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Awards and Achievements

Faculty

Larry BonJour’s second edition of his book, Epistemology: Classic Problems and Contemporary Responses was published by Rowman and Littlefield.

Ken Clatterbaugh was awarded the Joff Hanauer Honors Professorship in Western Civilization for 2010-12.

Stephen Gardiner coedited Climate Ethics: Essential Readings (Oxford), with Simon Caney, Dale Jamieson, and Henry Shue which was published in summer 2010.

Sara Goering is coediting (with Wylie Burke, Kelly Edwards, and Suzanne Holland) a book on justice issues related to the translation (or lack thereof) between genetic discoveries and treatment of disease. The book is tentatively titled, Making Good on the Promise of Genetics: The Challenge of Justice in Translation.

Lauren Hartzell has been enjoying the first year of her post doc at the University of Washington. She has submitted three articles for publication, is collaborating with Steve Gardiner on a chapter on intergenerational risk for an upcoming collection on risk theory, and is working on her first book titled, Precautionary Principles: Catastrophes and Climate Change. This fall she will be participating in a workshop on ethics of geoengineering in Montana.

Carole Lee will be speaking on “Empirical Research on the Normative Functioning of Peer Review” for a symposium that she helped organize on “Improving Peer Review in the Sciences” at the Philosophy of Science Association meeting in Montreal, Canada (November 4-6, 2010).

Adam Moore put the final touches on his latest book, Privacy Rights: Moral and Legal Foundations (Penn State University Press) which was published in  August of 2010. In this manuscript, Moore offers a definition and defense of individual privacy rights, an account of how these rights should be codified in the law, and an application of the proposed theory to drug testing, computer security, and public accountability.

Michael Rosenthal published an article on “Spinoza’s Philosophy of Religion” in The History of Western Philosophy of Religion (Oxford, 2009). He coedited a volume, Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise:  A Critical Guide, which will be published by Cambridge ater this year. He presented papers in Germany, at Stanford, and at Princeton on themes in twentieth century Jewish philosophy. He will be on sabbatical this coming year and hopes to complete his book on Spinoza.

Bill Talbott has been invited to participate in the Cluster of Excellence on “Normative Orders” at the University of Frankfurt in the spring of 2011. He will give  public lectures and will participate in various workshops during his stay. He will be working on his new book-length project “What is Moral Progress? How is it Possible?” Bill’s newest book, Human Rights and Human Well-Being will be published by Oxford University Press in October 2010.

Alison Wylie has just been made Vice President of the Pacific division of the APA. For six months of 2010, Alison served as Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor (Anthropology) where she was busy working on a project on “Material Culture as Evidence” with colleague Bob Chapman. These two also ran a series of joint seminars and a workshop that took detailed case studies as the basis for addressing key questions about what counts as evidence; what counts as robust, cogent evidential reasoning and how standards of evidence change; and how new methods of data recovery and analysis enter archaeology and (sometimes) transform research practice. In addition, Alison delivered several different public lectures (at Durham, Sheffield, Southampton, Cambridge, The Institute of Archaeology in London, and Reading) on the subject of archaeological evidence.

Graduate Students

Monica Aufrecht is teaching at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, for a one-year (2010-2011) visiting lecturer position.

Brandon Morgan-Olsen was awarded the Queen's Postdoctoral Fellowship in Democracy and Diversity at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. His paper “Conceptual Exclusion and Public Reason” was just published in the journal, Philosophy of Social Science.

Jason Benchimol was awarded a Graduate School Dissertation Fellowship for 2010-2011; the College of Arts and Sciences Elizabeth Kerr Macfarlane Scholarship for 2010-2011, and the Philosophy’s Annual departmental Graduate Student Teaching Award for 2009-2010!

Jeremy Fischer was awarded the Philosophy Department’s Dissertation Fellowship for 2010-2011.

Rachel Fredericks was awarded the Joff Hanauer Graduate Student Fellowship for 2009-2010.

Benjamin Hole presented his paper “Do Mirror Neurons Support Simulation-Based, Low-Level Mind-Reading?” at the Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference on Consciousness (IGCC) in Boston (Boston University) and at the Cognitive Science and the Humanities Conference in Providence, RI (Brown University). This paper was also awarded the “Best Paper Award” by the Cognitive Science Society (CSS) for the IGCC.

Elizabeth Scarbrough was awarded the Philosophy Department’s Graduate Student Teaching Award for 2009-2010, and Joff Hanauer Graduate Student Fellowship for 2010-2011.

Undergraduate Students

Julia Abelev received a research scholarship from the Mary Gates Endowment and was awarded the Philosophy Department’s Outstanding Graduating Senior Award.

Kelsey Gipe was named Outstanding Continuing Scholar by the Philosophy Department.

Aditya Ganapathiraju, a double major in philosophy and psychology was awarded the College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Medal in the Social Sciences! The department is grateful to Aditya for speaking about the value of studying philosophy at our annual graduation reception. He was also very active in student organizations including writing for the UW Daily, and serving on both the Student Senate and the ASUW Disability Commission.

Michael Langdon was awarded the Philosophy Department’s Outstanding Graduating Senior Award. He, along with Colin Scott did a great job working as our writing center tutors this past year!

Suzanne Tran and Christoph Doellefeld deserve a special thank you for organizing and leading our new major’s seminar this past year. Thank you Suzanne and Christoph!

Kenneth R. Parker Award

Briana Wilson is this year’s recipient of the Kenneth R. Parker Award in Community Service. This award was established by one of our 2006 graduates. The award is given to the philosophy student who blends their

studies in philosophy with a volunteer-based community project. Briana has a history of volunteering, which includes working at Children’s Hospital and Harbor-view Medical Center. For this scholarship, Briana wrote about her work at the Seattle Animal Shelter. “By working at the shelter, I have learned that being selfless in life gives back something greater, a love for the world around you.” Briana received a $500 scholarship from the award and a donation will be made to the Seattle Animal Shelter by the Parker family.

Congratulations B.A. Recipients

The Department is pleased to announce that 85 undergraduates earned philosophy degrees during the 2009-2010 academic year. In addition, one student completed the History and Philosophy of Science major. Congratulations go to each and every one of these students!