Graduate Students

I graduated from UCLA in 2018 with a BA in philosophy. I am most interested in contemporary political philosophy, social philosophy, and ethics, especially as they relate to globally situated questions of public importance. I spent the last three years working for South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA - another way of saying Middle East) humanitarian and political advocacy groups. I started “Full Potential” — an online collective dedicated to empowering SWANA women, living in the region and in the diaspora. We host panels, organize advocacy campaigns, and post informative content aimed at clearing misconceptions commonly held about the SWANA region (check us out on Instagram @full__potential). Feel free to reach out: sara.azmoudeh@tufts.edu

I received my BA in philosophy from Montana State University after graduating with highest honors in 2019. My philosophical interests are broad, but I’m particularly interested in the philosophy of language, philosophy of science, epistemology, and ancient philosophy. Outside of philosophy, my primary interest is drumming. I also love snowboarding and hiking. You’re more than welcome to reach me at kevin.beiser@tufts.edu

I graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.A. in political philosophy from UCLA in 2021. My intention in undergrad was to apply to Law School but I unexpectedly found my passion for moral philosophy in my junior year. My main areas of interest lie within normative and applied ethics, particularly non-consequentialism and obligations of aid. Some of my favorite philosophers are Judith Jarvis Thomson, Kant, Plato, and Hobbes. Outside of philosophy, I am a very active person. I was a gymnastics coach for 8 years and enjoy hiking and working out. If you are a prospective student please feel free to email me at: tanner.carter@tufts.edu

I graduated from Wellesley College in 2021 with a BA in mathematics. My primary interests in philosophy lie in value theory and especially metaethics and philosophy of art. Outside of philosophy, I enjoy reading novels, playing games, and listening to music.

Before coming to Tufts, I studied politics and philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. My current philosophical interests are in moral, political, and feminist philosophy, as well as social epistemology, applied ethics, and existentialism. Originally from the greater Boston area, I enjoy spending time in the city's bookstores, coffee shops, and green spaces. Throughout college, I taught preschool, which I still love to do. I also like reading fiction, listening to podcasts, and visiting art museums. My email is helena.colbert@tufts.edu; please feel free to reach out!

As a combined degree (BA/MA) student, I am in my senior year of undergraduate at Tufts, double majoring in philosophy and mathematics. My primary interest lies in the intersection of philosophy of language and epistemology, with overlaps in philosophical logic, formal semantics, and formal epistemology. Topics I am currently most concerned with include belief and knowledge ascription, inquiry and questions, and first- and higher-order evidence and (un)certainty. I also have strong interests in logic and metaphysics, with recent focus on the debate over whether and how higher-order languages shed light on issues in (meta)metaphysics and philosophy of language. Outside of philosophy, I watch anime films, explore bookstores and natural history museums, and sleep. Feel free to reach me at xinyi.fang@tufts.edu

I graduated from Tufts in 2022 with a BA in Philosophy. My current areas of interests in philosophy are metaethics (particularly constructivism), philosophy of law, and naturalism. During undergrad, I was also particularly interested in philosophy of mind and philosophy of early universe cosmology.

As a combined-degree student, I completed my B.A. in Philosophy and German Language and Cultural Studies at Tufts University in 2020 before joining its philosophy MA program. I have also spent a semester in Tübingen, Germany during my undergraduate studies. My primary philosophical interests are history of philosophy (broadly), philosophy of language, and political and legal philosophy. Apart from that, I have interests in – and want to learn more - about critical theory (especially regarding the Frankfurt School traditions).

Outside of philosophy, I enjoy reading and writing, and one of my favorite authors is W.G.Sebald, whose proses I think cross over the boundary between the real and the fictional. I enjoy walking or biking around, and sometimes I might be found exploring nearby cities. I am from Hangzhou, China.

I graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2016 with a BA in psychology and visual communication design. I completed a master's in journalism at the University of Maryland in 2019 and spent the last two years as a graphics reporter at The Wall Street Journal. I am primarily interested in normative ethics—particularly the revival of virtue ethics—and in the related areas of ancient philosophy, moral psychology and moral epistemology. Outside of philosophy, I enjoy cooking, thrifting and exploring coffee shops and bookstores.

Luke Jennings graduated from Bard College in 2020 with honors in philosophy. During the following year, he continued on to post-baccalaureate studies in classics at Georgetown University. His primary interests include Ancient Philosophy, Ethics, and Moral Psychology. Outside of his work in philosophy, he is a jazz guitarist and composer. Feel free to reach out to him at ljenni01@tufts.edu.

I am a current Combined Degree student at Tufts University, pursuing both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in the Tufts Philosophy Department. I'm particularly concerned with political philosophy and ethics, and I focus on issues of justice, freedom, and social organization. I also have an interest in unorthodox sources of philosophical thought, especially in fiction, and have taught courses on the philosophy of Kurt Vonnegut at Tufts and other institutions. Outside of the Department, I serve as an elected member of the Massachusetts Democratic State Committee. You can reach out to me anytime at mark.lannigan@tufts.edu.

I graduated from Tufts with a BA in Philosophy in 2022, and am continuing in the department this year to pursue my MA. My interest in philosophy comes from how theory can help inform self-understanding and provide guidance in our daily lives. Outside of classes, I love reading literary fiction, writing essays, and getting outside in any way possible.

I am Tang. I did my undergraduate at Fudan University, Shanghai, majoring in philosophy. My interest in Plato and Aristotle started there and ancient philosophy continues to be my main research focus. I am also very curious about modern theories of ethics and political philosophy. Recently, problems concerning public opinion , political emotion and education also interest me exceedingly. My hobbies include yoga, singing and doing anything outdoor!

I graduated with a B.A. in physics and philosophy from UCLA in 2019, and worked for the next two years as a research assistant in a condensed matter physics lab before switching focus back to philosophy. I am mainly interested in topics in epistemology and ethics – particularly rational choice, explanation, and moral reasoning – as well as the implications of our best understanding of these matters on the political-legal sphere. Reach me at xling01@tufts.edu.

I graduated from Wellesley College in 2021 with BA in Philosophy and Mathematics. During my undergraduate, my primary interests are in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. Specifically, in metaphysics and philosophy of mind, I am interested in theories of properties, universals, particulars, and property dualism. In the philosophy of science, I am especially curious about topics (not completely separated from my interests in metaphysics and philosophy of mind) on laws of nature, counterfactuals, and causation. I am still very much interested in these topics but have also developed related interests in the philosophy of physics, epistemology, and aesthetics, hoping to explore these topics during my MA as well. In my spare time, I enjoy art, watching psychological thrillers, and going to the seaside when I can. You can reach me at zhitong.liu@tufts.edu.

In 2022, I graduated from Mississippi College, where I studied philosophy. I am accompanied on this, my northerly migration, by my lovely wife, Sarah. My interests are many, but notably include the philosophy of religion and Kant.

I graduated from UMass Amherst in 2020 with a BA in Philosophy and a BS in Computer Science and Mathematics. My current interests in philosophy are philosophy of mind, epistemology, and logic. In the future, I also look forward to learning about ethics and its application in artificial intelligence.

I graduated from the University of Massachusetts - Boston in 2019 with a BA in philosophy and a minor in history. Prior to my philosophy degree, I spent nearly 30 years in drug discovery research in the biotech/pharmaceutical industry working to discover new drugs to treat cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and psychiatric diseases. My main interests in philosophy are in social and political philosophy, epistemology, and ethics.

