Department of Philosophy

Placement History

Our department assigns a faculty member as Placement Officer and devotes a significant portion of staff resources to help graduates find employment. The placement officer carefully reviews every element of a candidate’s dossier; the faculty participate in mock interviews for all job seekers, each of whom is also given the opportunity to present a practice job talk to the department. In a job market that has long been challenging, the department is proud of its placement record and committed to enhancing the professional qualifications of its graduate students.

2017-2018

wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
11 Tim Aylsworth "Cracks in the Keystone: Kant on the Incomprehensibility of Freedom" (Advisor: James Messina) Florida International University (tenure-track)
12 Frank Cabrera Dissertation Title: "Inference to the Best Explanation, Bayesianism, and the Context of Pursuit" (Advisor: Elliott Sober) Visiting Assistant Professor, Kansas State University
13 Clinton Castro "The Sources of Epistemic Normativity" (Advisor: Mike Titelbaum) Florida International University (tenure-track)
14 Casey Hart "Attitude Aggregation for Democratically Structured Groups" (Advisor: Mike Titelbaum) Did Not Obtain Academic Employment, Ontological Engineer
15 David Moon "Value Incommensurability and Practical Reason" (Advisor: Russ Shafer-Landau) Did Not Seek Academic Employment, Attorney-at-law
18 Blake Myers "Knowledge and Understanding” (Advisor: Peter Vranas) Did Not Seek Academic Employment, Assistant Researcher, Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) at the School of Education, University of Wisconsin- Madison
19 Benjamin Schwan Dissertation title: "The Reach of Action and the Boundary of Ought" (Advisors: Sarah Paul and Russ Shafer-Landau) National Institutes of Health (2 year post-doc)

2016-2017

wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
11 Lydia DuBois "Medical Practice: Its Objects and Ends" (Advisor: Dan Hausman) Simon Fraser University (sessional faculty)
12 Alex Hyun "Essays on Moral Realism" (Advisor: Russ Shafer-Landau) Minerva Schools, Keck Graduate Institute (non-tenure-track)
13 Emi Okaysu "Modelling Inferences in Historical Linguistics” (Advisor: Elliott Sober) Did Not Seek Academic Employment
14 Olav Vassend "Foundations of Bayesian Instrumentalism" (Advisor: Malcolm Forster) Assistant Professor, Philosophy Dept, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (tenure-track)

2015-2016

wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
11 Brian McLoone "The Causal Scope of Natural Selection" (Advisor: Elliott Sober) Initial Position: Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (1 year postdoc),

Subsequent Position: Assistant Professor, Philosophy Department, National Research University, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia (tenure-track)
12 Reuben Stern "Counterfactual Reasoning and Practical Reasoning in Causal Graphs" (Advisor: Dan Hausman) Initial Position: Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (postdoc)

Subsequent Position: University of Hannover (5-yr. Assistant Professorship)
  • 2014-2015
    wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
    11 Hayley Clatterbuck "Are Humans the Only Theorizers?: A Philosophical Examination of the Theory-Theory of Human Uniqueness" (Advisor: Elliott Sober) University of Rochester (tenure-track)
    12 Tim Hansel "Nonideal Theory and Partisanship" (Advisor: Harry Brighouse) Lecturer, Edgewood College
    13 Jeff Pretti "Intuitions, Substitutions & a Causal Account of Reference within Simple Sentences" (Advisor: Alan Sidelle) Did Not Seek Academic Employment
    14 Naftali Weinberger "Causal Inference Across Populations" (Advisor: Dan Hausman)
    		Initial Position: Tilburg University (3-yr postdoc)

    Subsequent Position: University of Pittsburgh (1 year postdoc)
  • 2013-2014
    wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
    11 Daniel Crow “Knowing the Non-Natural: Why Morality is as it Appears” (Advisor: Russ Shafer-Landau) Initial Position: UW-Madison (Visiting Asst. Prof)

