Lucy O’Brien is Richard Wollheim Professor of Philosophy at UCL. She has been at UCL since 1992. Her studies in Philosophy began with a BA Joint Hons in Pure Mathematics and Philosophy, and an MPhil in Philosophy, at the University of Sheffield. She went on to a DPhil in Oxford, followed by a post-doctoral position at King’s College London. Her research interests lie in the philosophy of mind and action, with a particular focus on various forms of self-consciousness, and self-knowledge. She is writing a book on interpersonal self-consciousness following receipt of a British Academy/Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship. She has published papers in a range of journals and collections, she is the author of Self-Knowing Agents (Oxford University Press, 2007) and co-editor, with Matthew Soteriou, of Mental Actions (Oxford University Press, 2009). She served as Director and Treasurer of the Aristotelian Society 2007–2014, and Vice-Chair of the Royal Institute of Philosophy 2015–2020. She was awarded a Humboldt Forschungspreis in 2021, and was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 2024. She was co-editor, with A. W. Moore, of the journal MIND from 2015–2025. She has been Chair of the Royal Institute of Philosophy since 2020.
