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.
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 |
TBC |
TBC |
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 |
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 |
|
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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
|
|
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 |
|
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) |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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) |
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) |
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) |
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) |
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 |
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
|
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) |
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. |
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) |
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) |
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 |
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) |
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) |
Name |
Dissertation Title |
Advisor |
Initial Placement |
Current Position |
Stefan Heck |
Reasonable Behavior: Making the Public Sensible |
Patricia Churchland |
|
Employed outside academia |
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) |
Name |
Dissertation Title |
Advisor |
Initial Placement |
Current Position |
Edmund Mulaire |
The Promise of Science: Scientific Realism Without Convergence |
Paul Churchland |
|
Employed outside academia |