BU Philosophy has a strong placement record and works hard to place students in academic jobs even in this difficult job market. According to an analysis organized by Jonathan Weisberg (Toronto) using Academic Placement Data, Boston University’s Philosophy department ranks #8 among philosophy programs for the percentage of Ph.D. who obtain permanent academic positions.
Our dedicated Director of Graduate Placement, Michaela McSweeney, works one-on-one with our graduate students progressing towards the job placement phase and offers a collaborative, supportive Graduate Placement Seminar each semester. Our students develop and critique each others’ materials, practice interviewing, and learn about different job markets (e.g. international, teaching-focused, and more). The records below are maintained to celebrate the incredible placements our graduate students have achieved in the past, and function as a networking infrastructure for current graduate students to benefit from.
If you have questions, or if you are a BU alumnus of our doctoral program and would like to share an update on your job placement, please contact our DGP, Michaela McSweeney, at m3@bu.edu.
2023
Zara Amdur
Beginning Fall 2023: Assistant Professor of the Practice, Texas Tech University
Federica Bocchi
Beginning Fall 2023: Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Copenhagen
Cansu Hepcaglayan
Beginning Fall 2023: Assistant Professor, Thomas Jefferson University
James Kinkaid
Beginning Fall 2023: Assistant Professor, Bilkent University
Jordan Kokot
Beginning Fall 2023: Visiting Assistant Professor, Brandeis University
Rebeccah Leiby
Beginning Fall 2023: Assistant Professor, Elon University.
Previous Positions: Lecturer and Hoffberger Ethics Fellow, University of Baltimore
Joshua Lo
Beginning Fall 2023: Tutor, Thomas Aquinas University
Ben Roth
Beginning Fall 2023: Assistant Professor, Emerson College
Erin Seeba
Beginning Fall 2023: Visiting Lecturer, Trinity College
Joel Van Fossen
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Hosei University
Aja Watkins
Beginning Fall 2023: Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison
2022
Zachary Joachim
Current Position: Assistant Professor (tenure track), Denison University
Previous Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Denison University
Dissertation: An Unbridled Search for Logic: Four Studies of Husserl’s Logical Investigations (1900–01)
Rebeccah Leiby
Current Position: Lecturer, University of Baltimore
Previous Position: Hoffberger Ethics Fellow, University of Baltimore
Dissertation: Towards a Contractualist Theory of Transitional Justice
Getty Lustila
Current Position: Assistant Teaching Professor, Northeastern University
Previous Position: Visiting Lecturer, Instructor, Northeastern University, Clemente Course for the Humanities; Teaching Postdoctoral Fellowship, Stonehill College
Dissertation: The Problem of Partiality in 18th Century British Moral Philosophy
2021
Brian Julian
Current Position: Tutor, Gutenberg College
Previous Position: Lecturer, Northeastern University, Boston University MET
Dissertation: The Source of Life: Activity, Capacity, and Biology in Aristotle’s Account of Soul
Zachary Joachim
Current Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Denison University
Dissertation: Logic and Real Presence in Husserl’s Phenomenology
Susan Kennedy
Current Position: Assistant Professor (tenure track), Santa Clara University
Previous Position: Postdoctoral Fellowship (Embedded Ethics), Harvard University
Dissertation: Families Matter: From Procreation to Parenthood
Getty Lustila
Current Position: Visiting Lecturer, Instructor, Northeastern University, Clemente Course for the Humanities
Previous Position: Teaching Postdoctoral Fellowship, Stonehill College
Dissertation: The Problem of Partiality in 18th Century British Moral Philosophy
Guy Schuh
Current Position: Assistant Professor, University of Alabama, Honors College
Dissertation: Aristotle on the Impossibility of Pure Altruism
2020
Ian Dunkle
Current Position: Assistant Professor, University of Southern Mississippi (tenure-track)
Previous Position: Lecturer, Boston University, Emerson College, Merrimack College
Dissertation: Nietzsche’s Will to Health
Eric Scarffe
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Florida International University (tenure-track)
Dissertation: Moving Toward a Dignity-Based Approach to International Law
Maité Cruz Tleugabulova
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Union College (tenure-track)
Previous Position: Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Iowa
Dissertation: Hume on Knowledge of the Past
David Jennings
Current Position: Associate Teaching Professor, University of California-Merced.
