About Me
Contact
Mail: University of Iceland, Sæmundargata 2, 101 Reykjavík, Iceland
Email: finnurd@gmail.com, fud@hi.is, finnur.dellsen@inn.no.
Links: Academia page, Philpapers page.
Short Bio
I grew up in Sweden and in Iceland. I studied physical science (mostly physics and math) in an Icelandic secondary school called Menntaskólinn á Akureyri. My undergraduate education was in philosophy at the University of Iceland (in Reykjavik), part of which consisted in studying logic for one semester at the University of Gothenburg. I also went to the first Carnegie Mellon summer school in logic and formal epistemology.
Having worked in Icelandic politics for two years, I began my graduate studies at the Philosophy Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009. I finished my M.A. in 2011, and the Ph.D. in 2014. (By the way: Chapel Hill a wonderful place to do philosophy and I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have about the department, UNC, and/or Chapel Hill. Just email me.)
Immediately after graduating from UNC I moved back to Iceland with my family. Shortly thereafter, I started teaching at the University of Iceland and received a grant from the Icelandic Centre for Research's Non-Fiction Writer's Fund to do research in philosophy of science and epistemology. I then joined University College Dublin's School of Philosophy as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to work in the project When Experts Disagree, led by Maria Baghramian and Luke Drury.
In August 2017, I moved to Lillehammer, Norway, to take up a position as associate professor at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences (formerly Lillehammer University College). Then, in November 2018, I started as associated professor at the University of Iceland (Háskóli Íslands). I was promoted to full professor in 2021. I still have a part-time appointment as professor ('Professor II') at Inland Norway University, so I visit Lillehammer regularly.
In September 2018, I was fortunate to receive the semi-annual Lauener Prize for Up-and-Coming Philosophers. In January 2019, Insa Lawler and I were awarded a generous grant from the Icelandic Research Fund for the project Understanding Progress, in Science and Beyond, which will take up much of my time for the next three to four years. In June 2019, I was awarded the Nils Klim Prize for young nordic scholars in the humanities, social science, law, and theology. In November 2019, I received the Motivation Award for Young Researchers from the Science and Technology Council of Iceland.