I graduated summa cum laude from the American University of Paris in 2020, with B.A. degrees in both PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) and Global Communications. While I cherished every element of my interdisciplinary undergraduate studies, my studies in philosophy hold a special place in my heart. I have broad interests in political philosophy, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. However, I am most deeply concerned with the field of philosophy that lies at the nexus of my undergraduate studies: the philosophy of communication. In particular, I intend to explore, through my graduate studies, the question of how power pervades communication structures, as well as how agency is impacted, and possibly sabotaged, by contemporary media forms, through their interference in the formulation and enactment of a will. Outside of my academic pursuits, I enjoy playing piano, singing, cooking, and hiking. Please feel free to contact me at todonn02@tufts.edu.

I graduated with honors from NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study in 2020. I pursued a mixture of philosophy, politics, psychology, and completed a minor in mathematics. Generally, I'm interested in anything to do with Logic, Metaphysics, or Epistemology. My philosophical interests leave me interested in mathematics and physics; I also enjoy classics, economics, history, and the other areas of my undergraduate degree. I hope to one day utilize my philosophical research to improve our daily lives.

Outside of academics, I am thankful to have traveled to over twenty countries and lived in three (the UK, US, and India). I enjoy discussing music, media, and politics; exploring nature and skiing; playing video games and the guitar; and I am trying to get into rock climbing and skateboarding. Feel free to reach out:  shray.pathania@tufts.edu.

I received a BA in philosophy from Penn State, and for two years took post-baccalaureate courses in philosophy at Rutgers. My research concentrates on metaphysics, in particular ontology. Lately my attention has been focused on questions about generality. For example: 'Does everything exist?', 'Is everything physical?', 'Can everything be quantified over?' Recent works in progress can be found at petraroli.org. Email me at joe.petraroli@tufts.edu.

I graduated from Colgate University in 2021 with a B.A. with honors in philosophy. Within philosophy, I am mostly interested in ethics and philosophy of language. Outside of philosophy, I enjoy listening to music, playing video games, and watching random videos on YouTube. Feel free to reach out to me at mengqun.sun@tufts.edu.

I graduated from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy. I am interested to learn more about how we (can be said to) have knowledge of ourselves and our experiences in the world. Correspondingly, my main areas of interest lie in the intersections between epistemology, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, and post-Kantian continental philosophy. In my honors thesis, I attempted to read Adorno’s Negative Dialectics as a theory of contextual and object-oriented knowledge.

Outside of philosophy, I enjoy playing both international and Chinese chess, cooking, hiking, and good conversations over coffee (which may turn philosophical sometimes). You can reach me at gerald.teng@tufts.edu.

I graduated magma cum laude from Pepperdine University with BA’s in Philosophy and Economics. My interests are broad, but they tend to fall under the umbrella of metaphysics and epistemology. My favorite pastimes include songwriting, hiking, mountain biking, reading great books, and more recently playing chess (in which my passion far exceeds my ability). I also work as a data analyst at a financial firm. Feel free to reach out at skye.uldrich@gmail.com.

I graduated with honors from Wesleyan University in 2020 with a B.A. in philosophy. As an undergraduate, I was focused on the relationship between the Western Marxist and French theory traditions in Continental philosophy. My primary interests now are in contemporary political philosophy, the philosophy of the social sciences, and analytic metaphysics. In particular, I’m interested in debates surrounding fundamentality, grounding, and causation, and how they might inform social-scientific model-building. I’m also deeply interested in distributive justice, and other normative issues regarding the relationships among state and market actors. Outside of philosophy, I have coached competitive debate, and recently helped found a summer program for middle and high-school debaters which highlights issues of equity and inclusion in the community (check us out at magnoliadebate.com!). I also enjoy hiking, movies, and videogames. You can reach me at nathan.witkin@tufts.edu.

I received my B.A. in Philosophy from Northwestern University in 2019 with Honors with Distinction. I have broad interests. But I’m now most actively concerned with topics that fall under epistemology, such as: what the normative constraints over inquiry (if any) are, and what kind of mental content a question is. My main interests during undergrad were moral agency in artificial agents, and unstated meta-ethical commitments of existing (back in 2017~2019) moral decision-making frameworks for artificial agents.