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I am Mildred Fish-Harnack Professor of Philosophy of Education, Professor of Philosophy, Carol Dickson-Bascom Professor of the Humanities, and Affiliate Professor of Educational Policy Studies at University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Most of my teaching is either in political philosophy or applied ethics: I regularly teach an upper division course on political philosophy, and a 300 level course called Contemporary Moral Issues. I also occasionally teach a freshman seminar called Children, Marriage, and the Family which is part of our excellent First Year Interest Group Program. 

My research interests span political philosophy, philosophy of education, and educational policy. My books include: (with Adam Swift) Family Values: the Ethics of Parent-Child Relationships (Princeton 2014); (edited with Michael McPherson) The Aims of Higher Education: Problems of Morality and Justice (Chicago, 2015), which won the 2017 Federic W Ness Award from the Association of American Colleges and Universities; and (with Helen F Ladd, Susanna Loeb, and Adam Swift) Educational Goods (Chicago, 2018). 

I'm an affiliate with the Institute for Research on Poverty at UW-Madison, and the Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Social Mobility at the University of Chicago. I was elected to the American Academy for the Arts and Sciences in 2025.

Here's my essay called "Becoming a Better College Teacher: If You're Lucky" published in Daedalus in 2019.

Here's a podcast from Education Next about Educational Goods.

Here are some  posts from Crooked Timber (see also the tab on Becoming a Better College Teacher):

A neglected equity issue on college campuses: instructional quality

How could a research university systematically improve undergraduate instruction?

Teaching's not exactly brain surgery, is it?

Employing a student to criticize my teaching

Welcoming the new boy at school

Why majoring in Philosophy is less risky than you might have thought

Non-gory cases (in philosophy of education)

After strange day, Wisconsin Idea survives

Is teaching undergraduates central to the mission...?

Becoming an American