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E-mail: hakob.barseghyan@utoronto.ca
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Degrees: 
BS (Computer science); BA, MA, PhD (Philosophy) - Yerevan State University
MA, PhD (History and Philosophy of Science)- University of Toronto

Hakob is Assistant Professor (Teaching Stream) and Coordinator of the Science & Society Program. Having completed his BS in computer science, BA, MA, and PhD in philosophy at Yerevan State University and having taught there for several years, he moved to Canada where he completed another MA in philosophy and a PhD in the history and philosophy of science at the University of Toronto.

Hakob’s research interests reside at the intersection of integrated history and philosophy of science, knowledge visualization, and digital humanities. In his 2015 book, The Laws of Scientific Change, he proposed a general descriptive theory of scientific change that has since become the basis of a newly emerging empirical study of science, scientonomy. Together with his teammates, Hakob developed a new academic workflow and implemented it by co-founding the online encyclopedia and the peer-reviewed journal of scientonomy as digital means for a fruitful integration of the history and philosophy of science. He leads a team of scholars that work on advancing a theory of scientific change by developing a system of diagram-templates for visualizing worldviews, refining and propagating the new workflow, and creating a database of intellectual history.

As an instructor, Hakob has designed and taught a variety of graduate and undergraduate courses, including a number of online courses, and won several teaching awards. Hakob currently teaches:

  • VIC 173 – Philosophy of Science for Physical Scientists (VIC ONE – Schawlow Stream)
  • VIC 245 – Science Wars
  • VIC 242 – Scientific Worldviews of the Renaissance

Hakob also supervises a research opportunity program on knowledge visualization, where each year a group of talented undergraduate students joins his team of graduate students, postdocs, and established scholars to work on developing and applying diagrammatic tools to visualize various aspects of historical and contemporary belief systems and debates.

Books:

  • Barseghyan, H.; Patton, P.; Rupik, G.; & Shaw, J. (Eds.) (2021) Challenges of Constructing a Theory of Scientific Change. Vernon Press.
  • Barseghyan, H. (2015) The Laws of Scientific Change. Springer.

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Textbooks: