Anna Ciaunica

Anna Ciaunica’s research in philosophy of mind and cognitive science focuses on the relationship between (a)typical forms of self-consciousness, embodiment and social interactions in human and artificial agents. Her PhD thesis ‘Physicalism and Qualia’ tackled the mind-body problem. During her first postdoctoral assignments in Switzerland and Portugal she examined the link between disrupted sense of self, (dis)embodiment and social connectedness in conditions such as Autism, Möbius Syndrome and Depersonalization Disorder. Anna is currently the Principal Investigator of two interdisciplinary projects. (1) The first looks at the relationship between altered sense of self and social alienation in Depersonalisation. (2) The second examines self-consciousness and social interactions in human and artificial agents. In her work, she combines conceptual resources from philosophy of mind and the phenomenological tradition with experimental methods from psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Anna is the main coordinator of the Network for Embodied Consciousness and the Arts (NECTArs) – a collaborative platform bringing together artists, researchers, stakeholders, policy makers and people with lived experiences, aiming at fostering creative approaches to timely issues such as self-awareness and (dis)embodiment in our hyper-digitalized world.