Placement History

The department has an excellent track record in placement of our graduates in top universities and institutions.

The list below includes all graduate students who have received their Ph.D. in the department since 1996. Positions are designated as tenure-track (TT), tenured (T), or fixed-term (FT). If our graduates have accepted employment outside academia, this is noted where information is available.

2024

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Andrew Bollhagen	Meditations on Molecular Motions	William Bechtel	Postdoctoral Scholar, UC Davis	TBC
Kathleen Connelly	Blame, Respect, and a Novel Account of Patronizing	Dana Nelkin	Lecturer in Ethics and Political Theory, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich	TBC
Emma Duncan	Who Do You Think You Are? How Relationships Shape the Ethics of Influence	Monique Wonderly	Interdisciplinary Ethics Fellow, McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, Stanford University	TBC
JC Gonzales	Beyond Mechanism: Rethinking Kant’s Philosophy of Nature with the Critique of the Power of Judgment	Clinton Tolley	Visiting Assitant Professor of Philosophy, Colby College	TBC
Joseph Martinez	Rethinking Agent Causation: Essays on Freedom, Responsibility, and Action	Dana Nelkin	Assistant Professor of Instruction, UT San Antonio	TBC

2023

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Claudi Brink	Spontaneity and Teleology in Kant’s Theory of Apperception	Chair: Eric Watkins	Assistant Professor, University of New Hampshire
Eugene Chua	Classical Thermodynamical Concepts Beyond the Classical Domain.	Craig Callender	Caltech	Nanyang Assistant Professor, NTU Singapore
Leonardo Moauro	Perfection and Desire in Spinoza's Theory of Value	Don Rutherford	Postdoctoral Fellow at the Human Abilities Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Jada Wiggleton-Little	Let Me Have Your Attention! Taking Pain Utterances Seriously.	Matt Fulkerson	Cleveland Fellowship in Neuroethics, The Cleveland Clinic	Assistant Professor, Ohio State University

2022

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Cami Koepke	Responsibility and Addiction: A Defense of a Control-Based Theory of Moral Responsibility	Chair: Dana Nelkin	Lecturer: CSU Long Beach
Joseph Stratman	Rationalism Restrained: Kant and the Metaphysics of Ground	Eric Watkins	Assistant Professor: University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Ann C Thresher	Putting the Philosophy Back into Natural Philosophy: Ethics, Policy, and Using Philosophic Tools to Solve Scientific Problems	Chair: Craig Callender	Postdoctoral Scholar: Stanford University	Assistant Professor, Notheaster University

2021

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Rosalind Chaplin	Indeterminacy, Infinity, Ideality: Kant's Mathematical Antinomies	Chair: Eric Watkins	University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Brian Tracz	Kant's Theory of Images	Chair: Clinton Tolley	Law School
Shawn Tinghao Wang	How Blame Functions: Essays on Blame, Responsibility, and Moral Emotions	Chair: David Brink	Postdoctoral Fellowship: University of Salzburg	Assistant Professor, University of Washington

2020

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Matthew Braich	Agency and Reflection: Toward an Empirically Adequate Account of Practical Reason	Chair: David Brink	Adjunct Faculty, Providence College	Adjunct Faculty, Providence College
Travis Chamberlain	The Capabilities Approach to Well-being: Characterizing Capabilities and Measuring Them	Chair: Nancy Cartwright	Leadership and DEI Lecturer: UCSD Rady School of Management	Leadership and DEI Lecturer: UCSD Rady School of Management
Cory Davia	A Defense of Hybrid Voluntarism	Chair: David Brink	Visiting Assistant Professor, Claremont McKenna College	Educational Developer, University of the Pacific
Kathryn Joyce	Relational Equality: A Conceptual and Normative Analysis	Chair: Richard Arneson	Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer, Princeton Univ. Center for Human Values	Program Director for the Civil Discourse Project, Center for Ethics and Human Values, Ohio State University
Jonathan Knutzen	A Reason-First Approach to Personal Autonomy	Chair: David Brink	Lise Meitner Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Graz, Austria	Faculty Fellow/Assistant Professor, NYU Center for Bioethics
Matthew Piper	The ROM theory of the specious present	Chair: Rick Grush
Sebastian Speitel	Logical Constants between Inference and Reference - An Essay in the Philosophy of Logic	Chair: Gila Sher	University of Bonn	University of Bonn, Postdoctoral Scholar

