Dr. Eleanor Knox

Biography

Eleanor Knox is a professor at King's College London, where she has taken a permanent lectureship. She was also a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow and a Chandaria Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, University of London. Knox holds degrees from Oxford University including a BA, BPhil, and DPhil. In 2015, she received the Cushing Memorial Prize for her contributions to the history of philosophy of physics. Her work primarily focuses on the foundations of spacetime physics, advocating a perspective known as Spacetime Functionalism, which aims to resolve issues presented by classical spacetime theories while addressing the challenges posed by emergent spacetime structures in quantum gravity. Knox is interested in the relationships between different theoretical approaches and has argued that a particular kind of novelty is present in cases described by physicists as 'emergent,' which involves significant changes in the variables of theoretical descriptions. She actively engages with public discourse on philosophy in the science community.

Research Interests