I’m currently the department chair and the Yasser El-Sayed Professor in the Philosophy Department at Rice. Though being chair has taken a bit of my time over the past few years, I’m excited about the work we’re doing in the department and the school of humanities. I encourage you to take a look!

Although I have interests across the board and have published in a number of fields, the majority of my work has been on issues surrounding consciousness, subjectivity and the metaphysics of mind. My most recent book, Self-Knowledge and the Elusive Subject (Oxford University Press, 2023) attempts to explain how we can have cogito-level self-awareness despite the fact that we do not directly perceive the subject of experience. Before that, Consciousness and the Limits of Objectivity (OUP, 2013) developed a version of subjective physicalism according to which everything is physical but some physical states cannot be fully grasped unless they are occupied in a certain way. 

My research work is currently focused in a couple of areas. First, I am interested in continuing my investigation into the nature of subjectivity by looking into the nature of the self. I’m currently inclined to think that conscious states require us to posit a more robust subject of experience than is often countenanced. Second, I am interested in the philosophy and ethics of technology. It is clear that our technological projects—from social media to artificial intelligence—are leaping ahead of our careful thought about their impacts. I’m convinced philosophy has an important role in correcting some of the mistakes we have made and in helping us avoid potentially devastating pitfalls in the future. My particular work in this area tends to focus on the impact on us–how use of AI can augment or vitiate our intellectual and moral virtues.