Ph.D. Students
Ritt Culbreth
BA Wake Forest University, Philosophy and Politics & International Affairs
Interests: Philosophy of Law, Political and Social Philosophy, Ethics, Applied Ethics, History of Philosophy
Email: wrc40@georgetown.edu
Ritt joined the department in the Fall of 2025. He grew up in Harrisonburg, VA, and did his undergraduate at Wake Forest University, where he studied Philosophy and Politics & International Affairs. His interests are in philosophy of law, ethics, and political and social philosophy.
Jacob Farris
BA Penn State University, Philosophy, MA Florida State University, Philosophy
Interests: Ethics, Epistemology, Action Theory, Ancient Greek Philosophy
Email: jf1768@georgetown.edu
Jacob joined Georgetown’s philosophy PhD program in the Fall of 2025. His primary interests are in metaethics, moral psychology, and virtue ethics, and his current research focuses on practical wisdom. Jacob is looking forward to making new friends and exploring DC.
MaryKate Gaurke (nee Brueck)
BA Loyola University Chicago
Interests: Ethics, Bioethics, Phenomenology
Email: mab474@georgetown.edu
MaryKate joined the Philosophy Department in the Fall of 2017. She works primarily in bioethics, with a focus on end-of-life care, and is currently developing a dissertation concerning care for patients with dementia that draws insights from the intersection of bioethics and phenomenology. Outside of her philosophical work, MaryKate enjoys traveling, playing intramural sports, and quality time with her peekapoo, Nyxie.
Mariana Gomez
BA California State University, Fullerton
Interests: Critical Phenomenology, Decolonial Indigenous Thought, Women of Color Feminisms, Existentialism
Email: mg2002@georgetown.edu
Mariana joined Georgetown’s philosophy doctoral program in the fall of 2021. She was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and completed her B.A. in philosophy at California State University, Fullerton. She is currently writing a dissertation on decolonization within the context of settler colonialism in the United States and how critical phenomenology may aid various settler identities and subjectivities. Besides her philosophical interests, Mariana enjoys working with prison abolition activist groups in California, traveling to Mexico City to visit her family, and watching movies with her niece, Marissa.
Cassius Hou
BA American University, MA American University
Email: ch1493@georgetown.edu
Cassius joined the doctoral program in 2024. Their research interests include feminist philosophy, moral psychology, social ontology, bioethics, the concept of expertise, and the philosophy of disability. They are particularly interested in exploring how we construct ourselves in relation to others and how language constrains our understanding of who we are.
Bella-Rose Kelly
BS Scranton University, MA Boston College
Interests: Critical Phenomenology, Settler Colonial Studies, Philosophy of Disability
Email: bgk29@georgetown.edu
Bella-Rose started the doctoral program in the fall of 2023. Her research interests include critical phenomenology, settler colonial studies, and philosophy of disability. In her spare time, Bella-Rose enjoys hiking, camping, plants, and cats.
Matthew Koshak
BA Louisiana State University, MA Tufts University, Philosophy
Interests: Philosophy of Disability, Ethics, Jewish Philosophy
Email: mk2176@georgetown.edu
Matthew is interested in the philosophy of disability (especially cognitive disability), ethics and its various histories, and Jewish philosophy. In particular, he is interested in questions surrounding moral communities—what constitutes a moral community, how the boundaries of moral communities are drawn, and which strategies of thought can help us to create more inclusive moral communities.
Before beginning at Georgetown, he received his MA in philosophy from Tufts University and his BA in philosophy and political science from Louisiana State University. He enjoys exploring used bookstores, listening to new music, hiking, and walking (often while listening to music, but rarely while reading!).
Shahriar Khosravi
MA Texas Tech University
Interests: Ethics & Politics, Poetry, Iran
Email: sk2343@georgetown.edu
Website: https://www.shahriarkhosravi.com/
Philipp Kremers
BA University of Leipzig, MLitt St Andrews and Stirling Graduate Program in Philosophy, MSt University of Oxford, MA Georgetown University
Interests: Social and Political Philosophy, Epistemology, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Technology, Philosophy of Religion
Email: pk691@georgetown.edu
Philipp joined the doctoral program in 2019. His research interests include social and political philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of technology, and philosophy of religion. Before coming to Georgetown, he completed an MSt in Philosophical Theology at the University of Oxford and an MLitt in Philosophy at the Universities of St Andrews and Stirling. Philipp hails from the German North Sea coast.
S.P. Leeds
BA Tulane University, MA Tulane University
Interests: Philosophy of Disability, Critical Phenomenology, Pragmatics
Email: spl56@georgetown.edu
S.P. started the doctoral program in the fall of 2020. Their research interests include ethics, social and political philosophy, feminist philosophy, philosophy of language, phenomenology, and philosophical issues concerning oppression, disability, gender, sexuality, race, and technology.
S.P. is the Managing Editor of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal (KIEJ). They also co-organize the DIScourse—an ongoing, virtual philosophy and disability workshop—with Sara Purinton (UPenn), in partnership with the Society for Philosophy and Disability (SPD). Previously, S.P. worked as the Managing Editor of the Journal of Philosophy of Disability (JPD) from 2021–2023 and they were the first graduate student to complete the Georgetown Disability Studies MA/PhD Certificate in 2022.
In their (very little) spare time, S.P. enjoys practicing photography, making art, hiking, gardening, cooking with their partner, and playing fetch with their dog.
