PhD Students
Miriam Ambrosino
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University; Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Certificate, 2021-
Lilly Graduate Fellow at Valparaiso University 2021-2024
M.A., NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study, 2021
B.A, Philosophy and Bioethics, Fordham University, 2017
Areas of interest: Classical and Contemporary phenomenology; Existentialism; Feminist Philosophy; Pragmatism (especially the work of William James); Philosophy of Emotions; Affect-theory; Embodiment/ body memory; Contemporary French Philosophy; Philosophy of Mystical Experience; the later philosophy of Foucault, especially his writings on the cares of the self; Philosophy of Medicine; Trauma Studies; Social and Political Philosophy; Philosophy and Literature
Juan Pablo Arteaga
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2020-
JD, Los Andes University Law School, 2010-2014
MA, Philosophy, Los Andes University, 2011-2012
BA, Philosophy, Los Andes University (Bogotá, Colombia) 2006-2009
Areas of interest: Political philosophy, ethics, and French contemporary philosophy.
He worked as a lawyer at the Office of the Colombian Attorney General and at the Colombian
Special Jurisdiction for Peace.
Selected publications
“Beyond Sovereignty: Democracy to Come and Voyoucracy”. Philosophy Today (accepted: August 2023; forthcoming: winter 2025).
Toward an Ethics in the Era of Biopower: Resistances in Michel Foucault’s Thought. Bogotá: Los Andes University Press, 2019. https://books.google.com/books/about/Hacia_una_%C3%A9tica_en_la_era_del_biopoder.html?id=qCrKDwAAQBAJ
Michael Barr
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2023-
MA, Philosophy & the Arts, Stony Brook University 2021-2022
MA, English, University of Buffalo, 2018-2019
BA, English, Ohio Wesleyan University, 2018
Areas of interest: Artificial-General Intelligence, Philosophy of Mathematics, Early Analytic Philosophy, History of Continental Philosophy, Continental-Analytic Divide, Zermelo-Fraenkel Set Theory, Psychoanalysis, Comparative Literature, The Pittsburgh Hegelians, Existential Risk.
Maxaie Belmont
Ph.D., Stony Brook University, 2023 -
M.A., Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center, 2022-2023
M.A., Liberal Studies, CUNY Graduate Center, 2019-2022
B.S., Marketing, Saint John's University, 2011-2016
Areas of interest: Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Race.
Dr. W. Burghardt Fellow. Research focuses on play theory and the pragmatic tradition. Concerned with how play theory explains the function of beliefs on one hand, and culture, specifically cultural formation, expression, and relations, on the other.
Guillermo Camacho
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2020-
BA, Philosophy, Northern Arizona University, 2020
Areas of interest: Ancient Greek Philosophy (Esp. Plato and Aristotle), German Idealism (Esp. Kant), and Phenomenology.
Maggie Castor
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2019-
MA, Ethics and Applied Philosophy, UNC-Charlotte, 2017-2019
MLIS, Library and Information Studies, University of British Columbia, 2013-2015
BA, Philosophy, Elon University, 2008-2012
Areas of interest: I am interested in understanding white settler temporalities and how such temporalities contribute to ongoing anti-black and settler colonial violence. I am also interested in generative temporal interventions that have the potential to disrupt and unsettle white settler colonial ways of being and knowing.
Sondra Charbadze
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2022-
BA, Brigham Young University, 2011-2018
Areas of Interest: Phenomenology of religion, environmental philosophy, and exploring the way narratives and mythologies shape interior and exterior cultures.
William Conway
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2022-
MA, Philosophy, Duquesne University, 2020-2022
BA, Political Science, Lynn University, 2015-2019
Areas of Interest: Foucault, biopolitics, philosophy and history of disability, Hobbes, Deleuze, crip theory, Agamben, Benjamin, autonomia, subjectivation, desubjectivation, queer theory, political ontology, anarchy
James Corrigan
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University
MA, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2009
BA, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2005, Summa Cum Laude with Department Honors
Areas of Interest: Consciousness, Metaphysics, Pre-Socratic Greek Philosophy, Contemplative Traditions and Augmented Intelligence (AI), Phenomenology of Advanced Meditation Events and Spiritual Awakenings, Philosophy of Nature, Environmental Philosophy and Ethics, Animal Ethics.