2019

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Ryan Stringer	The Nature and Normativity of Love and Friendship	Chair: David Brink	Lecturer, UC San Diego
Jason Winning	The Mechanistic and Normative Structure of Agency	Chair: William Bechtel	Lecturer, UC Berkeley	Lecturer, UC Berkeley

2018

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
John Dougherty	Identity in Gauge Theories	Chair: Craig Callender	Postdoctoral Fellow, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy at LMU, Munich
Matthew Evpak	Pluralism and Realism	Chair: Gila Sher	Instructor, University of San Diego	Instructor, University of San Diego
Robert Gillis	Justice as Fairness Modified: A Contrarian Coherentist Response to MacIntyre	Chair: Anagostopoulos	Senior Instructor, Portland State University	Senior Instructor, Portland State University
Blythe Greene	The Imperfect Present: Stoic Physics of Time	Chair: Monte Johnson	Lecturer, UC San Diego
James (JP) Messina	Political Obligations and Provisional Rights: A Study in Kant's Politics of Freedom	Chair: Eric Watkins and Richard Arneson	Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Wellesley College, MA	Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of New Orleans and Assistant Director of Greaux!
Danny Weltman	A Cosmopolitan Theory of Secession	Chair: Richard Arneson	Visiting Assistant Professor (FT), Ashoka University, India	Assistant Professor, Ashoka University, India

2017

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Craig Agule	Responsibility, Reasons-responsiveness, and History	Chair: David Brink, Dana Nelkin	Assistant Professor (TT), Rutgers University, Camden	Assistant Professor (TT), Rutgers University, Camden
Kyle Sereda	Leibniz's Conception of Number	Chair: Don Rutherford
Benjamin Sheredos	Act and Intentionality	Chair: William Bechtel	Postdoctoral Researcher, UC San Diego Center for Circadian Biology
Andrew Wong	Unmitigated Skepticism: The Nature and Scope of Pyrrhonism	Chair: Monte Johnson	Cycorp

2016

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Amy Berg	Studies in Ideal and Non-Ideal Theory.	Chair: David Brink	Research Assistant Professor (FT), University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill	Assistant Professor (TT), Oberlin College
Nanhee Byrnes	The Best Results Argument for Democracy.	Chair: Richard Arneson	Lecturer, UC San Diego
Damon Crockett	Sensory Underdetermination and Perceptual Constancy.	Chair: Jonathan Cohen	Qualcomm Institute, UCSD (postdoc) Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics, UCLA	Principal Data Scientist, Yale
Jeremy Gomer	Intellectual Virtue and Human Flourishing: An Explanation of the Intrinsic Value of the Intellectual Virtues	Chair: Georgios Anagnostopoulos	Medical School
Gil Hersch	Well Being and Public Policy: Doing without Theory	Chair: Nancy Cartwright	Postdoctoral Researcher at Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, George Mason University	Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech
Alexandre Marcellesi	Causation and Experimentation from Philosophy to Evidence-Based Policy.	Chair: Nancy Cartwright	Law School, NYU
Casey McCoy	Philosophical Implications of Inflationary Cosmology	Chair: Craig Callender	Three-Year Postdoctoral Scholar at Edinburgh University	Asst Prof, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea
Tomoya Sato	The Limits Of Logic	Chair: Gila Sher
Peter Yong	Hegel and the Given: A Phenomenological Interpretation	Chair: Eric Watkins	Lecturer at University of San Diego

2015

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Sindhuja Bhakthavatsalam	Looking beyond Truth: Scientific Understanding and Rationalizing Scientific Activities	Chair: Nancy Cartwright	Philosophy and Education at CSUN (TT)
Dan Burnston	Perceptual Context and the Nature of Neural Function	Chair: William Bechtel	Assistant Professor, Tulane University (TT)
Adam Streed	Brandom's Expressive Conception of Logic	Chair: Rick Grush	Oakland University, Special Lecturer
Chris Suhler	Ethical Theory meets Cognitive Science	Chair: Patricia Churchland	Auburn University, Instructor (FT)	NTU-Singapore, Assistant Professor(TT)

