Education
Ph.D. Tulane University (2009)
M.A. California Institute of Integral Studies
B.A. University of Vermont/Albert-Ludwigs Universität, Freiburg
Biography
Academic Interests:
- Continental Philosophy (Heidegger)
- Eastern Philosophy (Buddhism)
- Comparative Philosophy
- Applied Philosophy
- Environmental Ethics
Awards:
- Murphy Institute Dissertation Fellowship
- Freie Universität Berlin Exchange Fellowship
- Mortar Board Award for Outstanding Teaching
- Omicron Delta Kappa Award for Leadership
- Phi Beta Kappa Award for Scholarship
Current Research:
- Heidegger & Personal Transformation
- Analytic & Phenomenological Approaches to Emptiness in Buddhism
Presentations:
- "Sense Pleasures and Conditional Happiness in Theravada Buddhism," American Philosophical Association Central Division Meeting (2013).
- "Heidegger, Ambiguity, and Context," 21st Century Heidegger International Conference, University College Dublin, Ireland (2010).
- "Buddhism and Environmental Ethics," Religion and Environment Panel at the Focus the Nation Conference, New Orleans (2008).
- "Buddhist Ethics and Just War Theory: On whether war can be justified from within Buddhist ethical systems," Annual Conference of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, Asilomar (2004).
- "Mental Synthesis in Hume, Kant, and Theravada Buddhism: On whether the theory of mind moments found in Theravadan sources such as the Abhidhammatha-Sangaha is susceptible to the same critique of mental synthesis that Kant applied to Hume," Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy Panel, American Academy of Religion Meeting, Denver (2001).
- "Jhanasis: Meditation and Creation. Momentary noetic cosmogenesis, Genesis 1-4, and the Aggañña Sutta in light of the phenomenology of meditation as it is detailed in the Pali Canon," 4th Intl. Research Conference of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, University of Missouri-Columbia (2000).
- "Postmodernism and Environmental Ethics: Deconstruction is a Double-Edged Sword," (with Michael Zimmerman) at Tulane's Interdisciplinary Scholars Network lecture series "The Local and the Global" (1999).
- "On The Locus of Meaning: Disembodied Phenomenology, Embodied Phenomenology, and Existential Neurobiology," at the CIIS Philosophy and Religion Graduate Student Roundtable (1998).