Dr. Luis Lopez

Personal information

I joined the MCMP in 2024. Before that, I was a Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH) for four years as part of the DFG Research Training Group Integrating Ethics and Epistemology of Scientific Research, where I pursued my doctoral studies in Philosophy of Science. I also earned an MA in Philosophy of Science from LUH. My transition to philosophy followed three years of postdoctoral research at Northwestern University, where I worked at the Center for Computation and Theory of Soft Materials and the Center for Bio-inspired Energy Science. These positions built upon my scientific training in Argentina, where I earned degrees in physics (PhD) and molecular biology (BS, MS)

Research interests

I've been working on philosophical questions concerning machine learning (ML) models in scientific research, particularly focusing on the representational capacities of these models and their implications for scientific understanding. More recently, my research has expanded towards developing a rigorous, computationally implementable, and philosophically informed relational framework based on category theory. This framework aims at enabling the comparison, transfer, and integration of conceptual structures across different research contexts.

Selected publications

• Barman, K. G., Caron, S., Sullivan, E., de Regt, H. W., de Austri, R. R., Boon, M., ... Lopez, L., …Weniger, C. (2025). Large physics models: Towards a collaborative approach with large language models and foundation models. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.05382
• Lopez, L. (in press). Rethinking computational implementation through Symphoria. In M. te Vrugt (Ed.), Artificial intelligence and intelligent matter. Springer Nature.
• Google Scholar

Teaching (LMU)

• Winter term 2025/26: Computational Methods in Philosophy, Introduction to Python

• Summer term 2025: Introduction to the Philosophy of Biology