About Me

I am Professor of Philosophy at University of Alabama at Birmingham, where I also serve as an Search Advisor for the College of Arts and Sciences.

I am interested in applied ethics and social/political philosophy. More specifically, I am interested in the rights and responsibilities that arise within familial relationships, and the ways in which broader social obligations constrain them. 

I grew up in the mountains of northeast Tennessee, and I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Davidson College in North Carolina. In 2008 - the same year that the Davidson Wildcats crushed the Wisconsin Badgers in the Sweet Sixteen matchup - I earned my M.A. from the University of Wisconsin. I earned my Ph.D. in the spring of 2012. After four great years at Emory & Henry University, I moved south to Bham. 

Recently, my focus has been on expanding my own teaching offerings by attending two NEWLAMP seminars and developing new social/political courses here that focus on voices missing from traditional philosophy curricula. I have also spent the past few years working on ways to support teachers, almost all of whom want to do well in classrooms but find themselves facing an institutional incentive structure that does not always make serious investment in one's teaching a rational use of resources. Toward that end, I have edited two volumes on teaching philosophy: The Art of Teaching Philosophy and Innovations in Teaching Philosophy. These volumes include short, non-jargony chapters written by award-winning teachers, as well as chapters by students so teachers can better understand what the classroom experience is like from their perspective. Here at UAB, I also speak to incoming freshmen, offering a crash course on the hidden curriculum to help prepare them for their college experience.