Since Fall 2019, I have been working at Sheridan College (in Oakville, Ontario, Canada) as Professor of Philosophy. I have studied at the University of Guelph (PhD, ’15), McMaster University (MA, ’08), and The University of Western Ontario (BA, ’06).
Prior to Sheridan, my most recent teaching appointments have been at the University of Guelph (F’15-W’19) and Redeemer University College (W’19). I have taught courses in critical thinking, social-political philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of science, and metaphysics.
Along with my teaching activities, I have maintained an active research program. I have presented papers at major conferences across Canada and the United States. My research has been supported by Federal and Provincial grants, and I have won several awards, including the William James Society’s Young Scholar Prize and the American Philosophical Association’s William James Prize.
I specialize in the philosophy of mind, with a particular emphasis on questions of philosophical psychology. Central to my work is the question, “how do beliefs cause action, and vice versa?”, which I approach from an interdisciplinary, empirically-informed, Jamesean perspective. Drawing from recent work in cognitive science, I argue that beliefs cause actions, actions cause beliefs, and a completed belief-action arc reinforces both our beliefs and our predispositions to act. I further argue that this relationship is mediated by our emotions, which influence our willingness to act on a belief in a specific case, and the social nature of belief-action pairings, which reinforce the connection between a belief and a subsequent action through our community’s reaction. Taken together, this provides a nuanced account of action that embraces work in cognitive science, moral psychology, and social epistemology.
This page is meant to give visitors an idea of my professional activities. Sheridan students: Nothing on this site is supersedes information posted on Slate.