Simon Cullen
faculty research fellow; visiting research professor of civil discourse and artificial intelligence, Heterodox Academy

Simon Cullen is a Faculty Research Fellow at Heterodox Academy’s 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 is the president and co-founder of Disagree Wisely and the co-developer of Sway—an educational chat platform that connects people who disagree over controversial topics and uses AI to facilitate better discussions between them. He developed the award-winning Dangerous Ideas in Science and Society course at CMU, helping students to explore diverse viewpoints on polarizing topics by teaching them the art of constructive disagreement. His research combines philosophy, cognitive science, and ed tech 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. He is the author of Choosing to learn: The importance of student autonomy in higher education. 

Follow Simon on X: @DrSimonCullen

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