    Subsequent Position: Left academia to become a therapist
    12 Justin Horn “Three Challenges to Moral Realism: Evolution, Disagreement, and Moral Semantics” (Advisor: Russ Shafer-Landau) Oklahoma State (tenure-track)
    13 Holly Kantin “Objects, Identity, and Modality: In Defense of Ontological Nihilism” (Advisor: Alan Sidelle) Initial Position: National Institutes of Health (2 year postdoc)

    Subsequent Position: University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa (tenure-track)
    14 Jacob Krch “Nietzsche’s Account of Human Excellence (Advisor: Ivan Soll) Did Not Seek Academic Employment
    15 Jonathan Lang Parity, Austerity, and the Extension of the Cognitive” (Advisor: Malcolm Forster) Did Not Seek Academic Employment

    Employment: Lupyan Lab, UW Psychology
    16 Michael Roche “Self-Knowledge – A Defense of an Extrospective Account” (Advisor: Larry Shapiro) Mississippi State (Visiting Asst. Prof)
    17 Daniel Schneider “Spinoza’s Method of Certainty” (Advisor: Steve Nadler) Initial Position: Ghent University (postdoc)

    Subsequent Position: Cambridge University (3-year appointment)

    Subsequent Position: University of Haifa (tenure-track)
    18 Danielle Wylie “Moral Cognition and Its Implications for Ethics” (Advisor: Larry Shapiro) Mississippi State (tenure-track)
  • 2012-2013
    wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
    11 Jeff Behrends "A Hybrid Account of the Sources of Practical Normativity" (Advisor: Russ Shafer-Landau) Initial Position: Illinois State University (tenure-track)

    Subsequent Position: Harvard University (visiting Assistant Professor)
    12 Molly Gardner “Our Duties to Future Generations” (Advisor: Rob Streiffer) Initial Position: University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (2 year postdoc)

    Subsequent Position: Bowling Green U (tenure-track)
    13 Michael Goldsby "Methodology in Crisis: Modeling in the So-Called 'Sick' Science of Ecology." (Advisor: Elliott Sober) Washington State University (tenure-track)
    14 Casey Helgeson “Diverse Evidence, independent evidence, and Darwin's arguments from anatomy and biogeography” (Advisor: Elliott Sober)
    		Initial Position: LSE (3-year postdoc)

    Subsequent Position: HEC Paris+CNRS (1-year postdoc)

    Subsequent Position: Penn State (Assistant Research Professor)
    15 Peter Nichols "Personal Identity, Wide Reflective Equilibrium, and the Autonomy of the Normative" (Advisor: Alan Sidelle) Adjunct Instructor, University of Saint Thomas (St. Paul, MN)
    16 Regina Schouten “A Family Affair: Political Liberalism and the Gendered Division of Labor” (Advisor: Claudia Card) Initial Position: Illinois State University (tenure-track)

    Subsequent Position: Harvard University (tenure-track)
    17 Bekka Williams “Doing One's Part: Group Obligations and the Obligations of Individuals in Groups”(Advisor: Harry Brighouse) Initial Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas (3-year)

    Subsequent Position: University of Minnesota-Mankato (tenure-track)
  • 2011-2012
    wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
    11 Mohammed Abed “Genocide as a Process of Social Group Destruction” (Advisor: Lester Hunt) Cal State - Los Angeles (tenure-track)
    12 Mark Anderson “Moral Luck and Libertarianism” (Advisor: Keith Yandell) Tarrant County College (tenure-track)
    13 Joshua Filler “Essays on Evolution and Explanation” (Advisor: Elliott Sober) Ripon College (tenure-track)
    14 Tom Frost “The Relativity of Conceivability” (Advisor: Keith Yandell) Long Beach City College (adjunct instructor)
    15 Fred Harrington “The Concept and Grounding of Human Rights” (Advisor: Claudia Card) Edgewood College (Permanent Faculty); declined tenure-track offer in Texas
    16 Shahin Izadi “For Your Own Good: Philosophical Theories of Well-Being and Children” (Advisor: Dan Hausman) Did Not Seek Academic Employment, Filmmaker
    17 David Killoren “Moral Intuitions, Moral Perceptions, and Moral Dilemmas” (Advisor: Russ Shafer-Landau)
    		Initial Position: Coastal Carolina University (3-year postdoc)

    Subsequent Position: Northwestern University (1-year postdoc)

    Subsequent Position: Australian Catholic University (3-yr postdoc)
    18 Matthew Kopec “Norms of Group Rationality: Essays in Social Epistemology” (Advisor: Elliott Sober) Initial Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, UC-Boulder (3 yrs.)

