Alice Huang is a Ph.D. student at the University of Toronto. She is interested in social and formal epistemology and curious about applications of computational methods to philosophy.
What is your favorite thing that you’ve written?
In philosophy, my favorite thing that I’ve written is a paper called “A normative comparison of threshold views through computer simulations.” It’s my first publication and the first time that I’ve used computational methods in my philosophical work. In the paper, I test out several theories in epistemology to understand how they compare in a class of decision problems. It feels great knowing that I don’t need to choose between doing computer science and doing philosophy!
Outside of philosophy, I sometimes write poems. My favorite poem that I have written is call “The Squaderer of Words.” Together with a couple of other poems of mine, it is forthcoming on Eunoia Review.
What are you working on right now?
I have been reading about the Bayesian Truth Serum, which is a mechanism that offers incentives for people to reveal their true beliefs or preferences in contexts where these opinions cannot be verified. I think that the Bayesian Truth Serum, originally designed to improve data quality in survey studies, has interesting bearing on topics that formal epistemologists care about, such as belief aggregation and accuracy scoring. The project I am just starting right now examines some of the arguments underlying the motivation for using the Bayesian Truth Serum.
Name a trait, skill, or characteristic that you have that others may not know about.
This is perhaps a strange answer, but my secret skill is that I can move to a different country on a whim! I have moved to many different places alone since I was 18, so I am not afraid of living somewhere very far from home, with a completely different culture, in a country where I know no one.
What do you like to do outside work?
Recently, most of my time outside of work is spent training for triathlon. I try to train six days a week for the three different sports, so the sessions themselves plus the recovery takes up a lot of my time. I enjoy it because when I do endurance sports, I am in constant dialogue with myself trying to see how deep I can dig and how much pain I can handle.
I’ve always loved dancing too. I was trained in hip hop as a teenager, but these days I have more opportunities to do Latin social dances than hip hop. I used to dance bachata barefoot on the beach in a small town on the north coast of the Dominican Republic (where I moved to on a whim for six months in 2020!) and salsa on the shore of La Seine in Quai Saint Bernard in Paris.
I also kitesurf when weather conditions allow. I have never felt freer than when I am on the ocean, powered solely by the wind, fully in control yet entirely in the hands of nature.
What is your favorite film of all time? (Or top 3). Why?
My favorite film is an independent film called Sunday. It is shot in Christchurch, New Zealand, after the earthquake. It is fiction, but there is barely any drama in it, just a documentation of two people spending one day together. They are going to have a child together soon, but have decided to separate months ago. The acting is incredibly natural and the storyline is understated. When I watch it, I feel like I am really just looking at two real, ordinary people spending a day together and experiencing the emotions that they experience.
Which books have changed your life? In what ways?
The book that has changed my life is a children’s book called The Memory String. It tells the story of a little girl coping with the fact that her father married another woman after her biological mother passed away. I read it when I was very young. I remember distinctly how, for the first time, I got a glimpse of the complexity of the world and the conflicting emotions a person may go through in the face of love. I reread it several times as an adult, and each time, I was still struck by how subtle, heartbreaking, yet warm the story is.
This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form here to nominate yourself or a friend.
Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall is an editor at the Blog of the APA who currently teaches philosophy, religion, and education courses solely online for Montclair State University, Three Rivers Community College, and St. John’s University.