Previous Position: Lecturer, University of California-Merced; Adjunct Lecturer, Suffolk University.
Dissertation: Friendship as Philosophy in Plato’s Lysis
2019
Kurt Blankschaen
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Daemen College (tenure-track)
Dissertation: Social Identities and Special Obligations
Katherine Valde
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Wofford College (tenure-track)
Dissertation: Philosophical Perspectives on Time in Biology
2018
Joseph Gamache
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Marian University (Indianapolis) (tenure-track)
Dissertation: The Normativity of Truth for the Human Person: A Person-Centric Approach
James Kinkaid
Current Position: Lecturer, Boston University, Boston College
Dissertation: Heidegger’s Science of Being, 1919-1930
Anandita Mukherji
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Regis University (Denver) (tenure-track)
Dissertation: Assessing Responsibility: Global Poverty Alleviation as a Duty not to Harm
Valerie Williams
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Emmanuel College (tenure-track)
Previous Position: Instructor, Weber State University
Dissertation: Motherhood and the Education of Future Subjects in Hobbes, Locke, and Wollstonecraft
2017
I-Kai Jeng
Current Position: Assistant Professor, National Taiwan University (tenure-track)
Dissertation: Knowledge and Logos in Plato’s Sophist
Irina Mikhalevich
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology (tenure-track)
Previous Position: McDonnell Postdoctoral Fellow, Washington University in St. Louis
Dissertation: Experiment and Bias: The Case of Parsimony in Comparative Cognition
2016
Stacey Goguen
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Northeastern Illinois University (tenure-track)
Dissertation: Stereotype Threat, Epistemic Agency, and Self-Identity
Mary Catherine McDonald
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Old Dominion University (tenure-track)
Previous Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, College of the Holy Cross
Dissertation: Trauma & Adaptation: A Scientifically Informed Phenomenological Account
2015
Ian Blaustein
Current Position: Lecturer, Tufts University
Previous Position: Lecturer, Northeastern University
Dissertation: Conscience, Moral Motivation, and Self-Deception
2014
Maren Behrensen
Current Position: Faculty Member, Linköping University
Dissertation: Justifying Exclusion: Political Membership and the Nation-State
Benjamin Roth
Current Position: Preceptor, Harvard University
Previous Position: Lecturer, Boston University
Dissertation: Narrative, Understanding, and the Self: Heidegger and the Interpretation of the Lived Experience
2013
Brian Marrin
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia (tenure-track)
Dissertation: The Law of Nature in Plato
Mark Pickering
Current Position: Instructor, University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa
Previous Position: Assistant Professor, Lynn University
Dissertation: A Phenomenalist Interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason
2012
Shai Biderman
Current Position: Lecturer, Tel-Aviv University
Dissertation: Philosofilm: Towards a Cinematic Philosophy
Candice Delmas
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Northeastern University (tenure-track)
Previous Position: Assistant Professor, Clemson University
Dissertation: The Duty to Disobey
Andreas Elpidorou
Current Position: Associate Professor, University of Louisville (tenured)
Previous Position: Lecturer, University of Louisville
Dissertation: On Sensible Matters: A Defense of Conceptual Dualis
Sarah Farkas
Current Position: Student Support Specialist, Boston University
Previous Position: Adjunct Instructor, Emmanuel College
Dissertation: Uniting Right and Duty: Hegel’s Critical Appropriation of Kant’s
Hege Finholt
Current Position: Senior Lecturer, University of Oslo
Previous Position: Visiting Researcher, Free University in Brussels
Dissertation: The Sovereign Nation-State: A Reconsideration in Light of European Integration
John Grey
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Michigan State University
Previous Position: Lecturer, Boston University
Dissertation: Spinoza’s Account of Composition
Carolyn Jennings
Current Position: Professor and Chair of Philosophy at University of California, Merced
Previous Position: Post-Doctoral Fellowship, University of Antwerp
