founders

Simon Cullen, Ph.D., is a Faculty Research Fellow at the Segal Center for Academic Pluralism in New York City and Visiting Research Professor of Civil Discourse and Artificial Intelligence in The School of Civic Life and Leadership at UNC Chapel Hill. He developed the award-winning Dangerous Ideas in Science and Society course, helping students to explore diverse viewpoints on polarizing topics by teaching them the art of constructive disagreement. His research combines philosophy, cognitive science, and educational technology to improve reasoning and communication across moral and political divides. His work has been published in Science Advances, Nature Science of Learning, Cognition, and the Review of Philosophy and Psychology. He holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University and has a background in the psychology of reasoning, reasoning pedagogy, and philosophy of cognitive science.

Nicholas DiBella, Ph.D., is an Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellow based in the Department of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University. His research spans epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of probability, with a focus on developing methods to improve reasoning and communication in contexts involving uncertainty. His work has been published in The Philosophical Review, Philosophy of Science, and Synthese. He holds a B.S. in Physics from MIT and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Stanford University. Drawing on his interdisciplinary background, Nicholas works at the intersection of philosophy, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence to enhance decision-making and foster constructive dialogue across diverse perspectives.