    Subsequent Appointment: Northwestern Univeristy (1-year postdoc)

    Subsequent Appointment: Australian National University (3-year postdoc)
    19 Mark Mitchell "Benevolence and Justice: On the Role of Benevolence in Liberal Political Conceptions of Justice" (Advisor: Lester Hunt) Did Not Seek Academic Employment, Attorney-at-law
    20 Eric Stencil “Cartesian Modality: Possibility and Essence in Descartes and Arnauld” (Advisor: Steve Nadler) Utah Valley University (tenure-track)
  • 2010-2011
    wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
    11 Vivi Atkin "Applying Kant’s Universality Test for the Morality of Actions" (Advisor: Claudia Card) Did Not Seek Academic Employment
    12 John Basl “The Levels of Selection and the Functional Organization of Biotic Communities” (Advisor: Elliott Sober) Initial Position: Bowling Green State University (tenure-track)

    Subsequent Position: Northeastern University (tenure-track)
    13 Mavis Biss “Moral Imagination in an Ethics of Principle” (Advisor: Claudia Card) Loyola University Maryland (tenure-track)
    14 Hallie Liberto “On the Moral and Legal Alienation of Reproductive rights, Sexual rights, and Rights to Bodily Organs” (Advisor: Daniel Hausman) Initial Position: University of Connecticut–Storrs (tenure-track)

    Subsequent Position: University of Maryland (tenure-track)
    15 Emily McRae "Love, Equanimity and the Cultivation of Moral Emotions" (Advisor: Claudia Card) Initial Position: University of Oklahoma (tenure-track)

    Subsequent Position: University of New Mexico (tenure-track)
    16 Shannon Spaulding "In Defense of Mindreading: a Philosophical Perspective on the Psychology and Neuroscience of Social Cognition" (Advisor: Lawrence Shapiro) Initial Position: Washington University, McDonnell Postdoctoral Fellowship in Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology

    Subsequent Position: Oklahoma State University (tenure-track)
  • 2009-2010
    wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
    11 Jaime Ahlberg "Ideal and Nonideal Theory in the Realm of the Political (Advisor: Harry Brighouse) University of Florida (tenure-track)
    12 Matthew Barker "The Philosophy of Species: Conceptual, Metaphysical and Ethical Insights Concerning Biological Species" (Advisor: Elliott Sober) Initial Position: Mt. Allison University (Canada) (tenure-track)

    Subsequent Position: Concordia University (Montreal)(tenure-track)
    13 Donald Moskowitz "Topics in the Philosophy of Mind" (Advisor: Elliot Sober) Did Not Seek Academic Employment
    14 Gregory Mougin "Mental Causation and Screening Off" (Advisor: Elliott Sober) Did Not Seek Academic Employment
    15 Armin Schulz "Evolutionary Theory and the Belief/Desire Model of the Mind"(Advisor: Elliott Sober) Initial Position: London School of Economics (tenure-track)

    Subsequent Position: University of Kansas (tenure-track)
    16 Richard Teng "Goal-Directed Behavior" (Advisor: Daniel Hausman) Did Not Seek Academic Employment
  • 2008-2009
    wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
    11 Paul Anders "Whewellian Science and Christian Theology: On the Possibility of Consilience" (Advisor: Keith Yandell) Initial Position: Edgewood College (temporary lecturer)

