Courses Taught
University of Nebraska, Omaha
Instructor: Human Values in Medicine: Mind and Medicine
I am currently teaching two sections of Human Values in Medicine: Mind and Medicine. This course examines issues at the intersection of medicine and the sciences of the mind brain. Some topics covered this semester include theoretical debates about the nature of health and illness, the role that social values play in defining and diagnosing mental disorders, whether psychiatry is guilty of "overmedicalization," whether addiction is best conceived of as a chronic brain disease, how to navigate informed consent for patients with mental illness, and why medical students experience a decline in empathy during their training.
Washington University in St. Louis, Philosophy & Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology
Instructor: PNP Seminar- Rethinking Psychological Kinds
In the spring of 2018, I taught a new upper level Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology seminar on scientific kinds in psychology and psychiatry. The course examined the nature of the relationship between psychological kinds and neuroscientific ones (reductionism, type identity, etc.), how many kinds of memory there are, whether human emotions such as "anger" or "fear" are natural kinds, and whether the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders (DSM) is an adequate taxonomy of psychiatric disorders,
Instructor: PNP 201- Inquiry in the Cognitive Sciences (Co-taught with Carl Craver)
In Spring 2017, I taught a methods-based introduction to cognitive science with Carl Craver. The goal of the course was to introduce students to the diverse methods that scientists use to study cognition (animal studies, lesion studies, neuroimaging techniques, behavioral techniques, infant gaze studies, etc.), to critique these methods, and to explore philosophical issues raised by these techniques (Can we assume that animals have minds without succumbing to anthropomorphism? Are psychological kinds identical to neural mechanisms? Can work using these techniques collectively produce a unified model of the mind?) Our course included a hands-on laboratory activity using electroencephalography (EEG).
Instructor: PNP Seminar- Philosophical Issues in Brain Imaging
In Fall 2016, I developed and taught an upper-level Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology course called "Philosophical Issues in Brain Imaging." The goal of the course was to examine the philosophical issues raised by neuroimaging research (How do new instruments change the face of science? What can brain scans tell us about psychology? What is the right theoretical vocabulary for describing the functions of brain regions? What are the social and moral implications of neuroimaging research?) and to examine debates in moral psychology and the philosophy of mind where philosophers have used neuroimaging as evidence for or against philosophical theses. I hope that my students became critical consumers of neuroimaging research, and that they see fruitful areas for further research at the intersection of neuroimaging and philosophy.
University of Pittsburgh, History and Philosophy of Science
Instructor: Morality and Medicine
This was a bioethics class in Pitt HPS. Topics covered included ethical issues surrounding: abortion, surrogacy, inequality of access to healthcare, pediatric gender reassignment, assisted suicide, involuntary psychiatric confinement, genetic screening, and organ transplantation. The course emphasized basic approaches to ethics (e.g. deontological versus utilitarian treatments of each issue) and some introductory philosophical methodology (how to think about "slippery slope" arguments, hypothetical reasoning, thought experiments, etc.).
Instructor: Myth and Science
This was an ancient science and philosophy class in Pitt HPS. Topics covered included: Presocratic philosophy and cosmology (Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaximander, Anaxagorus, the atomists, etc.), Hippocratic thought, Plato's scientific "creation myth" (the Timaeus), Aristotelian conceptions of biology and physics (De Anima, Posterior Analytics, De Partibum Animalium), and others. A major theme in the course was the alleged transition from "mythological" modes of thinking to "scientific" modes of thinking, asking, for example, where Empedocles' concept of "strife" is an attempt to capture the somewhat modern idea of an impersonal "force of nature."
Teaching Assistant: Mind and Medicine, Advisor: Edouard Machery
I was a TA for Edouard Machery's Mind and Medicine course, which covered a wide range of topics in the philosophy of medicine (e.g. Boorse, Wakefield, and others on the notions of "disease" and "normality" in medicine), psychiatry (e.g. the anti-psychiatry movement, the "harmful dysfunction" account of mental disorders, whether mental illness is different from somatic illness), and biomedical research (e.g. what makes a good animal model for psychiatric disease?).
Teaching Assistant: The Nature of the Emotions, Advisor: James Lennox
I was a TA for Jim Lennox's Nature of the Emotions course. The course covered both historically-significant theories of the emotions, including Darwin, Dewey, Ekman, Aristotle, Spinoza, James, etc., newer "neurocognitive" theories of emotion (e.g. Damasio), and contemporary analytic treatments of emotion (e.g. Griffiths' and Scarantino's work on natural kinds).
University of Missouri, Department of Biological Sciences
Teaching Assistant: Introduction to Biological Systems Laboratory, Advisor: Richard Daniels
I taught for a semester as a teaching assistant in the University of Missouri's Biology Department. The class was a laboratory class covering topics such as plant and animal physiology, comparative biology, systematics, and microbial biology.
Instructor: Human Values in Medicine: Mind and Medicine
I am currently teaching two sections of Human Values in Medicine: Mind and Medicine. This course examines issues at the intersection of medicine and the sciences of the mind brain. Some topics covered this semester include theoretical debates about the nature of health and illness, the role that social values play in defining and diagnosing mental disorders, whether psychiatry is guilty of "overmedicalization," whether addiction is best conceived of as a chronic brain disease, how to navigate informed consent for patients with mental illness, and why medical students experience a decline in empathy during their training.
Washington University in St. Louis, Philosophy & Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology
Instructor: PNP Seminar- Rethinking Psychological Kinds
In the spring of 2018, I taught a new upper level Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology seminar on scientific kinds in psychology and psychiatry. The course examined the nature of the relationship between psychological kinds and neuroscientific ones (reductionism, type identity, etc.), how many kinds of memory there are, whether human emotions such as "anger" or "fear" are natural kinds, and whether the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders (DSM) is an adequate taxonomy of psychiatric disorders,
Instructor: PNP 201- Inquiry in the Cognitive Sciences (Co-taught with Carl Craver)
In Spring 2017, I taught a methods-based introduction to cognitive science with Carl Craver. The goal of the course was to introduce students to the diverse methods that scientists use to study cognition (animal studies, lesion studies, neuroimaging techniques, behavioral techniques, infant gaze studies, etc.), to critique these methods, and to explore philosophical issues raised by these techniques (Can we assume that animals have minds without succumbing to anthropomorphism? Are psychological kinds identical to neural mechanisms? Can work using these techniques collectively produce a unified model of the mind?) Our course included a hands-on laboratory activity using electroencephalography (EEG).
Instructor: PNP Seminar- Philosophical Issues in Brain Imaging
In Fall 2016, I developed and taught an upper-level Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology course called "Philosophical Issues in Brain Imaging." The goal of the course was to examine the philosophical issues raised by neuroimaging research (How do new instruments change the face of science? What can brain scans tell us about psychology? What is the right theoretical vocabulary for describing the functions of brain regions? What are the social and moral implications of neuroimaging research?) and to examine debates in moral psychology and the philosophy of mind where philosophers have used neuroimaging as evidence for or against philosophical theses. I hope that my students became critical consumers of neuroimaging research, and that they see fruitful areas for further research at the intersection of neuroimaging and philosophy.
University of Pittsburgh, History and Philosophy of Science
Instructor: Morality and Medicine
This was a bioethics class in Pitt HPS. Topics covered included ethical issues surrounding: abortion, surrogacy, inequality of access to healthcare, pediatric gender reassignment, assisted suicide, involuntary psychiatric confinement, genetic screening, and organ transplantation. The course emphasized basic approaches to ethics (e.g. deontological versus utilitarian treatments of each issue) and some introductory philosophical methodology (how to think about "slippery slope" arguments, hypothetical reasoning, thought experiments, etc.).
Instructor: Myth and Science
This was an ancient science and philosophy class in Pitt HPS. Topics covered included: Presocratic philosophy and cosmology (Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaximander, Anaxagorus, the atomists, etc.), Hippocratic thought, Plato's scientific "creation myth" (the Timaeus), Aristotelian conceptions of biology and physics (De Anima, Posterior Analytics, De Partibum Animalium), and others. A major theme in the course was the alleged transition from "mythological" modes of thinking to "scientific" modes of thinking, asking, for example, where Empedocles' concept of "strife" is an attempt to capture the somewhat modern idea of an impersonal "force of nature."
Teaching Assistant: Mind and Medicine, Advisor: Edouard Machery
I was a TA for Edouard Machery's Mind and Medicine course, which covered a wide range of topics in the philosophy of medicine (e.g. Boorse, Wakefield, and others on the notions of "disease" and "normality" in medicine), psychiatry (e.g. the anti-psychiatry movement, the "harmful dysfunction" account of mental disorders, whether mental illness is different from somatic illness), and biomedical research (e.g. what makes a good animal model for psychiatric disease?).
Teaching Assistant: The Nature of the Emotions, Advisor: James Lennox
I was a TA for Jim Lennox's Nature of the Emotions course. The course covered both historically-significant theories of the emotions, including Darwin, Dewey, Ekman, Aristotle, Spinoza, James, etc., newer "neurocognitive" theories of emotion (e.g. Damasio), and contemporary analytic treatments of emotion (e.g. Griffiths' and Scarantino's work on natural kinds).
University of Missouri, Department of Biological Sciences
Teaching Assistant: Introduction to Biological Systems Laboratory, Advisor: Richard Daniels
I taught for a semester as a teaching assistant in the University of Missouri's Biology Department. The class was a laboratory class covering topics such as plant and animal physiology, comparative biology, systematics, and microbial biology.