My work is focused on a novel paradigm for understanding ourselves and our world, which is called Responsive Naturing. The genesis of this paradigm developed out a phenomenological study of my lifelong meditative practice using a singular technique called Great Responsiveness Meditation, which I also write about.
Devon Coutts
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University 2018 -
MA, Philosophy, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 2017 - 2018
MA, Popular Culture, Brock University, 2016 - 2017
MA, Philosophy, Brock University, 2015 - 2016
BA, University of King’s College 2011-2015
Areas of Interest: Environmental Philosophy and Ethics, Animal Ethics, Philosophy of Technology, Philosophy of Nature, Philosophical Anthropology
Charles Driker-Ohren
PhD, Stony Brook University, 2018-
BA, Hampshire College, 2012-2016
Areas of Interest: Phenomenology, Contemporary French and German philosophy, Kant and 19th century German philosophy, psychoanalysis, Jewish philosophy.
I conduct research at the intersection of ethics, time, and memory, with a special focus on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. My dissertation project explores the ethical dimension of our experience of the past and how we respond to past atrocities through the pursuit of justice in the present.
Andrew Dobbyn
PhD, Stony Brook University, 2014-
MA, Philosophy, University of New Mexico, 2011- 2013
BA, Political Science, American University, 2006-2010
Areas of Interest: I work in Social/Political Philosophy, German Idealism, Pragmatism, and Psychoanalysis. I’m especially interested in the intersection between economics and philosophy. My research clusters around questions of value, recognition, and power, but always within a materialist context.
Gino Elia
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2020-
MAT, Secondary Education (Mathematics), Piedmont College, 2016–2017
BS, Philosophy and Physics, Emory University, 2012–2016
Areas of interest: pragmatism (William James and John Dewey), neopragmatism, philosophy of science, scientific epistemology, phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty and Husserl), existentialism
Adam Fishman
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2018-
BA, College of Letters, Wesleyan University, 2005-2009
Areas of Interest: Phenomenology in general and phenomenological psychopathology in particular; (philosophy of) cognitive science; consciousness; intelligence; mood; embodiment; Nietzsche
Before coming to Stony Brook, I spent several years studying, researching, and teaching psychology, focusing particularly on psychopathology and cognition. Accordingly, nearly all of the regions of most intense intellectual interest to me can be located somewhere within the intersection of philosophy and psychology.
Alexander Forsberg
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2018-
BA, Philosophy, University of New Mexico, Summa Cum Laude, 2015-2016
(Previous undergraduate work at University of Nevada, Las Vegas)
Areas of Interest: Phenomenology (esp. the early tradition); Hermeneutic Philosophy (esp. Phenomenological Hermeneutics); German Idealism; Intellectual traditions of Japan (esp. those pertaining to Zen Buddhism); Ancient Greek Philosophy (esp. Plato and Neoplatonism); Political Philosophy (esp. 20th Century); Philosophy of History; Philosophy of Religion
I have become particularly interested in excavating the influence of Kantian and Post-Kantian German philosophy on the early Phenomenological tradition, as well as distilling the latter’s influence on subsequent European thought. I am also becoming increasingly convinced of the unique capacity of Phenomenology to sustain particularly fruitful dialogues with non-Western intellectual traditions, dialogues which have already been immensely impactful on my own philosophical formation. With all of this, I hope to discern the potential depths and limitations of phenomenological inquiry and, along the way, to refine (and to undermine) conventional distinctions drawn between political, aesthetic and religious experience.