    Subsequent Position: Mt. Marty College (tenure-track)
    12 Paul Dunn "Beyond Skepticism and Certainty" (Advisor: Alan Sidelle) Did Not Seek Academic Employment

    Employment: Senior Executive Assistant to the President, Western Washington University
    13 Michael Humiston "Contextualist Semantics Without Contextualist Epistemology" (Advisor: Dennis Stampe) State University of New York–New Paltz (Adjunct Professor)
    14 W. John Koolage "Realism and the Agreement of Independent Measurements" (Advisor: Malcolm Forster) Initial Position: University of British Columbia postdoc (1 year)

    Subsequent Position: Eastern Michigan University (tenure-track)
  • 2007-2008
    wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
    11 Sara Gavrell-Ortiz "Birthing with Dignity" (Advisor: Claudia Card) Initial Position: Associate Admin Program Specialist, UW–Madison Institutional Review Board.

    Subsequent Position: University of Puerto Rico
    12 Daniel Shriro "Secession and the Right to Non-Intervention" (Advisor: Claudia Card) Did Not Seek Academic Employment, Attorney-at-law
    13 Joel Velasco "Philosophy and the Tree of Life The Metaphysics and Epistemology and Phylogenetic Systematics"(Advisor: Elliott Sober) Initial Position: Stanford University postdoc (two years).

    Subsequent Position: Cornell University (one year).

    Subsequent Position: California Institute of Technology postdoc (2 years)

    Subsequent Position: Texas Tech (tenure-track)
    14 Madeleine Arseneault "On What Is Said" (Advisor: Dennis Stampe) State University of New York-New Paltz (tenure-track)
  • 2006-2007
    wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
    11 Joey Baltimore The Argument from Reason and the Problem of Mental Causation (Advisor: Keith Yandell) West Virginia University (tenure-track)
    12 Deborah Mower Leveling Sex Differences in Mindreading (Advisor: Larry Shapiro) Initial Position: Youngstown State University (tenure-track)

    Subsequent Position: University of Mississippi (tenure-track)
    13 Greg Novack Unification and Description-Variance in the Philosophy of Science (Advisor: Elliott Sober) Wayne State University (tenure-track)
    14 Ben Sachs Does Rationality Ever Require Immorality? (Advisor: Russ Shafer-Landau) Initial Position: NIH postdoc (2 years).

    Subsequent Position: Program in Environmental Studies & Center for Bioethics, New York University, Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow (3 years)

    Subsequent Position: St. Andrews (tenure-track)
    15 Matt Ferkany The Nature and Importance of Self-Respect (Advisor: Harry Brighouse) Initial Position: Michigan State Philosophy (2 years)

    Subsequent Position: Michigan State School of Education (3 years)

    Subsequent Position: Michigan State School of Education (tenure-track)
    16 Eugene Marshall Akrasia in Spinoza’s Ethics (Advisor: Steve Nadler) Initial Position: Dartmouth College Visiting Lecturer (2 years).

    Subsequent Position: Wellesley College (tenure-track)
    17 Josh Thurow The A Priori: A Defense via Explanation (Advisor: Keith Yandell) Initial Position: Augustana College Visiting Lecturer (2 years).

    Subsequent Position: Mount Marty College (tenure-track)

    Subsequent Position: University of Texas San Antonio (tenure-track)
    18 Kevin Brosnan Evolutionary Theory and the Autonomy of Ethics (Advisor: Elliot Sober) Initial Position: Cambridge University Postdoc (three years)

    Subsequent Position: Virginia Commonwealth University (rolling horizon)
    19 Pamela Knoll A Reading of Plato’s Lysis (Advisor: Paula Gottlieb) Did Not Seek Academic Employment
    20 James Steadman Moral Responsibility and Its Conditions (Advisor: Dennis Stampe) Did Not Seek Academic Employment
  • 2005-2006
    wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
    11 Vitor Moura In Search for the Wrong Currency: A Theory of Metaphoric Experience (Advisor: Noel Carroll) University of Portugal (tenure-track)
    12 Alan Rubel A Philosophical Account of Privacy (Advisor: Claudia Card) Initial Position: Law Clerk, Wisconsin Supreme Court.

