Dr Elzė Sigutė Mikalonytė

Position Governing Body Fellow Junior Research Fellow
School Biological Sciences Department of Psychology
Email esm53@cam.ac.uk
X Profile ElzeSigute
Department link Psychology

Elzė Sigutė Mikalonytė is an aesthetician working at the intersection of philosophy and cognitive science. She is interested in psychological foundations of philosophically relevant concepts.

Elzė is a Research Associate at the Department of Psychology and a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge. She completed her BA, MA, and PhD in Philosophy at Vilnius University, Lithuania.

In 2023, Elzė successfully defended her PhD thesis, titled ‘Mind-Independent, Yet Intuitive: A New Methodological Approach to the Ontology of Musical Works.’ During her doctoral studies, she spent a year at Institut Jean Nicod (CNRS-ENS-EHESS) in Paris, France.

Elzė is also a board member of the Lithuanian Philosophical Association and a steering committee member of the European Network for Philosophy of Music. Before she became a philosopher, she studied violin at Vilnius Conservatoire.

Elzė’s interests are in aesthetics, metaphysics, and philosophy of cognitive science. Her interdisciplinary approach has led to collaborations with philosophers, psychologists, musicologists, and neuroscientists. Elzė’s doctoral work focused on the philosophy of music and the ontology of musical works, incorporating empirical research on intuitions about the identity of musical works. She has also explored other topics in the experimental philosophy of aesthetics, such as the folk concept of art, intuitions on AI-created art, and the interaction between aesthetic and ontological judgments. At the Department of Psychology, Elzė is currently working on the “Higher Values: Aesthetic Experiences, Transcendence, and Prosociality” project with Professor Simone Schnall, Dr Ryan Doran, and Dr Jasmina Stevanov. Their interdisciplinary research investigates the cognitive and affective effects of aesthetic appreciation, exploring whether engagement with art and beauty can foster abstract thinking, encourage a broader perspective, and influence moral values and prosocial behaviour.