Madeleine Léger
BA Mount Allison University
Interests: Epistemology, Philosophy of Language, Feminist Philosophy
Email: mjl325@georgetown.edu
Madeleine is from New Brunswick, Canada. She started the Ph.D. program at Georgetown in August 2021. Her philosophical interests include epistemology, philosophy of language, and feminist philosophy. Madeleine is happiest when she gets to frolic among saltwater marshes, cliffy coasts, and rolling hills. She enjoys cooking (especially for friends), gardening (especially for food), and collecting second-hand books (especially dictionaries). Finally, and perhaps most importantly: Madeleine is honored to share her life with Simone, a truly excellent cat (and philosofeline).
Penney Miyan
BA Stony Brook University, MA Georgetown University, Philosophy, MS Tufts University School of Medicine, Biomedical Sciences
Interests: Philosophy of Mind, Phenomenology, and Bioethics
Email: pm1154@georgetown.edu
Penney is a third-year MD/PhD Candidate in Bioethics (Philosophy). She is interested in using phenomenology as a tool to understand perceptual recognition and learning in aesthetic experiences; namely those related to beauty and ugliness. She also has interests in physician-patient norms and the ethics of cosmetic surgery. When not philosophizing, Penney enjoys reading, being an EMT with her hometown fire department, live music, and going to SolidCore.
Henry Olree
BA Dickinson College, MA Northern Illinois University, Philosophy
Email: ho188@georgetown.edu
From Montgomery, Alabama, Henry joined Georgetown’s philosophy Ph.D. program in the Fall of 2024. His philosophical interests reside mainly in technology ethics, philosophy of religion, epistemology, and metaphilosophy. In his free time, Henry enjoys video games, music performance, exploring DC, and spending time with friends.
Will Perrin
BA Pepperdine University, MA Northern Illinois University, Philosophy
Interests: Epistemology, Metaethics, Philosophy of Language, Ethics, and Philosophy of Religion
Email: wtp14@georgetown.edu
Will, hailing from the coastal ranges of Southern California, is a first-year doctoral student interested in what to do and how we know. Those slippery evaluative words like ‘ought’ and ‘rational’ at play in our deliberative lives are particularly interesting to Will. But Will is also broadly interested in most philosophical topics he has come upon so far. Will enjoys, aside from philosophy, sports, humor, and music.
Alex Raycroft
BA Calvin College
Interests: Virtue Ethics, Feminist Philosophy
Email: ar1734@georgetown.edu
Alex began her studies at Georgetown in the fall of 2021. She’s interested in how it is we might flourish under conditions of oppression and injustice and is hopeful about the help of creative reparative practices (like storytelling and listening) and moral community in doing so! Though Alex never quite gets outside of philosophy, she does enjoy doing philosophy outside (and while ballet-dancing (quite badly), crafting, and reading Russian literature).
Christopher A. Torres
BS University of Notre Dame, MA Columbia University, Philosophy
Interests: Moral, Political, and Legal Philosophy
Email: cat139@georgetown.edu
Chris began his doctoral studies in philosophy at Georgetown in August 2020. He is interested in the relationship between facts and values, the (methodology for identifying) constituents of well-being, the viability of public reason as a means of political justification, the relationship between law and practical rationality, and the way that judges (should) reason in deciding hard cases. In addition to philosophy, Chris enjoys salsa dancing, surfing, and martial arts.
Chun Hin (Jeffrey) Tsoi
BA Chinese University of Hong Kong, Philosophy
Interests: Philosophy of Law, Political Philosophy, Normative Ethics, Metaethics
Email: ct794@georgetown.edu
Jeffrey Tsoi is a Ph.D. candidate. Also a Georgetown Law J.D. graduate, he studies issues of contemporary American jurisprudence, specifically how democratic values should both inform the judicial interpretation of statutes and constitutions in America and transform the political institutions we now have.
A. Abbiw Watson
BA Dickinson College, Philosophy; MA Georgetown University, Philosophy
Interests: Philosophy of Race, Political Philosophy, Ethics, Social Epistemology
Email: aw1089@georgetown.edu
Aramias (Ari) Watson is a Ph.D. candidate researching the persistence of anti-Black racism in the United States. His work focuses explicitly on anti-Black violence, approaching it as an ethical issue that necessitates engagement with various branches of philosophy, including political philosophy, philosophy of law, and social epistemology. Aramias aims to produce research that not only advances academic scholarship on the nature of political antagonisms but also contributes to the eradication of anti-Black racism.
YF Xu
BA College of Wooster, MA University of Chicago, Humanities
Interests: Philosophy of the Mind and Cognitive Science, Hermeneutics, Social Epistemology
Email: yx331@georgetown.edu
YF is from Shanghai, China, and joined the department in the fall of 2022. YF’s philosophical passion was born of a wish to articulate everything into a unified system. They have become aware that the establishment of such a system might neither be theoretically realizable nor practically important. What concerns YF now is how to bring effective disruptions to ideologies and meanwhile stay positive and active in life.
Outside of academics, YF is a culinary enthusiast who has served food to many people as well as won some competitions. You may also very likely find them working out at the gym or playing ball games.
Winson Zhou
BA University of Chicago, Physics & Philosophy, MA University of Chicago, Humanities
Interests: Epistemology, logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, the history of philosophy, Buddhist thoughts, Eastern philosophy
Email: wz336@georgetown.edu
After 2 years spent in industry, Winson went back to academia and joined Georgetown’s philosophy Ph.D. program in the Fall of 2025. His philosophical interests revolve around epistemology and logic, unified by a focus on metaepistemological questions concerning the foundations of knowledge-yielding methodologies and their relationship to philosophical practice. Additionally, he aspires to explore comparative approaches to metaphilosophy through incorporating insights from non-Western philosophical traditions. Apart from philosophy, Winson cooks delicious food for his family everyday. He is also a great fan of Japanese anime and “soulslike” games.