Jb Manchak

Jb Manchak

Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science

Affiliate Professor of Religious Studies

Biography

JB Manchak, Ph.D., is Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at UC Irvine, with affiliate appointments in Religious Studies and Philosophy. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from UC Irvine in 2009. His research focuses on the philosophy of physics, particularly questions concerning the global structure of spacetime in general relativity, including work on spacetime singularities, time machines, and the hole argument.

Manchak has published over 38 peer-reviewed papers in journals such as The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Science, and Journal of Philosophical Logic, along with contributions to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. He is the author of Global Spacetime Structure, published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. His collaborative work includes papers with Hans Halvorson on the hole argument and with Thomas Barrett on spacetime symmetries and privileged coordinates.

Manchak received the Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of Washington in 2013 and the Dean's Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching from UC Irvine in 2020. He serves as Director of Admissions for his department and is involved in educational outreach, including teaching in the Lifted Prison Education Program at Donovan Correctional Facility and mentoring through the Philosophy of Science Association's underrepresented scholar program.

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Education

  • Ph.D. in Philosophy, UC Irvine, 2009
  • B.S. in Physics, Brigham Young University, 2004
  • B.A. in Philosophy, Brigham Young University, 2004
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Distinctions

  • Visiting Fellow, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig Maximilian University, 2017
  • Quantum Foundations Summer Fellowship, Perimeter Institute, 2007
  • Robert Clifton Memorial Prize (best graduate student paper in philosophy of physics), University of Western Ontario, 2006
  • Justine Lambert Prize (best graduate student paper in philosophy of science), UC Irvine, 2009
  • Dean's Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching, UC Irvine, 2020
  • Distinguished Teaching Award, University of Washington, 2013
  • Order of Merit: Outstanding Scholarship Award, UC Irvine, 2009
  • Regents Dissertation Fellowship, UC Irvine, 2008
  • Inclusive Excellence Certificate Award, Office of Inclusive Excellence, UC Irvine, 2020
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Areas of Expertise

  • Philosophy of Physics
  • Spacetime Singularities
  • Time Machines
  • Hole Argument
  • Heraclitus-Maximal Worlds
  • Privileged Coordinates
  • Spacetime Inextendibility

Recent Publications

  • JB Manchak, T. Barrett, “What do privileged coordinates tell us about structure?”, Philosophy of Science, vol. 92, pp. 528-547, 2025.
  • JB Manchak, H. Halvorson, “Closing the hole argument”, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 76, pp. 295-318, 2025.
  • JB Manchak, “The universe is unknowable from within it”, Institute of Arts and Ideas (iai.tv), 2025.
  • JB Manchak, T. Barrett, “Heraclitus-maximal worlds”, Journal of Philosophical Logic, vol. 56, pp. 1519-1536, 2024.
  • JB Manchak, T. Barrett, “On coordinates and spacetime structure”, Philosophy of Physics, vol. 2, pp. 11, 2024.
  • JB Manchak, J. Earman, C. Wüthrich, “Time machines”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2024.
  • JB Manchak, T. Barrett, J. Weatherall, “On automorphism criteria for comparing amounts of mathematical structure”, Synthese, vol. 201, pp. 191, 2023.
  • JB Manchak, “On the (in?)stability of spacetime inextendibility”, Philosophy of Science, vol. 90, pp. 1331-1341, 2023.
  • JB Manchak, B. Roberts, “Supertasks”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2022.
  • JB Manchak, “General relativity as a collection of collections of models”, Hajnal Andréka and István Németi on Unity of Science, Springer Nature, pp. 409-425, 2021.
  • JB Manchak, “On Feyerabend, general relativity, and 'unreasonable' universes”, Interpreting Feyerabend: Critical Essays, Cambridge University Press, pp. 157-171, 2021.
  • JB Manchak, “Global spacetime structure”, Cambridge University Press, 2020.
  • JB Manchak, “Malament-Hogarth machines”, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 71, pp. 1143-1153, 2020.
  • JB Manchak, “A remark on 'time machines' in honor of Howard Stein”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, vol. 67, pp. 111-116, 2019.
  • JB Manchak, B. Feintzeig, S. Rosenstock, J. Weatherall, “Why be regular?”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, vol. 65, pp. 122-132, 2019.
  • JB Manchak, “Some 'no-hole' spacetime properties are unstable”, Foundations of Physics, vol. 48, pp. 1539-1545, 2018.
  • JB Manchak, “Space and time”, Introduction to Formal Philosophy, Springer Nature, pp. 487-496, 2018.
  • JB Manchak, S. Fletcher, M. Schneider, J. Weatherall, “Would two dimensions be world enough for spacetime?”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, vol. 63, pp. 100-113, 2018.
  • JB Manchak, J. Weatherall, “(Information) paradox regained? A brief comment on Maudlin on black hole information loss”, Foundations of Physics, vol. 48, pp. 611-627, 2018.
  • JB Manchak, “On the inextendibility of spacetime”, Philosophy of Science, vol. 84, pp. 1215-1225, 2017.
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Contact Information

Email: jmanchak@uci.edu

Address: 757 Social Science Tower

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This profile was created with the help of AI.

Last updated on 4/30/2026.