2014

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Joyce Havstad	Biochemical Kinds of Selective Naturalism	Chair: William Bechtel	Philosopher-in-Residence, Field Museum	Assoc Professor, University of Utah

2013

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Marta Halina	The Role of Visual Perspective Taking in Great Ape Social Cognition: A Philosopical and Empirical analysis	Chair: William Bechtel, Co-chair: Nancy Cartwright	Washington University in St. Louis, McDonnell Postdoctoral Fellow	University of Cambridge, Lecturer in the Philosophy of Psychology and Cognitive Science
Per Milam	Abolitionism and the Value of the Reactive Attitudes	Chair: Dana Nelkin, Co-Chair: David Brink	Oakland University, Visiting	Researcher, University of Gothenburg
Theron Pummer	The Ethics of Distribution	Co-Chairs: Richard Arneson & David Brink	St. Anne's College, University of Oxford, Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy	University St. Andrews, Assistant Professor
Nathan Rockwood	Locke on Real Knowledge	Samuel Rickless	Virginia Tech, Visiting	Brigham Young University, Assistant Professor (TT)
Daniel Schwartz	Baconian Foundationalism and the Problem of Certainty.	Donald Rutherford	UC San Diego, Postdoctoral Scholar in Philosophy	Assistant Professor, American University of Bulgaria

2012

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Eric Campbell	Breakdown of Morality	Co-Chairs: David Brink and Richard Arneson	UC San Diego, Lecturer	University of Maryland, Baltimore County (TT)
Timothy Jankowiak	Sensation and Intentionality in Kant's Theory of Cognition	Eric Watkins	University of Southern Utah, TT	Towson University (TT)
Erick Ramirez	A Sensible Sentimentalism	Chair: David Brink, Co-Chair: Dana Nelkin	University of Santa Clara, TT	University of Santa Clara, TT
Michael Tiboris	Youth and Diminished Responsibility	Co-Chairs: Richard Arneson and Dana Nelkin	Philosophy UC San Diego: Spencer Foundation Post Doc.	Clear Water Farms Director, River Alliance of Wisconsin

2011

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Jacob Stegenga	Multimodal Evidence	Nancy Cartwright	Postdoctoral Fellow University of Toronto	Cambridge HPS (TT)
Eric Martin	Examining Life's Origins	William Bechtel	Postdoctoral Scholar, London School of Economics	Baylor Assistant Professor of History and Philosophy
James Messina	Kant's Hiddent Ontology of Space	Eric Watkins	Southern Utah University (TT)	Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin, Madison (TT)
Charles Kurth	Rethinking the Objectivity of Ethics	David Brink	Washington University St. Louis (TT)	Associate Professor, Western Michigan University
Erin Frykholm	Narrative Epistemology and the Variability of Virtue. Hume on Character and Moral Epistemology	Co-Chairs: Donald Rutherford & Richard Arneson	University of Kansas (TT)	University of Kansas (TT)

2010

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Kristen Irwin	The Core Mysteries: Pierre Bayle's Philosophical Fideism	Donald Rutherford	Biola University (TT)	Loyola University (TT)
Mitchell Herschbach	Beyond Folk Psychology? Toward an Enriched Account of Social Understanding	William Bechtel	CSU Northridge (FT)	CSU Northridge (FT)

2009

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Nina Brewer-Davis	Political Obligation through Connectedness	David Brink	Auburn University (FT)	Visiting Assistant Professor, Auburn University
Ioan Muntean	Unification and Explanation in Early Kaluza-Klein Theories	Craig Callendar	Leeds University Lecturer (FT)	Notre Dame University, The Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, Visiting Scholar
Matthew Brown	Science and Experience: A Deweyan Pragmatist Philosophy of Science	Paul Churchland	University of Texas, Dallas (TT)	University of Texas, Dallas (TT)
Lisa Damm	The Architecture of Emotion Experience	Rick Grush	University of Pittsburgh HPS (Postdoc)	Law School
Sophia Efstathiou	The Use of Race as a Variable in Biomedical Research	Nancy Cartwright	University of Southhampton (Postdoc)	Researcher, Philosophy, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)

