I got my PhD in 2021 at UT Austin, where I worked with Josh Dever and Mark Sainsbury. My dissertation was about communication and rationality. Before that I studied philosophy at Stony Brook University (BA) and the University of Edinburgh (MSc). Before coming to King's in 2025 I had postdocs at Washington University in St. Louis (2021-2022), the University of Sheffield (2022-2025) and the University of Vienna (2025). At Sheffield I had a 3-year Leverhulme Trust early career fellowship; my project was about rational changes in preference and desire.

Research interests

• Philosophy of mind (esp. motivation, desire, mental representation)
• Philosophy of language (esp. pragmatics, speech act theory, communication)
• Epistemology (esp. rationality, learning, formal epistemology)

Currently I'm interested in issues about the nature of attitude change, and especially the distinction between rational learning and other forms of mental change. Another focus of my research is on how we represent our own mental states, particularly desires, and how these representations influence both self-regulation and social interaction. I am also interested in the role that innate cognitive mechanisms play in structuring scientific inquiry and other kinds of social activity.

Teaching

My teaching interests are extremely varied. I have designed and taught courses in the philosophy of language, formal pragmatics, formal logic, the philosophy of desire and addiction, applied ethics, ancient philosophy, and paradoxes. 

Selected publications

• 'Genericity and inductive inference'. Philosophy of Science.
• 'How to make people do things with words'. Noûs. (with Shaun Nichols)
• 'Default domain restriction possibilities'. Semantics and Pragmatics. (with Kate Ritchie)
• 'What's your opinion? Negation and 'weak' attitude verbs'. Philosophical Quarterly.