systems (IDS), Information Systems and Technologies (IST) R&D group); is member and responsible for Conferences and International Relations of the interdisciplinary research group BITrum.
She already has relevant indexed publications in the main research topics: Pervasive Systems, Marketing Intelligence, Intelligent Decision Support Systems, Intelligent Systems, Business Intelligence, Crowdsourcing, Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, Data Security, Information Science, Smart Destinations, Internet-of-Things, Computer Theory, Knowledge Management, Cybersecurity, Applied Social and Educational Technologies. Has also been organizer of several conferences and workshops, and reviewer of many indexed journals and conferences in these topics.
She has been a professor and researcher in different academic institutions in Portugal since 1991; currently, she is Director of the CIST Research and Innovation Center, Faculty of Systems and Telecommunications, Santa Elena Provincial State University (Ecuador).
Patrick Hagn
Patrick studied philosophy at Eichstätt University and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. This meant of course to study the greats but also take a leap forward in more modern fields, for example where neuroscience and philosophy meet.
In recent years he examined the implications quantum mechanics, string theory and cosmology bring into philosophy and vice versa. The next big step for him was to take a look at the concept of self organisation and he found lots of his findings could be applied to those realms likewise.
That was basically the reason he was keen to join GSIS: To learn from each other and to see what inspirations different views evoke in us.
Besides a philosopher he is a drummer, DJ and videoproducer who has deep interest in practices like QiGong and meditation. He is also the other half of the duo Radio Pauseroni with Karolin Pichler. Alongside music projects they currently take a look at normative science and how to make these ideas come to life.
Wolfgang Hofkirchner
Ao.Univ.Prof.i.R. Dr.phil., TU Wien, Univ.Doz. PhD in Political Science and Psychology in 1981, University of Salzburg. Research fellow, Austrian Academy of Sciences. Assistant Professor in 1991, Vienna University of Technology, after habilitation in Technology Assessment, Associate Professor in 2001, retired in 2018. University Professor for Internet and Society 2004 - 2010, University of Salzburg. Visiting professorships in Brasil and Spain.
Member, Leibniz-Sozietät der Wissenschaften zu Berlin e.V.; Member, International Academy of Systems and Cybernetic Sciences, Brussels; Distinguished Researcher, International Center for Philosophy of Information, Xi’an.
Expertise in Complexity Thinking, Science of Information, ICTs and Society.
Clemens Knezu
I have a strong background in Engineering Sciences (communication- and electrical engineering) with a focus on automatic control and system sciences.
With my expertise I have the opportunity to contribute to the missions and aims of public and private institutions in scientific research, research administration, research and development, engineering, intellectual property and standardization as well as education and training in mainly international settings.
My research interests are
- the interaction between people, groups of individuals as well as societies and their technical artefacts,
- the modelling of large systems based on a sound scientific insight in the rules that constitute them and
- to analyse and to evaluate the usage of natural resources for human activities.
Elke Kolmanz
Retired, currently living in Hannover.
Asimina Koukou
Asimina Koukou completed her PhD in Communication at the University of Vienna, under the supervision of Professor Katharine Sarikakis and Associate Professor Wolfgang Hofkirchner. In her PhD work, she explored the governance of communicative spaces in times of crisis through the lens of systems theory. In particular, she investigated the role of social movements' discourses (produced and distributed via the Internet) in the construction of identity, cosmopolitanism and the Commons.
Her research interests lie at the intersection of media and new technologies with social justice, human rights and social change.
Asimina has published book chapters and peer-reviewed articles in national and international social science journals.
She is currently working on a paper for the formation of an integrativist governance model for Europe.
Robert K. Logan
Robert K. Logan, Professor Emeritus Physics, Fellow of St. Michael’s College, U. of Toronto, and Chief Scientist at OCAD U. in the Strategic Innovation Lab, has a variety of experiences as an academic involved in research in media ecology, complexity theory, information theory, systems biology, environmental science, linguistics, and industrial design. Logan has published, co-published or edited 16 books and over 150 articles or book chapters.
