Bokai Yao is an assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy at Peking University. He earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy from University of Notre Dame under the supervision of Joel David Hamkins and Daniel Nolan.

His main research areas are set theory, philosophy of mathematics and metaphysics. In set theory, he studies set theory with urelements, especially focusing on the axiomatization of urelement set theory, forcing, the axiom of choice, and reflection principles. In philosophy of mathematics, he is currently interested in philosophical justifications for axioms of set theory, potentialism, and abstraction principles. In metaphysics, he is interested in the relationship between mereology and set theory. His works have been published in the Journal of Symbolic Logic, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic and the Journal of Philosophical Logic.

Selected Publications:

Reflective Mereology. Journal of Philosophical Logic 52 (4): 1171-1196. 2023. 

Reflection in Second-Order Set Theory with Abundant Urelements Bi-Interprets a Supercompact Cardinal, with Joel David Hamkins. Journal of Symbolic Logic:1-36. 2022.

Reflection Principles and Second-Order Choice Principles with Urelements. Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 173 (4):103073.