I am invested in the promotion of historically marginalized groups in and through academia. During my time in academic philosophy, I have developed several outreach, mentoring, and advocacy projects designed to support the professional growth and equality of women and gender and ethnic minorities. Here are some examples beginning with the least recent.
Outreach teaching and mentoring projects
During my time teaching for New York University’s outreach program in Spring 2016, I founded a “Philosophy Cafe” at New York City’s Lower Eastside Girls Club. This was a space for preteen girls from low-income families to gain exposure to philosophy. Each session of the Café began with a new, accessible topic in ethics, epistemology, or metaphysics, such as “what do we know for sure?” and “what was there before the universe began?”. I aimed to show the Café’s young participants that they too already think philosophically and that philosophy is neither owned by men nor the ivory tower. My hope was that our discussions would give them confidence to see themselves as budding philosophical thinkers and to envision themselves in the field.
Similarly, in Spring 2020 I was one of the founding members of the Princeton philosophy department’s outreach program. The purpose of this program is to introduce middle and high school students from low income backgrounds to philosophical thought.
Further, in Fall 2021 I co-organized Princeton’s Compass workshop. Compass is a two-day workshop designed to bolster the participation of people of color in academic philosophy. Students belonging to underrepresented groups from around the country are invited to engage in two days of philosophical discussion and networking with one another and our selected mentors. Our faculty and graduate student mentors run advice sessions like, “How to apply to graduate school,” and “How to be a professional philosopher.” You can read more about Compass here.
Also in Fall 2021 I co-taught feminist philosophy to men incarcerated at Garden State Correctional, a prison in Burlington County, New Jersey (co-taught with Haley Brennan). Our teaching goals for the course were first to offer our students the analytical tools for reconstructing complex arguments and defending their own philosophical positions. Second, we expected students to develop a strong grasp of the major topics and controversies in recent analytic feminist philosophy. Furthermore, I hoped to get the students energized about women’s issues.
Advocacy Projects
During my masters program in Spring 2018 I was president of the Oxford University student women’s campaign. My role was in part dedicated to ensuring that students receive the university resources necessary for managing any gender-specific issues that arise during the course of their studies. For example, in this role I along with others successfully petitioned the university to fund the travel of Irish students seeking to return home to vote in the country’s historic referendum on abortion.
In Fall 2021 I was a “University Administrative Fellow” (UAF) at Princeton. This fellowship enables graduate students to undertake service-oriented projects at the university falling outside their research field. Specifically, I worked at the Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship (ProCES). Princeton’s ProCES office is dedicated to making service to local and global communities a core part of the Princeton curriculum. It works in conjunction with faculty members across the university to design their syllabi in ways that integrate outreach and service work into the course requirements.You can read more about ProCES here.
In Spring 2022-Spring 2023 I completed a second University Administrative Fellowship. I undertook preliminary research for a study with Professor Joy Marcus (Princeton’s Keller Center) that intended to track the amount of funding that women business leaders receive for new ventures relative to their gender counterparts. We thereby hoped to fill an information gap around the extent to which women business leaders are given the tools necessary for launching successful companies.