Joel David Hamkins

Professor Hamkins has been at CUNY since 1995, as Professor of Mathematics at the College of Staten Island of CUNY and as Professor of Mathematics, Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Computer Science on the doctoral faculty at the CUNY Graduate Center.  He has held various visiting and distinguished research fellowship positions at universities and institutes around the world, including the Fields Institute (Toronto), the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (Cambridge, UK), New York University, the University of Vienna, the University of Amsterdam, the University of Münster, Carnegie-Mellon University, Kobe University (Japan) and the University of California at Berkeley.

Professor Hamkins’ main research interest lies in mathematical and philosophical logic, particularly set theory, with a focus on the mathematics and philosophy of the infinite. Much of his work has focused on the interaction of forcing and large cardinals. He has made fundamental contributions to the theory of infinitary computability and has worked in the theory of infinitary utilitarianism and, more recently, infinite chess.  His work on the modal logic of forcing and in set-theoretic geology has led to a multiverse perspective, engaging with the emerging debate on pluralism in the philosophy of set theory. He was recently interviewed by Richard Marshall at 3:AM Magazine about his work (http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/playing-infinite-chess/).