    Subsequent Position: NIH/Johns Hopkins Greenwall Fellowship (2 years).

    Subsequent Position: U.W.-Madison, School of Library Studies and Legal Studies (tenure-track)
    13 Aaron Smuts Laughing at Art: Humor, Art and Morality (Advisor: Noel Carroll) Initial Position: Temple University Visiting Assistant Professor.

    Subsequent Position: Rhode Island College (tenure-track)
  • 2004-2005
    wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
    11 John Fields Perception, Testimony, and the Argument from Religious Experience (Advisor: KeithYandell) Initial Position: Edgewood College (tenure-track)

    Subsequent Position: Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Edgewood College
    12 Ken Hochstetter Modality, Reductionism, and Material Adequacy: A Rejection of Reductionism (Advisor: KeithYandell) College of Southern Nevada
    13 Rimas Uzgiris Desire, Meaning, and Virtue: The Socratic Account of Poetry (Advisor: Terry Penner) St. John’s University (long term contract)
  • 2003-2004
    wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
    11 Sara Chant Composite Action (Advisor: Dennis Stampe) Initial Position: Florida State University (tenure-track).

    Subsequent Position: University of Missouri–Columbia (tenure-track)
    12 Laura McAlinden Leibniz on Constant Creation and Divine Concurrence (Advisor: Steven Nadler) Bridgewater State College (Massachusetts) (tenure-track)
    13 Dale Murray Nozickian Libertarianism and A Positive Right to Health Care (Advisor: Harry Brighouse) Initial Position: Virginia Commonwealth University Visiting Lecturer

    Subsequent Position: Xavier University, Louisiana (tenure-track)

    Subsequent Position: Joint appointment UW-Baraboo/Sauk County and UW-Richland (tenure-track).
    14 Laura Osinski Guaranteeing Equal Financial Opportunity for Political Participation: How Ideal Theory Informs the Debate over Campaign Finance Reform (Advisor: Andrew Levine) Madison Area Technical College (tenure-track)
    15 Fatih Ozturk The Indispensability of Internalism in Epistemology (Advisor: Alan Sidelle) Pamukkale University (tenure-track)
    16 Stephen Schmid Indeterminacy in Reductive Color Theories (Advisor: Lawrence Shapiro) UW–Rock County (tenure-track)
    17 Andrea Veltman Transcendence, Creativity, and Futility: Labor and Work in the Ethics of Simone de Beauvoir (Advisor: Claudia Card) Initial Position: York University (2 years).

    Subsequent Position: James Madison University (tenure-track)
  • 2002-2003
    wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
    6 Mehmet Elgin Laws in the Special Sciences: A Comparative Study of Biological Generalizations (Advisor: Elliott Sober) Mugla University (Turkey) (tenure-track)
    7 Zachary Ernst Evolutionary Game Theory and the Origins of Fairness Norms (Advisor: Elliott Sober) Initial Position: Florida State University (tenure-track).