Margarete Maurer
Auf Basis einer breiten naturwissenschaftlichen philosophischen und soziologischen sowie historischen Ausbildung arbeite ich interdisziplinär mit den Schwerpunkten Theorie, Geschichte und Soziologie der Naturwissenschaften, Gender Studies und Philosophische Praxis.
Leiterin des Rosa-Luxemburg-Institut, 1090 Wien, Interdisziplinäre Forschung und Praxis, gegründet 1989/90, außeruniversitär, partei-UNabhängig.
Schwerpunkte:
- Frauenforschung und feministische Forschung in Naturwissenschaften/Technik/Medizin, Entwicklungspolitik und Bildung
- Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft, Wissenschaftskommunikation
- Theory, History & Social Studies of Science & Technology sowie Technology Assessment
- Philosophische Praxis
- Denken Ernst Blochs
Publikationen:
https://philosophische-praxis.jimdofree.com/publikationen/
http://frauen.at/Seiten/publicat/publicat.htm
Angeschlossen: der RLI-Verlag / Verein für interdisziplinäre Forschung und Praxis
E-Mail: rli@frauen.at
WWW: http://frauen.at (Überarbeitung in Vorbereitung)
academia.edu: https://uniklu.academia.edu/margaretemaurer
https://sites.google.com/view/vif-austria
Yurii Mielkov
Dr.Hab./ Ph.D in Philosophy, Leading research fellow of the Department of the internationalization of higher education, Institute of Higher Education of the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine (Kiev, Ukraine).
Irena Mostowicz
Irena Mostowicz received her PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Vienna, MA in Political Science from the University of Konstanz and BA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Warsaw.
In her interdisciplinary research projects she focuses on the topics of memory, identity, rituals and alternative ways of life.
Currently, she is working on a book on dachas as an alternative way of planning the domestic budget and a way of building a community lifestyle.
Irena Mostowicz has published articles in journals in Russia, Poland, Latvia and Thailand. She works as a linguist, translator, interpreter and journalist.
Marja Nesterova
Prof. Dr. Marja Nesterova
Hab. Dr. in Philosophy of Science (2016), Associate Professor, certified management consultant (CMC), mediator, facilitator, business trainer, coach, psychologist, cognitologist. Academic coordinator of Jean Monnet Module “SCEGES” (Social Cohesion in Education and Governance: European Studies”), Head of the Research Centre of Educator’s Competences Development (National Pedagogical Dragomanov University), Head of laboratory of social dimensions of cognitivistics at the Research Centre of Cognitivistics (National Pedagogical Dragomanov University), Professor of the Department of management and innovative technologies of social-cultural activity, Faculty of management of education and science (National Pedagogical Dragomanov University), Professor at the psychology faculty (Kiev National Taras Shevchenko University, IPE), founder and director of the management consultancy firm Amity ®Consulting.
Member of Ukrainian Synergetics Society, Member of Philosophy of Education of Great Britain, Academician of the International Academy of Creative Pedagogy “Polissysa”, Head of Kyiv Department of Ukrainian Association of Management Consultants “CMC–Ukraine”, President of Association of Researchers of EU Values in Education (AREVE), Head of Board of NGO “Institute of Social Cohesion Development”.
Expertise in Complexity Thinking, Synergetics, Cognitive Science, Psychology, Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Education. More than 126 scientific papers, including monographs “Cognitivistics: origins, challenges, perspectives” (2015), “Postnonclassical management” (2011).
Franz Ofner
PhD in pedagogy, sociology and psychology from the University of Vienna (1984); research worker on various projects on new technologies, organisational and social change, and qualification requirements (1980–1985); member of the University of Klagenfurt since 1985; postdoctoral qualification (habilitation) in sociology of economy from the University of Klagenfurt.
Managing editor of the Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie (Austrian Journal of Sociology).
Focus of research: the status of communication, power, and social recognition in social theory; pragmatism; industrial relations and the welfare state.
Vangelis Papadimitropoulos
Vangelis Papadimitropoulos is a political theorist, social scientist, independent researcher, and editor holding a Ph.D. in political philosophy. Formerly a Research Affiliate and post-doc researcher at the Free University of Amsterdam and the University of Limerick, he has written extensively on the topic of commons.