2008

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Eric Conrad	Science and Objectivity	Gerald Doppelt
Araceli Penafuerte	An Actualist Ontology for Counterfactuals	Gila Sher	San Diego State (FT)	San Diego State (FT)
Matthew Egan	The Apotheosis of a Human Ideal: The Young Hegel's Conception of the Absolute	Eric Watkins	Occidental College (FT)	Lecturer, University Of San Diego
Dale Dorsey	Thresholds and the Good: A Program of Political Evaluation	Richard Arneson	University of Alberta (TT)	University of Kansas (TT)

2007

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Gregory Charak	Between Soul and Precision: Ernst Mach's Biological Empiricism and the Social Democratic Philosophy of Science	Nancy Cartwright	Medical School, University of Pennsylvania	Medical School, University of Pennsylvania
Aaron Schiller	Concepts in Experience	Rick Grush	University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (FT)	University of Santa Clara

2006

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Cory Wright	Truth and Cognition	William Bechtel	Washington University-PNP (Postdoc)	CSU Long Beach (TT)
Nellie Wieland	Scribbledehobble: A Dissertation on Linguistic Agency	Wayne Martin	CSU Long Beach (TT)	CSU Long Beach (TT)
Jeff Stedman	Perfectionism, Value Pluralism and the Human Good	David Brink, Richard Arneson	Bowling Green State University (FT)	Law School
Jason Thibodeau	Ordinary Language Philosophy: A Critical Re-examination	Rick Grush	Auburn University (FT)	Georgia Perimeter College
Gregory Shirley	Heidegger and the Philosophy of Logic	Wayne Martin, Gila Sher
Andrew Hamilton	Laws, Causes, and Kinds: Toward a Solution to the Biology Problem	Nancy Cartwright	Arizona State University (TT)	Arizona State University (TT)
Anna Alexandrova	Connecting Models to the Real World: Game Theory in Action	Nancy Cartwright	Washington University-PNP (Postdoc); U of Missouri-St. Louis (TT)	Lecturer, Cambridge

2005

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Mark Warshaw	The Cognitive Challenge to the Truth Conditional Theory of Meaning	Gila Sher		Out of Philosophy
Mark Newman	Beyond Structural Realism	Craig Callendar	University of Minnesota-Duluth (TT)	Rhodes College Memphis
Luke Robinson	The Metaphysics of Morality: A Dispositionalist Account	David Brink	Southern Methodist University (TT)	SMU (TT)
Carl Sachs	The Collapse of Transcendence in Nietzsche's Middle Period	Donald Rutherford	University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth (FT)	Marymount University (TT)
Kory Schaff	Work, Freedom and Community: Hegel's Normative Economics	Richard Arneson, Michael Hardimon	Occidental College (TT)	Cal State LA (TT)

2004

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
John Vella	Nature, Reason and Philia in Euripidean Drama	Georgios Anagnostopoulos	University of San Diego (FT)	Dept of English, Loyola High School, L.A.

2003

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Jonathan Gunderson	Action and Inaction: The Reality of Reasons and Limits of Physicalism	Gerald Doppelt, Steven Yalowitz	John Carroll University (FT)	Metropolitan State University (FT)
Ryan Hickerson	The Breakthrough to Phenomenology: Three Theories of Mental Content in the Brentano School	Wayne Martin	Western Oregon University (TT)	Western Oregon University (T)
Matthew Kisner	Descarte's Naturalistic Rationalism	Donald Rutherford	University of South Carolina (TT)	University of South Carolina (T)
P.D. Magnus	Undetermination and the Claims of Science	Paul Churchland	Bowdoin College (FT)	SUNY Albany (T)
Vida Pavesich	Hans Blumenberg: An Anthropological Key	Michael Hardimon		CSU East Bay (FT)

2002

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Eric Peterson	The Cultural Constitution of Real, Scientific Objects	Gerald Doppelt		Independent Researcher
James Anderson	The Role of Interdependence in Moral Theory: Liberalism and its Critics	Gerald Doppelt		San Diego State (FT)
Laura Perini	Visual Representation and Scientific Knowledge	Sandra Mitchell, Paul Churchland	Virginia Tech (TT)	Pomona College (TT)

