.png)
Our Research
Understanding the Human Person
CPI's research is organized around three interconnected programs that investigate one of the defining scientific challenges of the twenty-first century:
How should minds, persons, and intelligent systems be understood, represented, and governed in ways that support human flourishing in an increasingly technical society?
Together, these programs integrate neuroscience, medicine, psychiatry, biomedical informatics, artificial intelligence, ethics, policy studies, and human-centered technology.
Primary Research Programs:
Psychiatry, Neurology, and Human Development
Understanding the Human Person
Advances in neuroscience, psychiatry, and developmental science have greatly expanded our understanding of brains, behavior, cognition, and mental health. Yet many of the most important dimensions of human life, including meaning, identity, relationships, agency, and flourishing, remain incompletely understood.
This program investigates human development across the lifespan, integrating clinical neuroscience, psychiatry, neurodevelopment, mental health, and human flourishing. Particular attention is given to understanding how biological, cognitive, experiential, and social factors interact to shape human well-being.
Core Question:
How can science better understand and support the developing human person?
​
Research Areas
-
Clinical neuroscience
-
Psychiatry and mental health
-
Human development
-
Neurodevelopmental disorders
-
Computational psychiatry
-
Neurophenomenology
-
Human flourishing and well-being
Biomedical Informatics & AI
Understanding the Human Person
Healthcare and digital technologies increasingly rely on computational representations of human beings. Electronic health records, clinical decision-support systems, and artificial intelligence tools shape decisions affecting millions of people every day.
This program develops scientific and technical approaches for representing persons within healthcare and technological systems. Research focuses on biomedical informatics, clinical AI, digital health, healthcare interoperability, and AI governance, with particular emphasis on ensuring that technological systems remain responsive to the needs, goals, and circumstances of the people they serve.
​
Core Question:
How should healthcare and technological systems represent the persons whose lives they affect?
Research Areas
-
Biomedical informatics
-
Clinical artificial intelligence
-
Digital health
-
Patient-centered information systems
-
AI governance
-
Ethical Context Sufficiency
-
Information-environment governance
Human Representation Science
Understanding Intelligence & Consciousness in Humans & Artificial Systems
As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly capable, fundamental questions concerning consciousness, intelligence, agency, personhood, and moral responsibility have taken on new scientific and societal importance.
Human Representation Science serves as CPI's integrative research framework, bringing together work in neuroscience, psychiatry, biomedical informatics, philosophy, AI, and consciousness studies. The program investigates how minds, persons, and intelligent systems are understood and represented across scientific, clinical, social, and technological domains.
The Institute approaches questions concerning consciousness, digital sentience, machine intelligence, and moral agency as open scientific and philosophical problems. Rather than presupposing answers, CPI seeks to create a research environment where competing perspectives can be examined through empirical research, conceptual analysis, and technological innovation.
​
Core Question:
What distinguishes minds, persons, and intelligent systems, and how should they be understood in an increasingly technological world?
​
Research Areas
-
Human Representation Science
-
Consciousness studies
-
NeuroAI
-
Intelligence and cognition
-
Digital sentience
-
Philosophy of mind
-
AI alignment and governance
-
Moral agency and responsibility
-
Human flourishing in technological societies ​
An Integrative Vision
These three programs address complementary dimensions of a single challenge:
​
-
Psychiatry, Neurology, and Human Development investigates how persons develop, experience, and flourish.
-
Biomedical Informatics and AI investigates how persons are represented within healthcare and technological systems.
-
Human Representation Science investigates how minds, persons, and intelligent systems can be understood scientifically and philosophically.
Together, they support CPI's mission of advancing rigorous interdisciplinary research at the intersection of neuroscience, medicine, artificial intelligence, human flourishing, and the study of persons.