I am currently a full time philosophy lecturer at Clemson University; however, I have recently accepted a position starting in August 2023 as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Washington & Lee University. Previously, I spent three years as a visiting assistant professor at Colgate University, preceded by a year as a visiting assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. In August 2018 I received my PhD in philosophy at Cornell University. During my last year of doctoral work, I also taught as a part time instructor at both The College of New Jersey and Lehman College.

My primary research interests are in the history and philosophy of biology and cognitive science, including their overlap with environmental ethics and environmental humanities more generally. In particular I am interested in the explanatory role of semantic and normative concepts in the sciences. There are a few strands of research I'm pursuing, but my primary interest at the moment is the role of concepts like dysfunction, disease, disability, disorder, etc. in the sciences. Because I teach a lot of environmental ethics, I've been thinking a lot in particular about the notions of ecosystem health and ecosystem functioning. For example, I'm interested in the role the the concept of ecosystem health plays (or can play) in conservation biology and in broader environmentalist discourse. How does ecosystem health differ from and what (if anything) does it add to a notion of ecosystem functioning? Is there is a common notion of health shared by ecosystems and people that links the concerns of conservation biology directly to those of health-related disciplines like medicine, public health, and environmental health? (Note: Environmental health concerns effects of the environment on health, while ecosystem health is the health of the ecosystem itself!). I think this question matters because a lot has been said since Hippocrates on the proper aims of medicine and the role of doctors in society, and it would be useful if these lessons could be applied to analogous questions about environmental science and scientists.

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