Jake Hook
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2019–
MA, Philosophy, Loyola Marymount University, 2017 - 2019
BA, Philosophy, University of California, Los Angeles, 2012-2014
Areas of interest: Indigenous philosophies of the Americas, Marxism, epistemology, mysticism, environmental philosophy, mental illness and philosophy, non-philosophy
The common themes that unite my academic work are a) an interest in the creative philosophical practices of people who are not able or otherwise inclined to practice philosophy in an academic setting, and b) philosophy’s outermost limits, in the vein of works by Derrida, Deleuze, and Laruelle.
Alexander Hufford
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2022–
MA, Classics, University of Wales, Trinity St. David, 2020-2022
BA, History, University of Virginia, 2006-2009
Areas of Interest: Hegel, Marxism and the Frankfurt school, Neo-Platonism
Baxter Jephcott
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2018-
MA (Master 2), Economics, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2015-2016
MA (Master 1 & 2), Philosophy, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2014-2016
BA, Philosophy, University of Warwick, 2010-2013
My dissertation is about the relationship between metaphysics and science in the works of Alfred N. Whitehead and Gilbert Simondon. In it I explore the way in which their philosophies of becoming harness 19th and 20th century scientific developments in order formulate a critique of subjectivism in modern philosophy, and lay the foundation for a renewal of speculative metaphysics.
Delicia Kamins
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2016-
MA, Philosophy, San Francisco State University, 2013-2016
MA, Broadcast and Electronic Communications, San Francisco State University, 1997-1999
BA, French; International Relations, University of California, Davis, 1987-1992
Areas of interest: German Idealism, Phenomenology and Existentialism – particularly Hegel and Heidegger; Metaphysics, Ontology and Epistemology; Consciousness and the Mind-body Problem; Bioethics and Physics/Quantum Mechanics.
My research focuses on the relation between motion and epistemic possibilities, particularly as viewed from Aristotle's and Hegel's philosophic systems, as well as explanations offered by quantum mechanics.
Mahdi Malik
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2021-
MA, Philosophy, Birkbeck, University of London 2018-2020
MSc, Cognitive and Decision Sciences, UCL 2013-2014
BA, Philosophy and Theology, University of Oxford, 2009-2012
Areas of interest: Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Idealism, metaphysics, post-analytic philosophy and Nietzsche.
Giada Mangiameli
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2016-
MA (or Maîtrise), French Literature, Université de Paris VIII, 2006
BA, Philosophy, Università di Roma La Sapienza, 2005
Areas of interest: Philosophy and Literature, Aesthetics, Poetics, French Theory, Derrida, Cavell, Deleuze, Arendt, Benjamin.
Horacio Martinez
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2017-
MA, Philosophy, Boston College, 2015-2017
BA, Philosophy, Marquette University, 2011-2015
Area of interest: 19th and 20th century German Philosophy, Neo-Kantianism, Phenomenology (esp. Husserl), Heidegger, Philosophy of Science, Kierkegaard, Philosophy of Race, Philosophy of History, History of Philosophy, Hegel.
Currently interested in the transcendental constitution of all human experience.
Tara Mastrelli
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2023-
MA, Philosophy, New School for Social Research, 2023
Certificate, Gender & Sexuality Studies, New School for Social Research, 2022
BS, Journalism (Minors in Business and Classics), University of Florida, 2000
Areas of Interest: Social and political philosophy, feminism, critical epistemology, pragmatism, and phenomenology.
Broadly speaking, I am interested in examining the ways in which lived experience can make visible structures of meaning, and how this understanding can shape our actions in the world. Specifically, my research is concerned with questions of social visibility, the limits of deliberative democracy, and the interaction between the social imagination and identity formation.
Willow Mindich
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2019-
MA, Humanities, University of Colorado Denver, 2017-2019
BA, Philosophy, Colorado College, 2012-2016
Areas of Interest: Social Epistemology, Hermeneutics, Social and Political Philosophy, Philosophy of History, Memory Studies, Genealogy, Politics and Ontology.
