philosopher
About
“
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves, / as though we were drowning inside our hearts, / as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul
—Pablo Neruda
01 education
I am currently a Ph.D. student at CU Boulder and I have a B.A. in Philosophy (2015) from Pepperdine University, where I was also a Great Books student. I am an alumna of the Rutgers Institute for Diversity in Philosophy and the UCSD Program for Women in Philosophy.
02 research
My research specializations are epistemology and ethics. Much of my graduate work is on adjudicating competing theories of rational belief. I am interested in both traditional & social epistemology, and current projects involve the ethics of belief, epistemic
normativity, epistemic circularity, evidentialism & new pragmatism, holism in the theory of reasons, permissivism & underdetermination, testimonial deference, explainable AI, and the use of statistical information in public policy & legal decision-making. My interests in ethics include effective altruism, moral demandingness, ethics & information technology, and AI ethics (especially explainability and AI4SG).
03 teaching
I have teaching experience in symbolic logic, philosophy & the sciences, ethics & information technology, critical thinking, and introduction to philosophy. Additionally, I have a robust background in mentorship and inclusive pedagogy, and I was one of 11 TAs to win a university-wide award for teaching excellence.
04 service
As part of an interdisciplinary team of faculty and graduate students, I work with The Life You Can Save to educate people about effective charitable giving. As a chapter leader of Minorities and Philosophy (MAP), I organize diversity & inclusion initiatives, and I founded and run an undergraduate mentorship program for underrepresented philosophy students. For five years, I was an English tutor and academic mentor with Paper Airplanes, an e-learning nonprofit that mitigates the education gap for students affected by war. Before graduate school, I completed a year of national service with AmeriCorps VISTA working in poverty alleviation at a refugee resettlement field office. Prior to that, I worked at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance in LA and I interned at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Center in Jerusalem through a program to develop global leaders. I also have volunteer experience in homelessness, environmental fieldwork, and juvenile justice.
04 personal details
I come from a Native American community in Northern California where I was raised by my grandma. I was a first-gen student and got into philosophy through economics. When I'm not doing philosophy or volunteering, I love to read, watch films and foreign detective shows, play tennis, listen to music, and spend time in coffee shops. Here are some of my favorites in no particular order:
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Books: The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, Middlemarch by George Eliot, Howards End by E.M. Forster, Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, Inferno by Dante, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
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Films: Cold War, An Education, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Whiplash, About Time, Wings of Desire, Call Me by Your Name, Drive My Car
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Detective shows: Shetland, Endeavour, The Bridge, My Name, Bordertown, Deadwind, The Valhalla Murders, Giri/Haji, The Good Detective, and Collateral
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Music: Benjamin Clementine, Leon Bridges, Max Richter, Rachel Portman, Sudan Archives, Seinabo Sey, Future Islands, and James Newton Howard
Bixby Bridge in Big Sur 2020
Hike to Sky Pond in Rocky Mountain National Park 2021
Scene from Wings of Desire (1987)
“
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?
and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.
—from Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke