Oron Shagrir was named the Rector of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2025. He holds the Schulman Chair in Philosophy there and is Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive and Brain Sciences. He was head of the Department of Cognitive Science from 1997-2009 (now the Department of Cognitive and Brain Sciences). He served as Vice Rector from 2013-2017 and Vice President for International Affairs from 2017-2025.
Professor Shagrir’s research focuses on the nature of computation and representation, the role of computational models in cognitive and brain sciences, and the history of computability and AI. He holds a BSc in Mathematics and Computer Science and an MA in the History and Philosophy of Science from the Hebrew University. His PhD in Philosophy and Cognitive Science was from the University of California, San Diego.
Professor Shagrir has received numerous prizes for excellence in research and teaching, including, most recently, the 2023 Covey Award, given by the International Association for Computing and Philosophy, and the 2024 Barwise Prize, awarded by the American Philosophical Association.
Professor Shagrir is the author of The Nature of Physical Computation (Oxford University Press, 2022), and The Indeterminacy of Computation (with Jack Copeland, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). He is also the editor, with Jack Copeland and Carl Posy, of Computability: Turing, Gödel, Church, and Beyond (MIT Press, 2013), and is the author of numerous papers on computation and the mind.