Carol Cleland

Carol E. Cleland is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado (Boulder). She received her B.A. in mathematics from the University of California (Santa Barbara) and her Ph.D. in philosophy from Brown University. Cleland arrived at the University of Colorado in 1986 after spending a year on a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University’s Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI). She is the Chair of the Committee on the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Colorado and a founding member of the University of Colorado’s Center for Astrobiology. She was a member of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) from 1998-2009.

Cleland’s current research interests are in the areas of scientific methodology, historical science, biology (especially microbiology, origins of life, the nature of life, and astrobiology), and the theory of computation. Cleland’s published work has appeared in major science journals (Current Organic Chemistry, Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, Geology, Astrobiology, International Journal of Astrobiology, and Theoretical Computer Science) as well as in leading philosophy journals (Philosophy of Science, British Journal of Philosophy of Science, Synthese, and Biology and Philosophy). She co-edited with Mark Bedau an anthology, The Nature of Life: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives from Philosophy and Science, and is currently finishing a single authored book (The Quest for a Universal Theory of Life; Searching for life as we don’t know it), which is under contract with Cambridge University Press.