My recent research has explored the epistemic limitations of memory, both autobiographical and social; reconstructive memory and historical revisionism; misinformation and misrepresentation; the social and political consequences of epistemic manipulation in public discourse, especially as they pertain to the imbalanced portrayals of victimhood in public discourse; the qualifications of victimhood in public discourse; ontological hierarchies of victimhood; differential grievability; the epistemic, political, ethical and ontologically restorative capacities of equally-distributed public mourning.
Anna Moentmann
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2016-
MA, Political Theory, Goethe University Frankfurt & TU Darmstadt, 2013-2016
BA, Politics and International Studies, University of Exeter, 2010-2013
Areas of interest: the intersection of metaphysics and epistemology, feminism, postcolonial theory, Aristotle, medieval philosophy
Eleanor Morrison
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2022-
BA, Philosophy, SUNY Purchase, 2017 - 2021
Areas of interest: Ancient Greek thought and 20th century continental philosophy. Especially Plato, tragedy, phenomenology, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, feminism, and political theory.
Asad Naqvi
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2017-
MA, Philosophy, Boston College, 2009-2013
BA, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2004-2009
Areas of interest: Intersections of ontology and epistemology, aesthetics, phenomenology, philosophy of the emotions, philosophy of nature, science, biology, and physics. History of philosophy, pragmatism, feminism, deconstruction, and genealogy. Questions regarding perception, style, expression, technology, race, power, animality, geography, and the idea of place. Education theory and youth development organizations. Painting, poetry, and sculpture.
Doğa Öner
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2019-
BA, Philosophy, Vassar College, 2015-2019
Areas of interest: Marx, Hegel, Critical Theory, Marcuse, Philosophy of Race, Feminism, Philosophy of History and Philosophy of Art
William Perez-Porras
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2023-
MA, Philosophy, University of Costa Rica, 2020
BA, Philosophy, University of Costa Rica, 2015
BS, Construction Engineering, Costa Rican Institute of Technology, 2012
Areas of interest: Philosophy of technics and technology, Philosophy of Nature, Philosophy of Images, Visual Studies and Continental Philosophy.
Before coming to Stony Brook, I worked as both a philosophy and physics instructor in my home country. In my master's thesis on Husserl's image consciousness notion, I conducted research on the intersection of phenomenology and visual studies. Now I am interested in Simondon's work, particularly in his philosophy of technology qua continuation of an individuation theory.
Ali Pharaa
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2014-
MA, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2012-2014
MA, Political Science, New York University, 2012-2013
MS, International Relations Theory, London School of Economics. 2011
BA, Computer Science, Economics, and International Affairs,
University of Colorado at Boulder, 2010
Areas of interest: Revolutionary movements and international law. Sufism and Islamic Philosophy (Ibn Arabi, Henry Corbin, Mulla Sadra). Phenomenology of aesthetics, imagination, and emotions (Bergson, Husserl, Collingwood, and Merleau-Ponty...), ontology of beauty (Heidegger, Gadamer, Dietrich von Hildebrand), neuroscience of emotions, logic and computer science, Spinozian ethics, and ethics from an aesthetic perspective (Schiller, Nietzsche, Nancy).
West Poindexter
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2020 -
MA, Philosophy, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Cum Laude, 2019 – 2020
BA, Philosophy, University of West Georgia, 2014 – 2018
BS, Psychology, University of West Georgia, 2009 - 2010, 2014 – 2018
Areas of Interest: Broadly constructed, my interests are experience and relation. This finds expression
in questions of intra/interpersonal relations with a general focus on the relation
between the individual and the community, the self and the other(s).
Viviane Ribeiro
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2023 -
PhD, Theory of State and Constitutional Law (PUC-Rio), 2015-2019
MA, Theory of State and Constitutional Law (PUC-Rio), 2012- 2014
MA, History (FGV-CPDOC), 2012-2014
BA, Law (PUC-Rio), 2006-2011
Areas of Interest: Political philosophy, the history of philosophy, Baruch Spinoza and contemporary Spinoza
scholars, early modern philosophy, and materialism.