Karolin Pichler
Karolin studied communication science at the University of Salzburg, Austria. Early on, she developed a passion for systems theory approaches and ways of thinking that allow a holistic view of society. She is particularly fascinated by the model of "self-organisation". In her master‘s thesis of 2006, she dealt with the problem of information overload in highly mediatised knowledge-based societies and how this leads to a loss of action knowledge. She experiences the necessity of collective action especially in the face of major global challenges such as anthropogenic climate change, as more topical than ever. Karolin intensively deals with the process of evolving consciousness on both the individual and collective level. She reflects on the dissolving of belief patterns and inner programs that hinder development and self-evolvement in philosophical texts, spoken word poetry and songs. After many working years as a project and marketing manager in the media sector she's now paving her way to a new professional home. She wants to support the idea of GSIS with her work. Karolin lives in Munich.
Renate C.-Z.-Quehenberger
Dr. Renate C.-Z.-Quehenberger received her PhD at the Department of Art & Science Transfer at the University of Applied Arts Vienna where she pursued her FWF/PEEK project QUANTUM CINEMA (http://quantumcinema.uni-ak.ac.at) with media theorist Peter Weibel for the visualization of quantum phenomena by means of 3D animated hyper-Euclidean geometry & accomplished the first 3D visualization of the 5- respectively 10-dimensional space (link: https://www.imaginary.org/film/the-epita-dodecahedron-visualizing-poincares-dodecahedral-space).
She is promoting her mathematical finding 3D representation of the Penrose Kites & Darts Tiling (Epitahedron, E±), unit-cell of the 5-dimensional space identified as Plato’s 5th element in educational activities as ÖEAD Young Science Ambassador and as artist in various media via exhibitions (Neues Museum Weimar, Bozar Brussels, Milano Digital Art Week a.m.o.) and film screenings (Ars Electronica, ASIFA Festivals).
She held numerous presentations and published articles (https://dieangewandte.academia.edu/RenateQuehenberger) in the fields of contemporary arts, geometry, archeology, social sciences, AI, quantum computing (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-95538-0_7) and quantum information and sociology (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-39113-2_5)
For her visualization of 5-dimensional unifying theories she received the 1st prize of the Entropy Best Poster Awards at the Linnaeus Conference UQT 2018.
Trained in visualizations of complex systems she aims at contributing her visionary ideas to societal & environmental problems of the real world.
Besides being an active GSIS board member she works on various publications and projects (https://gsis.at/research/projects-1/, https://gsis.at/research/projects-2/.
(Photo: Alaa Alkurdi)
Francisco Salto Alemany
He is a full-professor in the field of Logics and Philosophy of Science at the University of León (Spain). PhD in Philosophy, he has been a scholar at Ruhruniversität Bochum (Germany), at Leuven (Belgium), Princeton (New Jersey, USA) and Federal University of Parana (Brasil). He is vice-president of BITrum-Research Group and collaborator of the Institute for Logic, Cognition, Language and Information at the University of the Basque Country. He is a member of many international scientific organisations in the field of information studies. His research on mathematical logic and philosophy has been published in a large number of different papers and journals.
Marisol Sandoval
Marisol Sandoval is Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Culture and the Creative Industries, Department of Sociology at City, University of London.
Her research critically deals with questions of power, commodification, exploitation, ideology and resistance in the global culture industries. In particular her work has focussed on the political economy of social media, alternative media, cultural labour and corporate social (ir)responsibility.
Currently she is working on a project that explores the politics of worker co-operatives in the cultural sector. More information on this project can be found here: http://cultural.coop
Sebastian Sevignani
Sebastian Sevignani obtained a degree in communications, philosophy, and psychology at the University of Salzburg, Austria, where he finished his PhD in 2014. Currently he is assistant professor in General and Theoretical Sociology at the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena, Germany and interim professor in Media Economics and Media Management at the Institute of Media Studies at Paderborn University.
His research focus lies on social theory and theories of society, critical media and communications studies, digital capitalism, privacy, and a critical theory of human needs.
Sebastian is founding member of the "Netzwerk Kritische Kommunikationswissenschaft" and the "Zentrum für Emanzipatorische Technikforschung".
