Philosophy
Biology
Classics
Cognitive Science
Artificial Intelligence
I study the systems that teach humans what to see, feel, judge, and expect.
Working across Classics, philosophy, and cognitive science, my research examines how predictive systems shape knowledge, encode bias, and regulate behavior—from ancient technologies of memory, calculation, and interpretation to contemporary algorithmic systems and artificial intelligence. I am especially interested in the forms that organize perception before conscious judgment begins: emotion, metaphor, narrative, classification, memory, and machine prediction.
My work asks how worlds become intelligible, how some futures come to feel inevitable, and how systems of knowledge make certain people, values, and realities easier to recognize than others. My teaching, including three years in Harvard’s Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, brings these questions into courses on technology, ecology, sociality, and human-AI interaction. Across ancient and modern contexts, I examine the same problem: how tools, environments, and institutions shape what humans become capable of noticing, imagining, and resisting.
Publications
teaching
I teach students to ask how minds, texts, technologies, and institutions make worlds intelligible. My courses move across ancient Greek and Latin texts, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, cognitive science, ecology, biology, artificial intelligence, and the histories of interpretation, memory, and technological change.
“Professor Devereaux creates a safe space for the students to share any and all thoughts, and the class honestly felt more like a tight–knit seminar than a lecture class. I learned so much about how friendships were formed originally for evolutionary benefits, and then we traced these friendships all the way to the age of AI where people are now befriending or even dating AI. We had so many intellectually stimulating conversations. This class was so fun."
“This is an extraordinary class. The content is so incredibly interesting and has genuinely changed how I view the world. I took this class as an elective just for fun and I absolutely loved it. It had me applying concepts and ideas from class into my relationships with different people and has given me real insight into how people connect with each other.”
“I'm an Econ/CS major so this course was completely new to me but easily is my favorite class at Harvard ever. The discussions are always so engaging both in class and section. The prof is so amazing, nice, and passionate about the topic. I learnt so much about human biology, cognition, and culture. It is so beginner friendly and such a deeply meaningful class for your personal life as well. I CANNOT RECOMMEND THIS COURSE ENOUGH.”