    Subsequent Position: University of Missouri-Columbia (tenure-track)
    8 Eric Wolf Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (Advisor: Malcolm Foster) Carleton College (Minnesota)
    9 Jerry Yang An Essay on Self-Awareness (Advisor: Dennis Stampe) Taipei University of Technology (tenure-track)
  • 2001-2002
    wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
    1 Randy Blumenstein Zoning, Spillovers, and Harm (Advisor: Dan Hausman) Did Not Seek Academic Employment, Attorney at Law
    7 David Concepcion Individual Moral Responsibility and Luck (Advisor: Claudia Card) Ball State University (tenure-track)
    8 Noel Hendrickson The Contingency of Choice: Developing and Defending a New Method and Theory in the Philosophy of Freedom and Action (Advisor: Keith Yandell) Information Analysis Program, James Madison University (tenure-track)
    9 Stan Kaufman Enforcement and the Existence of a Legal System: A Study in the Concept of Law (Advisor: Lester Hunt) Did Not Seek Academic Employment, Attorney at Law
    10 Joonsung Kim Probabilistic Causality: In Defense of the Unanimity Theory (Advisor: Ellery Eells) Myongji University Korea (tenure-track)
    11 Sheila Lintott On the Performative Interpretation of Nature: A New Model of Nature Appreciation (Advisor: Noel Carroll) Bucknell University (tenure-track)
    12 Kate Norlock A Feminist Ethics of Forgiveness (Advisor: Claudia Card) St. Mary’s College of Maryland (tenure-track)
    13 Will Seaman Indeterministic Explanation: Visited, and Again, Revisited (Advisor: Ellery Eells) Did Not Seek Academic Employment
    14 Naomi Shiraishi Direct Reference Theory and Modes of Presentation (Advisor: Alan Sidelle) Public Health Services Specialist, UW–Madison Library
    15 Charles Starkey Emotion, Moral Perception, and Character (Advisor: Lester Hunt) Initial Position: Washington University postdoc.

    Subsequent Position: Clemson University (tenure-track)
  • 2000-2001
    wdt_ID Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
    1 Brian Brost Toward a Theory of Linguistic Knowledge (Advisor: Alan Sidelle) Central Missouri State University (tenure-track)
    3 Matthew Davidson Propositions, Proper Names, and Indexicals: A Neo-Fregean Approach (Advisor: Alan Sidelle) California State University–San Bernandino (tenure-track)
    7 Tracy Edwards Public Policy as a Matter of Principle: An Examination into Expression that Subordinates and Silences (Advisor: Claudia Card) North Carolina–Chapel Hill
    8 Branden Fitelson Studies in Bayesian Confirmation Theory (Advisor: Malcolm Forster) Initial Position: Acting Assistant Professor, Stanford University.

    Subsequent Position: San Jose State University (tenure-track).

    Subsequent Position: UC-Berkeley (tenure-track)

    Subsequent Position: Rutgers University (tenure-track)
    9 Todd Hughes Qualism (Advisor: Berent Enc) Did Not Seek Academic Employment, Software Industry (ontologist)
    10 Stephan Johnson Content, Naturalism, and Normativity (Advisor: Alan Sidelle) College of San Francisco (tenure-track)
    11 Sungsu Kim Mental Causation: The Causal Efficacy of Content (Advisor: Berent Enc) Texas Tech (tenure-track)
    12 Ron Sandler Spinoza’s Ethical Theory (Advisor: Steven Nadler) Northeastern Univ. (tenure-track)
    13 Laura Sizer A Theory of Moods and Their Place in our Science of Mind (Advisor: Larry Shapiro) Hampshire College (tenure-track)
  • 1999-2000
    wdt_ID First Name Last Name Dissertation Title & Advisor Placement
    1 Noel Adams Kierkeggard’s Conception of the Eternal in his Works (Advisor: KeithYandell) Marquette University (tenure-track)
    2 Gordon Barnes Modal Inquiry: An Epistemological Study (Advisor: Alan Sidelle) Initial Position: University of St. Thomas (tenure-track).

    Subsequent Position: SUNY at Brockport (tenure-track)
    3 Monica Cowart The Connection Between Embodied Cognition and Cognitive Complexity (Advisor: Malcolm Forster) Merrimack College (tenure-track)
    4 Jeff Jones History, Civic Education, and Liberal Democracy (Advisor: Harry Brighouse) Initial Position: University of Massachusetts-Boston (tenure-track).

    Subsequent Position: Lewis & Clark Law School (tenure-track)
    5 Dean Kowalski Conditionals of Freedom as Bivalent: A Defense of Middle Knowledge (Advisor: Keith Yandell) UW–Waukesha (tenure-track)
    6 Chris Stephens Why Be Rational? Prudence, Rational Belief, and Evolution (Advisor: Elliott Sober) University of British Columbia (tenure-track)