About

I am an Associate Professor in philosophy of science at the University of Salzburg and an external member of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy. I am also Associate Editor of Foundations of Physics, an international journal devoted to the conceptual bases and fundamental theories of modern physics. I am a founding Trustee and current Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Officer of the Philosophy of Physics Society,  which maintains the open access journal Philosophy of Physics.

I am the PI of the ERC-StG project MACBeh, an interdisciplinary project dedicated to exploring criticality in physical, biological and social sciences. I am also a key researcher of the FWF Knowledge in Crisis Cluster of Excellence – a large research project involving the CEU, the University of Vienna, the University of Salzburg, and the University of Graz.

My areas of specialization are general philosophy of science, philosophy of complexity sciences and philosophy of physics. My research in general philosophy of science focuses on scientific explanation, reduction and emergence, and the role of idealizations in science. In philosophy of physics, I work primarily on the foundations of statistical mechanics and philosophical problems raised by phase transitions. I also work on the application of physics methods to economics and biology and on the role of analogies and idealizations in model building in economics as well as in other sciences. Apart from this, I am interested in complex sciences approaches to biology, and in the use of analogue experiments and simulations in science, especially in the context of black holes and biomedical research. If you would like to learn more about my research projects, you can contact me by email at patricia.palacios@plus.ac.at

When not busy doing philosophy, I enjoy doing different things with my two little daughters, dancing Argentinian tango, playing the violin (still in the learning process), and trying different kinds of food.