Deniz Sarikaya
Philosopher of the
formal sciences.
I work on AI, mathematics and logic at the intersections of epistemology, philosophy of language, ethics and cognition.
I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Ethical Innovation Hub of the Universität zu Lübeck (Chair C. Herzog). Since September 2026, I also work as a researcher in the BMFTR-funded HARMONIE project on AI-assisted intraoperative ultrasound localization in breast cancer treatment.
Lübeck, Hamburg & beyond
News & upcoming events
October 2026Recent news
- September 2026 I joined the BMFTR-funded HARMONIE project at the Universität zu Lübeck. Current positions →
- 2026 I became a Fellow of the Arab-German Young Academy (2026–2031).
- June 2026 I was awarded the "Dalberg-Preis 2026 - Thüringer Akademiepreis für transdisziplinäre Nachwuchsforschung"
- April 2026 I was elected to the Global Young Academy
- Feb. 2026 I was elected to the Young Academy of Europe
More news & projects
- Jan. 2026 Thorsten Altenkirch and I are hosting a logic podcast aboutlogic
- Jan. 2026 Hurray! The second riddle I contributed to appeared in Alex Bellos’ column in The Guardian. See here.
- Oct. 2025 I was elected an Assessor at the International Association for Science and Cultural Diversity.
- Aug 2025 A lot of friends and engaged educators formed a team to scale our enrichment efforts, see more at Campus Möbius a purpose driven start-up.
- Jan. 2025 Hurray! I contributed to a riddle that appeared in Alex Bellos' column in The Guardian, see here.
- Oct. 2024 I was invited to the PhD Colloquium at the CL: Colloquium Logicum in Vienna. This is recognition of doctoral excellence by the DVMLG, the German-speaking learned society for logic.
- Oct. 2024 I was elected a Young Academic Fellow of the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Hamburg. See a short press release by the Universität zu Lübeck.
Join the conversation
- Marianne Nolte: Mathematisches Potenzial fördernHamburg · 2026
- Gedenkkolloquium zu Ehren von Ulrich GähdeHamburg · 2026
- Young Network for Wittgensteinian Philosophy · Annual MeetingDüsseldorf · 2026
- YAF-KEsF Lecture on digital sovereigntyLübeck · 2026
Selected writing
All publications →- 2026
- 2026
- 2026
- 2026
- 2025
My current work connects (hinge) epistemology with the ethics of the formal sciences, especially AI in contexts of diversity and education. I furthermore study mathematical practice drawing from frame semantics. Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher within the FWO project "The Epistemology of Big Data: Mathematics and the Critical Research Agenda on Data Practices" (PIs P. Allo and K. Franҫois, both Vrije Universiteit Brussel) as well as a DAAD-funded postdoc on theoretical virtues of conjectures and open questions in mathematical practice (hosts at the University of Copenhagen and at the Technical University of Denmark). I also spent short research stays at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Universitat de les Illes Balears, the Ethics in IT Group of the University of Hamburg, and as an academic guest at the ETH Zurich.
I earned my PhD in Philosophy (and the Moral Sciences) at the Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, supervised by Ulrich Gähde (Hamburg) and Bart van Kerkhove (Brussels). My dissertation on the philosophy of mathematical practice was selected for the PhD Colloquium at the Colloquium Logicum in Vienna in 2024, recognising outstanding doctoral research in the field of the Deutsche Vereinigung für Mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Exakten Wissenschaften (DVMLG). I was elected a Young Academy Fellow of the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Hamburg for 2024–2027 and serve as spokesperson in 2025–2026. In 2026, I also became a Fellow of the Arab-German Young Academy (2026–2031), the Global Young Academy (2026–2031), and the Young Academy of Europe (2026–2033).
I studied philosophy (MA 2016, BA 2012) and mathematics (MSc 2019, BSc 2015) at the University of Hamburg, with stays at the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (Amsterdam), the Universitat de Barcelona, as a visiting student researcher at UC Berkeley, and in a research internship at the University of British Columbia.
Academic service & affiliations
- Coordinator (October 2023 – expected September 2027) of the UNESCO World Logic Day (see also UNESCO's Homepage); Assistant Coordinator from 10/2020–09/2023.
- Moderator (2023–2027) of the [LOGIC] mailing list.
- Co‑founder of the Young Network for Wittgensteinian Philosophy.
- Guest of the Bereich Mathematische Logik und interdisziplinäre Anwendungen der Logik, chair: Benedikt Löwe, at the Department of Mathematics, University of Hamburg (UHH).
- Zweiter Vorsitzender der William‑Stern‑Gesellschaft e.V., organizing enrichment classes for mathematically gifted youth.
- Young Academy Fellow of the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Hamburg.
- Member of the Council (Vorstand) of the Mathematische Gesellschaft in Hamburg, since February 2024.
- Administrative support and subsequently committee membership, since 2025, for the Committee for the Ethics of Safety- and Security-Relevant Research (KEsF) at the Universität zu Lübeck.
- Affiliated researcher at the Ethics in IT Group, Department of Computer Science, Universität Hamburg.
- Member of the Respect Research Group.
- External member of the Arbeitsgruppe of Benjamin Rott at the Institut für Mathematikdidaktik, University of Cologne.
- DMRCP Fellow.
- Part of the Frame branch of Naproche.
Further research interests
Further interests of mine include: (general) Philosophy of Science: Science and Society (Wertedebatte, Wissenschaft und Demokratie), Structuralism and Mathematics from all perspectives: I am working in Philosophy of Mathematics (esp. Philosophy of Mathematical Practice), think about Mathematics from a linguistic perspective, work in Mathematics Didactics, i.e. promoting mathematically gifted youth and I like doing mathematics when I have some spare time (esp. to think about extremal combinatorics), Artificial Intelligence (AI Safety, Machine Learning and its bounds, ethical questions, ...), Mathematical logic (all kinds but esp. Proof Theory and (Models of) Set Theory), Formal Sciences and Agents (Social Choice Theory, Decision Theory, Game Theory), Philosophy of Physics, ....
Philosophy as a cooperative endeavour
For me, Philosophy is a cooperative endeavor; that is why I am trying to write with co-authors and am always looking for people to organize, write, debate, analyze... something with. The same holds for social projects, esp. concerning promoting gifted youth and science communication.
Let’s get in touch →Elsewhere online
Some external profiles may not be up to date.
- My academic homepage at the Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel
- My academic homepage at the Ethical Innovation Hub at the Universität zu Lübeck
- CRIS Portal, PhilPeople, Google Scholar, Publons, ResearchGate, LinkedIn, or Xing
- I am tweeting mostly about CfPs.
Interviews & conversations
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On Academia and society:
- Akademischer Diskurs und gesellschaftlicher Fortschritt: Dr. Lukas Hoffmann, Julia Panzer und Deniz Sarikaya im Gespräch (2022, German, blog of the Claussen-Simon-Stiftung)
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On social projects and work:
- On "Begabungs‑Co‑Piloten" and digital enrichment formats (2023, German, Instagram post)
- On digital enrichment classes (2020, German, blog of the Claussen-Simon-Stiftung)
- Local part of the WELT
- On the early study program of the UHH: