Mentoring

Alan McLuckie in graduation cap and gown.

Alan McLuckie

I am currently serving as the Managing Editor for the Journal of the History of Philosophy, presently housed at the University of Alberta, where I earned both my B.A. and M.A. in philosophy. After completing my Ph.D. in philosophy at Stanford University, I was fortunate enough to be awarded the Izaak Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowship under Rob’s supervision. While my philosophical interests have tended to be historical (my M.A. thesis was on Nietzsche, my dissertation on Kant, and I completed the Joint Program in Ancient Philosophy at Stanford), those interests have always been informed by the way the texts have helped me to navigate my own experiences and existential questions (or crises, as it were). Collaborating with Rob et al. on the Living Archives on Eugenics program provided me the opportunity to connect my historical interests with more urgent, practical matters. In terms of research, Rob’s interdisciplinary approach has helped me make questions I work on in Kant’s ethics relevant to pressing social and political issues surrounding, e.g., eugenic thinking. In terms of teaching, my experiences with the Eugenics Archive project has been an invaluable resource in helping me to engage students in a way that gets them excited about philosophical questions relevant to their own discipline and lives.

Anco Peeters

Anco Peeters
Bart Lenart on a train.

Bart Lenart

The critical engagement with ideas and the rigorous analysis involved in philosophical thinking has served me well in my continuing adventures through academia. I’m currently the Research and Learning Librarian for Philosophy and Education at the University of Calgary, and find that a PhD in philosophy has been a great asset; philosophy opened many intellectual doors for me since there is always a need for a philosophical perspective. While I continue to engage with traditional philosophical problems as part of my scholarly duties at the UofC, I’ve also discovered a wide range of interesting issues and research topics, which benefit from the kind of philosophical rigour that only training in philosophy can provide. Rob’s enthusiasm for interdisciplinary inquiry has not only shaped the direction of my dissertation work, but also my current scholarly interests and pursuits!

Ben McMahen

Ben McMahen with folder arms and white t-shirt.
Emma Peng Chen smiling

Emma Peng Chien

I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Scholar in Philosophy at National Tsing Hua University (2019-) in my native Taiwan. My research focuses on philosophical issues in autism, especially emotions, self-awareness, and first-person narratives. I completed my Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Alberta in Canada. Before that, I finished a B.Sc. in Biology and a M.A. in philosophy, and was a M.Sc. student in both Neuroscience and Cognitive Neuroscience at National Yang-Ming University in Taiwan. I studied with Rob for more than six years, from 2010 to 2017. Rob was my mentor when I entered the PhD program at UofA, and later became my dissertation supervisor. On top of that, my time at UofA overlapped with Rob’s Living Archives project and his endeavor in Philosophy for Children, both of which had influenced my philosophical approach. The Philosophy for Children’s interactive and engaging style became the backbone of my teaching at UofA. Having the chance to take part in the Living Archives project, I started to reflect upon the socio-political impacts of the philosophical issues in mind and science that I was originally interested in. This line of thinking fueled the framework of my dissertation “Beyond Cognition: Philosophical Issues in Autism,” in which I discussed issues in other minds, emotions, narratives, the self, and interconnected socio-political issues in autism. Feel free to take a look of my dissertation, esp. its acknowledgement, to learn more about my experience of working with Rob.

Gabriella (Biella) Coleman

Biella Coleman in black and white.

Gabriella (Biella) Coleman is a full professor in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University and is a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Her scholarship and teaching address questions of science, technology and medicine, with a focus on the politics, cultures, and ethics of hacking. She is the author of two books on computer hackers and the founder and editor of Hack_Curio, a video portal into the cultures of hacking. In 2022, she hosted the BBC4 radio and podcast series, The Hackers. She formerly held the Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy at McGill University, after completing a Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Alberta under Rob’s supervision.

George Theiner at a lecturn

George Theiner

James Bachmann

James Bachmann

I completed my PhD in philosophy at the University of Alberta, where I specialized in philosophy of mind and appreciated Rob’s flexible style as my supervisor. As I transition to a career in librarianship, I continue to find philosophy highly relevant. Perhaps more than any other discipline, philosophy improves critical thinking skills, which allow for greater insight in all areas of professional and personal life. I have been enjoying finding more and more ways to apply these skills in the library context, most recently with a focus on applied ethics.

Jorge Mendonca Junior teaching

Jorge Piaia Mendonca Junior

I’m from Brazil and my background is in philosophy. In my PhD, I’m focusing on issues related to the problem of altruism in biology. Rob has been a great adviser. I think he will be crucial for my goal of getting rich and famous in a quick and easy way, which is what brought me to philosophy.

Joshua St. Pierre

Josh St. Pierre

Philosophy has given me invaluable tools for life. I am currently an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Alberta and I specialize in critical disability studies at the intersection of contemporary political theory. I am interested in the ways that ableist norms of communication foreclose political spaces and how an attention to disability can widen our conceptions of political action and belonging. Philosophy has taught me to think carefully and critically about the world—to be humble at the limits of knowledge. But perhaps more importantly, I’ve become committed to the idea that philosophy is meant to be put into practice and to be useful for society.

Kaz Bland

Karen Bland

I love philosophy! I discovered it when I was a 30-something-year-old hospo-working undergrad at UNSW, Sydney and now am a late 40-something PhD graduate from The University of Adelaide. Over the years I have taught casually at UNSW, UofA and La Trobe University and now hold my first ‘real’ job as a lecturer and philosophy for children (p4c) practitioner at the University of Western Australia – thanks to Rob!!! I see philosophy as very practical – a method of thinking carefully and critically about ethical issues. I also value it as an educational tool for the exploration of ideas and engagement with contemporary problems for people of all ages. I look forward to working with Rob and developing a p4c school holiday program akin to Eurekamp (which I worked with him on in Canada), here in WA. By our powers combined, philosophy will take over the world.

Kenneth Bond

Cartoon of Ken Bond.
Lucia Neco against a flowered background.

Lucia Neco

Luke Kersten

Luke Kersten with beard and in a suit.
Matt Barker with glasses in black and white.

Matt Barker

Nicolas J. Bullot

Nicolas Bullot against a black background
Peter Asaro with beard and glasses.

Peter Asaro

Rosemary Renton

Rosemary Renton with glasses.

After completing my MA with Rob at Queen’s, I became a teacher and a librarian in Barrie, Ontario. I’d tell you more, but after reading Shashy’s bio, I just Kant.

Ruadhan Flynn in black and white with folded arms.

Ruadhán J. Flynn

I am currently a guest researcher in the Unit of Human-Animal Ethics at the Messerli Research Institute (Vienna), prae-doc within the research group The Limits of Imagination: Animals, Empathy Anthropomorphism (University of Innsbruck), and PhD candidate in the Vienna Doctoral School of Philosophy (University of Vienna). For my PhD project, “Whose Standpoint Matters? Cognitive Disability, Knowledge and Community”, I am co-supervised by Prof. Martin Kusch (University of Vienna) and Prof. Rob Wilson. My PhD project builds on (and was partly inspired by) concerns that Rob raised in The Eugenic Mind Project (2017) about feminist standpoint epistemology in the context of cognitively disabled people and their communities. My research and teaching currently combine critical disability studies and feminist epistemology with both theoretical and empirical work on dehumanisation and eugenics – a direction that shows the influence of both Rob’s own work and that of the Eugenics Archive project as a whole. My research is also directed by fifteen years of experience working in community arts programs, social organisation, and disabled communities before starting my BA as a mature student. As a profession Philosophy can be pretty weird, but as a method it can be useful in service of social justice work within and for marginalised communities. https://ruadhanjflynn.com

Shashy Dass

Shashy Dass and his sister.

I started my studies really knowing Foucault about philosophy, but I soon figured out my Engel. Not wanting to put Descartes before the horse, I completed my MA with Rob at Queen’s before I dropped my Kierkegaard and became a computer programmer. Married to Rosemary, (also one of Rob’s graduates), and dad to Noah and Sophie. Do I Socratease them with bad jokes? Don’t even get me Sartred!


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