Member Bios
Dr. Stephen T. Asma
Humanities, History, and Social Sciences Department
Philosophy and History of Biology, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Mind
stephenasma.com
Stephen T. Asma is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia College Chicago. Dr. Asma is the author of 10 books, including The Emotional Mind (Harvard University Press, 2019), The Evolution of Imagination (University of Chicago Press, 2017), On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears (Oxford University Press, 2009), and Buddha for Beginners (For Beginners, 2015). He writes regularly for the New York Times, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and Aeon magazine. In 2014, he was a Fulbright Scholar, teaching philosophy in Beijing, China. In 2003, he was Visiting Professor at the Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia, and in 2007 he lived and studied in Shanghai China. Asma also researched Asian philosophies in Thailand, Vietnam, Bhutan, Hong Kong, Mainland China, and Laos. He is currently working on a Henry Luce funded grant project (through the Institute of Buddhist Studies), called Living Online: Isolation, Disembodiment, and the Challenge of Friendship.
Dr. Rami Gabriel
Humanities, History, and Social Sciences Department
Cognitive and Perceptual Sciences, Philosophy of Psychology, Philosophy of Mind
Rami Gabriel is Associate professor of Psychology at Columbia College Chicago. He holds a PhD and M.A. from the Cognitive and Perceptual Sciences Psychology program at University of California, Santa Barbara and a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Irvine in Psychology with a minor in Comparative Literature. His dissertation investigates emotional reactions to unrecognized faces in a Prosopagnosic patient. His first book, "Why I Buy: Self, Taste, and Consumer Society in America" was published in 2013 by Intellect Press. He has published empirical studies on memory, self, emotion, prosopagnosia, consciousness, and the philosophy of cognitive science in the academic journals Cognition & Emotion, Social Cognition, and Journal of Consciousness studies.