Home

I am a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

I study general philosophy of science, focusing on causation and causal modeling. My dissertation addresses the question of when a causal relation found to obtain in a population generalizes to other populations. This question arises, for example, in drug trials. The participants in the trial will not necessarily have the same distribution of traits as the future consumers of the drug. So what basis is there for assuming that the effect of the drug on an outcome in the trial will be similar to its effect in among consumers? I address this problem using the causal modeling framework developed by Judea Pearl, Peter Spirtes, Clark Glymour and Richard Scheines, among others.

Within philosophy of science, evolutionary biology is the science I have thought about the most. Outside of philosophy of science, I have a wide range of philosophical interests. I have spent a lot of time thinking about the nature of normativity and whether there are agent-neutral reasons. I am also very interested in Kant.

When not doing philosophy, I enjoy cycling, craft beer and classical music. I do not enjoy any sport involving a ball, disappointing craft beer or Jeff Koons.