Emila Russo
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2019 -
MA, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2010-2012
BA, Philosophy, St. John's University, 2005-2010
Areas of Interest: Phenomenology (Husserl, Scheler, and Merleau-Ponty), Foucault, Nietzsche, Ancient Philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Stoicism, Epicureanism), historicity and affect, queer theory, virtue ethics
The question that brought me to philosophy was: “How have we come to be who we are?” I am interested in phenomenology, critical theory, and ethical theories as attempts at answering this question which vary in the emphasis they place on affective and cognitive drives, history, and freedom. Fundamentally, I think they all concern the same subject and have much to learn from their respective methods and findings. I hope to work at the intersection of these modes of philosophizing, to discover novel ways of synthesizing them.
Mohsen Saber
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2019-
PhD, Philosophy, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 2018-2019
MA, Philosophy, University of Tehran, 2013-2016
B.Sc, Civil Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, 2008-2013
Areas of Interest: Phenomenology, metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism, Husserl, Kant, Avicenna.
Damion Scott
PhD, Philosophy, SUNY Stony Brook, 2016-
MA, African-American Studies, Columbia University, 2016-2018
MA, Philosophy, University of London, Birkbeck College, 1999-2001
BA, Philosophy, New York University, 1993-1998
Areas of Interest: History of Modern Philosophy, Aesthetics, Metaphysics, Africana Philosophy, Japanese Philosophy, Pragmatism, Phenomenology, Philosophy of Psychiatry, Martin Delany, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche
Jonathan Sinnreich
PhD., Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2017-
J.D., University of Virginia, 1974
B.A., Liberal Arts, St. John’s College, 1968
Practicing Attorney: 1974 – 2016
Areas of interest: Plato; materialism (Epicureanism); meta-ethics, 19th century American Philosophy; and the intersection of philosophy and literature.
My dissertation asserts that Walt Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself” (1855) should be read as a deliberate work of exclusively American ontological, ethical and political philosophy, rejecting Emerson’s idealism, and adopting instead a radical materialism and egalitarianism highly influenced by Epicurean philosophy, particularly Lucretius’ didactic Epicurean poem, De Rerum Natura, and the Epicurean novel written by the early American radical feminist and abolitionist, Fanny Wright, entitled Three Days in Athens (1819).
"Men and women and the earth and all upon it are simply to be taken as they are….for the eternal tendencies of all towards happiness make the only point of sane philosophy.” Walt Whitman, Preface to 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass.
Stephanie Struble
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2018 -
MA, Philosophy and Aesthetics, Stony Brook University, 2015-2018
BA, Philosophy (Minor: Literature), Pacific University, Forest Grove, OR, 2008-2012
Areas of Interest: History of Philosophy: Hegel, Marx, Psychoanalysis, Frankfurt School, Hans Jonas; Aesthetics, Japanese Philosophy (esp. the Kyoto School), Phenomenology, relational ontology, moral emotion, CARE and responsibility, environmental philosophy, and animals.
The problems that interest me as a philosopher primarily focus on the Other: who the other is, how we relate to them, and what that entails.
James Wheeler
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2018-
MA, Philosophy, The New School for Social Research, 2014-2017
BA, Philosophy, University of New Mexico, 2009-2013
Areas of Interest: Phenomenology, embodiment, nature and ecology, philosophy of biology, animals, philosophy of disability, philosophy of technology, materialism.
Hojung You
PhD, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, 2021-
MA, Philosophy , Yonsei University , 2018-2021
BA, Comparative Literature and Culture, Yonsei University , 2014-2018
Areas of Interest: Kant, 19th and 20th Century German Philosophy, History of Philosophy (esp. Modern Philosophy), History of Political and Economic Thought