Dissertation: Attention, Subject, and World
Karolina Lewestam
Current Position: Lecturer, Warsaw University
Dissertation: The Hare and the Tortoise: Problems with the Notion of Action in Ethics
Monica Link
Current Position: Lecturer, Tufts University
Dissertation: What’s Wrong with the Problem of Moral Luck
2011
Andrew German
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Ben Gurion University (tenure-track)
Previous Position: Lecturer, Tel-Aviv University
Dissertation: Subjectivity as a Philosophical Problem: The Case of Hegel and Plato
David Jennings
Current Position: Lecturer, University of California Merced
Previous Position: Adjunct Lecturer, Suffolk University
Dissertation: Friendship as Philosophy in Plato’s Lysis
John McHugh
Current Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Denison University
Previous Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Colby College
Dissertation: Sympathy, Self, and Society: Smith’s Response to Hume
Matt Meyer
Current Position: Associate Professor, University of Scranton (tenured)
Previous Position: Visiting Lecturer, Brandeis University
Dissertation: Reading Nietzsche through the Ancients: An Analysis of Becoming, Perspectivism, and the Principle of Non-Contradiction
Benjamin Sherman
Current Position: Lecturer, Brandeis University
Previous Position: Adjunct Professor, Northeastern University
Dissertation: Epistemically Responsible Disagreement and the Moral Non-Conformist
Joshua Wood
Current Position: Lecturer, University of California Riverside
Previous Position: Visiting Lecturer, Wellesley College
Dissertation: Hume’s Analysis of Human Agency
2010
Lauren Freeman
Current Position: Professor, University of Louisville (tenured)
Previous Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Duquesne University
Dissertation: Ethical Dimensions in Martin Heidegger’s Early Thinking
Luciana Garbayo
Current Position: Assistant Professor, University of Central Florida (tenure-track)
Previous Position: Assistant Professor, University of Texas at El Paso
Dissertation: Empathy Revisited: Game Theory, Dialogue & Morality
Gal Kober
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Bridgewater State University (tenure-track)
Previous Position: Lecturer, Tufts University
Dissertation: Biology Without Species: A Solution to the Species Problem
Mahon O’Brien
Current Position: Senior Lecturer, University of Sussex (tenured)
Previous Position: Post-Doctoral Fellowship, University College Dublin
Dissertation: Authenticity: From Resolutement to Releasement
Orla Richardson
Current Position: Adjunct Professor, National University of Ireland
Previous Position: Adjunct Lecturer, Bridgewater State University
Dissertation: Success and Reliability: Methodological Issues in Scientific Inquiry
Alessandro Torza
Current Position: Associate Research Fellow, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (tenure-track)
Previous Position: Adjunct Professor, Boston University
Dissertation: Models for Counterparts: A Revisionary Study of the Ontology and Semantics of Modal Logic
2009
Martin Black
Current Position: Part-Time Faculty, Boston College
Previous Position: Adjunct Lecturer, Suffolk University
Dissertation: Socrates on Dialogue, the Forms, and Eros: Plato’s Decision of to Socratic Turn in the Phaedo, Parmenides, and Symposium
Iskra Fileva
Current Position: Assistant Professor, University of Colorado Boulder
Previous Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Michigan Ann Arbor
Dissertation: Behind Action
Keren Gorodeisky
Current Position: Associate Professor, Auburn University (tenured)
Previous Position: Adjunct Professor, Auburn University
Dissertation: The Romantic Structure of Kant’s Conception of the Judgment of Beauty
Anthony Reeves
Current Position: Associate Professor, Binghamton University (tenured)
Dissertation: How Ought Judges Decide? A Moral Theory of Adjudication
Chris Surprenant
Current Position: Associate Professor, University of New Orleans (tenured)
Previous Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Tulane University
Dissertation: Kantian Virtue and Civil Society
2008
Bill Devlin
Current Position: Associate Professor, Bridgewater State University (tenure-track)
Dissertation: Defending the Enterprise: A Theory of Truth for Thomas Kuhn
Jonathan Hansen
Current Position: Senior Lecturer, Harvard University
Previous Position: Adjunct Professor, Cambridge College
Dissertation: Self-Knowledge and the Art of Politics in Plato’s Alcibiades Major
