Overview
Susan G. Sterrett joined the department in the Fall of 2013, after having taught at Duke University, Carnegie-Mellon University, and the University of Pittsburgh.
Professor Sterrett has a B. S. degree in engineering science from Cornell University, and an M.A. in Mathematics, M.A. Philosophy, and Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh.
Courses taught at WSU include: Women in Tech, Science and the Modern World, Minds and Machines (Honors), Engineering Ethics.
Information
Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Mind, Analytic Philosophy.
"My area of specialization is philosophy of science, broadly construed. Much of my work concerns models and analogical reasoning in some way, whether in engineering, physics, geophysics, biology (Darwin), or artificial intelligence. One of my contributions has been to argue for the significance of the concepts of physical similarity and physically similar systems, already recognized as important in science and engineering, to philosophy of science. I use both historical and analytical approaches -- often together.
Besides the major works on analogical reasoning, models and modeling: I've published a group of papers on Alan Turing and natural and artificial intelligence. In an advanced undergraduate interdisciplinary textbook on logic, I presented and discussed alternatives to classical logic that are valuable in automated reasoning systems faced with inconsistent information. Overall, I have published widely on the history and philosophy of science, of technology, and of engineering methodologies."