you can watch me ON the brain scoop >

Because of my education and work experience, I specialize in the philosophies of biology, chemistry, medicine, and paleontology. I am also interested in certain issues at the intersection of science, policy, and values.  So, I do work in biomedical ethics, environmental ethics, and research ethics as well.

Altogether, I have written rather widely—on topics such as animal ethics, archaic DNA, avian origins, chemical classification, classroom philanthropy, climate science and policy, homology, human reproductive cloning, inductive risk, junk DNA, macroevolution, natural kinds, natural selection, the new mechanistic philosophy, nuclear receptors, phosphoinositide signaling, replication in research, video games, and voucher specimen collection.

As a researcher and scholar, I have performed an extended ethnography of the laboratory—but also countless tail clips, PCRs, and Western blots.

My work has been published in Bioethics, Biology & Philosophy, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, The Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Nature, Perspectives on Science, Philosophy of Science, Public Affairs Quarterly, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, Synthese, and Systematic Biology (among other venues).  I am an editor at Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology.

I have a BA in the Philosophy of Life Science from UC San Diego, an MA (awarded with honors) from San Diego State, and a PhD in Philosophy and Science Studies from (again) UC San Diego.

My BA was an individual major awarded by Revelle College and supervised by Jay Odenbaugh and Steven Shapin.  My master's thesis is titled Biological Individuality and the Unit of Selection, and the work was supervised by Mark Wheeler (chair), Thomas Weston, and Brian H. Spitzberg.  My PhD dissertation is titled Biochemical Kinds and Selective Naturalism, and the work was supervised by William Bechtel (chair), Nancy Cartwright, Craig Callender, Cathy Gere, and James Griesemer.

After my postdoctoral work at the Field Museum, I spent five years working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. In 2020, I joined the University of Utah as an Associate Professor of Philosophy (with tenure).

I am lead of the Research Ethics Consult (REC) service at "the U" and I deliver training in the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) to graduate students working in science throughout the institution. I am trained and certified as a Multiparty Conflict Mediator, as well as an Ombuds—and I serve in that capacity for my primary professional society, the Philosophy of Science Association.