Alice MacLachlan
Current Position: Associate Professor, York University (tenured)
Previous Position: Assistant Professor, York University
Dissertation: The Nature and Limits of Forgiveness
Ingvild Torsen
Current Position: Associate Professor, University of Oslo (tenured)
Previous Position: Assistant Professor, Florida International University
Dissertation: After Aesthetics: Martin Heidegger and the End of Art
Franco Trivigno
Current Position: Professor, University of Oslo (tenure-track)
Previous Position: Assistant Professor, Marquette University
Dissertation: The Philosophical Muse: On Comedy in the Platonic Dialogues
2007
Timothy Brownlee
Current Position: Associate Professor, Xavier University (tenured)
Previous Position: Adjunct Professor, Xavier University
Dissertation: Freedom of Conscience and Subjective Right in Hegel’s Political Philosophy
Silvia Carli
Current Position: Associate Professor, Skidmore College (tenured)
Previous Position: Assistant Professor, Xavier University
Dissertation: Aristotle and the Nature of the ‘Who’
Jamie Kelly
Current Position: Associate Professor, Vasser College (tenure-track)
Dissertation: Cognitive Bias and Democracy: A Behavioral Approach to Normative Democratic Theory
Constantinos Mekios
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Stonehill College (tenure-track)
Previous Position: Adjunct Professor, Stonehill College
Dissertation: Approaching Organisms as Systems: A Critical Study of the Method of ‘Systems Biology’
Regan Penaluna
Current Position: Assistant Professor, St. John’s College
Previous Position: Assistant Professor, Luther College
Dissertation: Women’s Place? Moral Philosophy and Feminist Thought in Astell, Marsham, and Cockburn
Justin Steinberg
Current Position: Associate Professor, Brooklyn College (tenure-track)
Dissertation: Liberty, Action, and the State in Spinoza
Charles Wolfe
Current Position: Fellow: History and Philosophy of Science Unit, University of Sydney
Dissertation: Locating Mind in Causal Work
Tyler Wunder
Current Position: Instructor, Wilfrid Laurier University
Dissertation: Warrant and Religious Epistemology: Critique of Plantinga
2006
Bret Doyle
Current Position: Instructor, Boston University
Previous Position: Visiting Professor, Skidmore College
Dissertation: The Legitimate Fruits of Descartes’ Rules
Barry Gilbert
Current Position: Managing Director, School of Business, Northeastern University
Previous Position: Instructor, Harvard University
Dissertation: The Morality of Knowledge in Nietzsche’s Geneaology
Khalil Habib
Current Position: Associate Professor, Salve Regina University (tenure-track)
Previous Position: Assistant Professor, Salve Regina University
Dissertation: Hobbes’ Science of Politics
Montgomery Link
Current Position: Associate Professor, Suffolk University (tenure-track)
Dissertation: Wittgenstein and Infinity
Edward Richards
Current Position: Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Waterloo
Previous Position: Instructor, University of Tennessee
Dissertation: Is Rotation Absolute? A Historical Examination
Mary Troxell
Current Position: Associate Professor of the Practice of Philosophy, Boston College (tenured)
Dissertation: The Will in Schopenhauer’s System
James Wood
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Xavier University (tenure-track)
Previous Position: Lecturer, Boston University
Dissertation: The Dialectic of Good in Plato’s Philebus
2005
Nir Eisikovits
Current Position: Associate Professor, Suffolk University (tenure-track)
Previous Position: Assistant Professor, Suffolk University
Dissertation: Sympathizing with the Enemy: A Theory of Political Reconciliation
Charles Lowney
Current Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Washington and Lee University
Dissertation: Frege and Wittgenstein on the Distinction Between Language as a Calculus and Language as the Universal Medium
Mark Nyvlt
Current Position: Associate Professor, Dominican University College
Dissertation: Aristotle and Plotinus on the Simplicity of Nous
David Shikiar
Current Position: Adjunct Faculty, Providence College
Dissertation: Being and Substance in Aristotle
2003
Bernard Prusak
Current Position: Professor, King’s College (PA) (tenured)
Dissertation: The Laughing Body: Helmuth Plessner’s Philosophical Anthropology Revisited
2001
Nicolas De Warren
Current Position: Associate Professor, Pennsylvania State University (tenured)