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Starting in the Fall of 2020, I will be an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at East Tennessee State University. In the Spring of 2021, I will be a Fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. Currently, I am a Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I have also taught at Cornell University, the University of Missouri, and Emory & Henry College. I earned my Ph.D. in Philosophy from Cornell University back in 2016.

I work on ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. My main project right now examines the physics and metaphysics of the Hellenistic Stoics. The Stoics were physicalists, panentheists, and metaphysical foundationalists. I try to work out exactly how they combined those views. Here's a problem: we don't have any complete, original Stoic treatises. So I also defend a "functionalist" interpretive methodology for sorting out the secondhand sources that report the Stoics' views. I also have interests in Stoic philosophy as a whole, Platonic psychology and metaphysics, and Aristotle's mereology and hylomorphism.

I am originally from a rural area in the Appalachian Mountains in Southwest Virginia. After bouncing around the country for a few years, I finished my undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia. I maintain several interests outside of the philosophy world. For example, I try to keep up with film, music, and literature. Some of my favorites include Southern Gothic lit, recent Americana and old country music, and 1980's grindhouse films. I also follow and play basketball regularly. The dog pictured above is named Dave. We're pals.