2001

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
David Danks	The Epistemology of Causal Judgment	Clark Glymour	Carnegie Mellon (TT)	Carnegie Mellon (T)
William Casebeer	Natural Ethical Facts: Evolution, Connectionism, and Moral Cognition	Paul Churchland	US Airforce Academy	USAF
Michael Selgelid	Neugenics: Genetically Informed Reproductive Decision Making	Philip Kitcher	University of Witwatersrant (Postdoc)	Senior Research Fellow, CAPPE, ANU
Joseph Ramsey	Expertise and Mixture in Automatic Causal Discovery	Clark Glymour	Director of Research Computing, Carnegie Mellon	Director of Research Computing, Carnegie Mellon

2000

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Ilya Farber	Domain Integration: A Theory of Progress in the Scientific Understanding of Life and Mind	Patricia Churchland, Sandra Mitchell	Washington University-PNP (Postdoc)	Singapore Management University (TT)
Maralee Harrell	Chaos and Reliable Knowledge	Clark Glymour	Colorado College (TT)	Carnegie Mellon (T)
Anne Margaret Baxley	Kant's Theory of Virtue: The Importance of Autocracy	Henry Allison, David Brink	Virginia Tech (TT)	Washington University (T)
Evan Tiffany	The Normativity of Morality	David Brink	Simon Fraser University (TT)	Simon Fraser University (T)
John Berteaux	Race and the Liberal Tradition	Gerald Doppelt	San Diego State (TT)	CSU Monterey Bay (T)
Michael LeBuffe	Two Types of Seventeenth Century Naturalistic Ethics	Nicholas Jolley, David Brink	Texas A&M (FT)	Texas A&M (T)

1999

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Aarre LaaKso	The Significance of Spatial Representation	Patricia Churchland, Gary Cottrell		Employed outside academia
Mark Collier	Newton of the Mind: An Examination of Hume's Science of Human Nature	Paul Churchland, Patiricia Kitcher	Stanford (FT)	University of Minnesota, Morris (TT)
Iain Thomson	The End of Onto-Theology: Understanding Heidegger's Turn, Method, and Politics	Gerald Doppelt, Hubert Dreyfus	University of New Mexico (TT)	University of New Mexico (T)
Ian Eagleson	The Epistemic Role of Kantian Intuitions	Henry Allison, Patricia Kitcher	New Mexico State (FT)	Employed outside academia
Kelly Becker	Meaning Holism: An Articulation and Defense	Steven Yalowitz	Centre College (TT)	University of New Mexico (T)
Jason Frye	Phenomenology as Bildungsprozess: The Structure of Hegel's Dialectic	Henry Allison, Wayne Martin	Law School
Jessica Pfeiffer	Playing Dice with the Universe: A Combinatorial Account of Laws	Philip Kitcher, Sandra Mitchell		University of Maryland (T)
Peter Thielke	Discursivity and its Discontents: Maimon's Challenge to Kant's Account of Cognition	Henry Allison, Wayne Martin	Yale (Postdoc)	Pomona College (T)

1998

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Stefan Heck	Reasonable Behavior: Making the Public Sensible	Patricia Churchland		Employed outside academia

1997

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Brian Keeley	Cognitive Science as the Computational Neuroethology of Intelligent Behavior: Why Biological Facts are Important for Explaining Intelligent Behavior	Patricia Churchland, Sandra Mitchell	Washington University-PNP (Postdoc)	Pitzer College (T)
Gillian Barker	Abstraction, Analogy and Induction: Toward a General Account of Ampliative Inference	Philip Kitcher		University of Western Ontario (TT)
Kyle Stanford	A Pragmatic Theory of Causation	Philip Kitcher	UC Irvine-LPS (TT)	UC Irvine-LPS (T)

1996

Name	Dissertation Title	Advisor	Initial Placement	Current Position
Edmund Mulaire	The Promise of Science: Scientific Realism Without Convergence	Paul Churchland		Employed outside academia