He is author of the book Privacy and Capitalism in the Age of Social Media (2016, London).
Tomáš Sigmund
Tomáš Sigmund studied Philosophy at the Charles University and Informatics at the Faculty of Informatics and Statistics of the University of Economics in Prague. That predetermined his interest in philosophical and social aspects of the Information Society. Nowadays he teaches courses at the department of System Analysis with the emphasis on soft systems and their various aspects.
He is author of articles and book chapters in the areas of Information Ethics, media literacy, Philosophy, System Science, theory of information etc. He is a member of scientific institutions (e.g. the Institut für Design Science München), organises and attends conferences and cooperates with foreign universities (e.g. TU Wien, WU Wien, Universität Kiel).
Modestos Stavrakis
Modestos Stavrakis is currently a Lecturer in Interaction Design at the Department of Product and Systems Design Engineering at the University of the Aegean, Greece, and Adjunct Professor in Hellenic Open University. He holds a PhD in Design from the same university, an MSc in Computer Aided Graphical Technology Applications and a BA (first class honours) in Creative Visualisation from the University of Teesside (UK). Over the past few years he has conducted research in the fields of Interaction Design and User Experience, HCI, computer aided collaborative design, web information systems, computer assistive technologies and distance/e-learning.
Jian Wang
Associate Professor of philosophy, School of Humanities and Social Science, Xi'an Jiaotong University.
I received my PhD in Philosophy from the Xi’an Jiaotong University. I was a visiting scholar at BCSSS, Vienna. My main research interests are Philosophy of information, Metaphysics and Contemporary Epistemology. Currently, I am working on several papers on the limits of contemporary Epistemology, and a research project on perception knowledge as rational capability.
My email is wangjian0501@sina.com
Liang Wang
Liang Wang is Associate Professor at Xi'an Jiaotong University;
PhD in Philosophy, Xi'an Jiaotong University, 2018;
Study in Vienna as a PhD Scholar (China Scholarship Council) with Wolfgang Hofkirchner at the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (BCSSS) from Oct. 2016 to Oct. 2018;
Teaching Assistant, Xi'an Jiaotong University, 2014 - 2016.
Member, IEEE TechEthics Community; Member, Research Group “Emergent Systems, Information and Society”; Member, International Center for Philosophy of Information, Xi’an.
His research is on information ethics, AI ethics, systems theory, and transcultural approaches. In particular, he is currently working on three projects: one is a "study of the ethical embedding mechanism of Artificial Moral Agents (AMAs) from a transcultural perspective", supported by the Chinese Social Science Fund; a second one is about “information ethics”, supported by Xi'an Jiaotong University; a third is about “ethics of robot toys”, supported by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation.
Email: wangg85@163.com
Rainer E. Zimmermann
Prof. i. R., Dr. rer. nat. Dr. phil. (habil.)
Lehrgebiet UIG, FB 2 (Informatik), HTW, Berlin / Clare Hall, UK – Cambridge
Working in the field of Metaphysics and Philosophy of Nature including Philosophy of Science and Ethical Implications, especially on onto-epistemic aspects of the modelling of the world, in terms of spaces, networks, and systems. Also Chairman of the Executive Board and Scientific Director of the Institute of Design Science, Munich, and co-editor of its series of monographs and its yearbook. Member of IASCYS, Brussels, and President of the Leibniz Society of Scholars, Berlin, 2019-2020.
Former Members:
Spomenka Celebic
Spomenka Celebic is a Master’s student at the University of Vienna at the Department for Cultural and Social Anthropology.
Out of the wide spectrum in the field of anthropology, her main focus remains on the contemporary society in its various perspectives. Predominantly, she is interested in rising political populist parties in Western Europe and their engagement on social media, therefore their influence on public opinion and reaching the widest audience using different tools on social media.
Moreover, using and combining both ethnographic and theoretical approach, and within her Master thesis, Spomenka is closely looking at the recent migrations from the Middle East with the emphasis on the Balkans region where the refugees find themselves in transition. This research is followed by observation of the political background, including changes in current society as well as local and international support provided for the refugees.