2026

Se Yong Bae (May)

Dissertation: Emotion and the Conceptual Mind
Advisor: Robbins

2025

Christian Culak (May)

Current Placement: Faculty Instructor, Northwest Vista College
Initial Placement: Instructor, Texas A&M University-San Antonio
Dissertation: The Limits of the Virtue of Compassion
Advisor: Johnson

Arcangelo Quintaneiro (May)

Current Placement: Adjunct Assistant Teaching Professor, MU Center for Health Ethics and the MU's Department of Biomedical Informatics, Biostatistics and Medical Epidemiology
Dissertation: Against Moral Unconditionalism
Advisor: Weirich

Alok Tiwari (July)

Current Placement: Assistant Professor, Concordia University Wisconsin
Initial Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, Concordia University Wisconsin
Dissertation: Morality as Universal Love: Is Love All You Need?
Advisor: Johnson

2024

Fernando Alvear (May)

Current Placement: Teacher, Saint Louis University High School
Initial Placement: Instructor, Missouri Scholars Academy
Dissertation: Virtue Reliabilism and Epistemic Environments
Advisor: Boyce

Sukhvinder Shahi (December)

Current Placement: Visiting Researcher, University of Arizona
Initial Placement: Instructor, University of Arizona
Dissertation: Contrastive Knowledge How
Advisor: Ariew

Chaunke Wei (May)

Current Placement: Associate Research Fellow, Institute for Science, Technology & Society, South China Normal University
Dissertation: Confusions of Natural Selection
Advisor: Ariew

2023

Selwyn Griffith (August)

Current Appointment: Adjunct Assistant Professor, Hofstra University
Dissertation Title: Standing and Status: A Dissertation on the Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Moral Standing and an Analysis of Moral Status
Advisor: Vallentyne

Zeinab Rabii (December)

Dissertation: Self Deception and Epistemic Blame
Advisor: Weirich

2022

Duke Cruz (July)

Current Appointment: Account Manager, Keyword Trucking LLC
Initial Placement: SEC Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Missouri
Dissertation: Evident Yet Opaque: A Defense of the Evaluative Normativity of Logic
Advisor: Weirich

Travis Holmes (August)

Current Appointment: Visiting Teaching and Research Specialist, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Dissertation: Enlarging the Possibility Space for Scientific Model-Based Explanation
Advisor: Ariew

Tieying Zhou (May)

Current Appointment: Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Alabama, Birmingham
Initial Placement: Adjunct Instructor, University of Missouri, Columbia
Dissertation: An Investigation of Aesthetic Appreciation
Advisor: Folescu

2021

Alek Willsey (May)

Dissertation: Authoritatively Speaking: A Speech Pragmatic Analysis of Authority and Power
Advisor: Horisk

2020

Jon Marc Asper (August)

Current Appointment: Assistant Professor, Marshalltown Community College
Dissertation: Why Preference Can Be Optional 
Advisor: Vallentyne

Alex Howe (June)

Current Appointment: Statewide Organizer, Oregon Education Association
Dissertation: Citizenship Goes to the Dogs
Adviser: Vallentyne

2019

Salman Khawaja (December)

Initial Placement: Instructor, University of Memphis
Dissertation: Naturalizing Epistemology: Reconsidering Quine and Nietzsche
Adviser: Matt McGrath

Stephen Perinchery-Herman (December)

Current Appointment: Director of Ethics, Mercy Health System, Saint Louis and Jefferson City, Missouri
Dissertation: Defending an Indirect Normativity of Belief
Adviser: Vallentyne

2018

Jonathan Burmeister (August)

Current Appointment: Lecturer, Mississippi State University
Initial Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, Fort Lewis College
Dissertation: Examining the Nature of Epistemic Value
Adviser: McGrath

Troy Hall (May)

Current Appointment: Assistant Teaching Professor, University of Missouri
Initial Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Missouri
Dissertation: Three Studies in the Philosophy of Jazz
Adviser: Johnson

Paul Hamilton (May)

Current Appointment: Lecturer, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Dissertation: Resisting the Nudge
Adviser: Weirich

Keith Raymond Harris (May)

Current Appointment: Postdoctoral Researcher in Philosophy, University of Vienna
Initial Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Iowa
Dissertation: The Epistemology of Group Agents
Adviser: McGrath

Seokman Kang (August)

Current Appointment: Visiting Professor, Shinhan University, Korea
Dissertation: The Consciousness of Visual Experience
Adviser: McGrath

Eric Rowse (December)

Current Appointment: Instructor, Bellevue College
Initial Placement: Adjunct Professor, University of Missouri
Dissertation: Clarifying Relational Egalitarianism
Adviser: Vallentyne

Isaac Wagner (August)

Current Appointment: Associate Professor of Teaching in Bioethics, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Dissertation: Preventing Unjust Wars and Less Aggression
Adviser: Vallentyne

Tung-Ying Wu (May)

Current Appointment: Associate Professor, Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing
Initial Placement: Postdoctoral Researcher, Fudan University
Dissertation: Skepticism, Reason, and Decision
Adviser: Weirich

2017

Dustin Nelson (January)

Current Appointment: Assistant Professor in Legal Studies, Morehead State University
Initial Placement: Instructor, Columbia College
Dissertation: Defending States and Protecting Individuals: A Critical Examination of the Principle of Nonintervention
Adviser: Vallentyne

Joshua Smart (December)

Current Appointment: Instructor, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville
Initial Placement: Visiting Instructor, University of Oklahoma
Dissertation: Epistemic Rationality and Meeting One's Own Standards
Adviser: McGrath

2016

Lynn Chiu (January)

Current Appointment: International Scientific Community Manager, University of Vienna
Dissertation: Niche Construction and the Logic of Natural Selection Explanations
Adviser: Ariew

Richard Lauer (August)

Current Appointment: Assistant Professor, St. Lawrence University
Initial Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, St. Lawrence University
Dissertation: Explanation for the Cognitively Bounded: Psychology and the Pragmatics of Explanation
Adviser: Ariew

Kenneth Shields (August)

Current Appointment: Adjunct Instructor, University of Missouri
Initial Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Indianapolis
Dissertation: Amoralists, Inverted Commas, and the Puzzle of Moral Internalism: An Essay in Experimental Metaethics
Adviser: Philip Robbins

Phillip Zema (June)

Dissertation: Three Questions Concerning Reid's Moral Epistemology
Advisers: Markie and Folescu

Sheng Zhang (January)

Current Appointment: Assistant Professor, Xiamen University
Dissertation: Epistemic Democracy and Political Legitimacy
Adviser: Vallentyne

2015

Devin Frank (Augustr)

Current Appointment: Assistant Professor, Eastern Illinois University
Dissertation: The Metaphysics of Content: Towards a Minimalist Account of Propositions
Adviser: McGrath

Adam Koszela (August)

Current Appointment: Director of Production, Benzinga Research
Dissertation: Compensation as the Moral Foundation of Jus Post Bellum
Adviser: Vallentyne

Katy Shorey (June)

Current Appointment: Associate Teaching Professor, Northeastern University
Dissertation: A Salience Account of Explanatory Power
Adviser: Ariew

Jake Wright (January)

Current Appointment: Senior Lecturer, University of Minnesota-Rochester
Dissertation: Toward a Virtue Account of Science
Adviser: Ariew

2014

Wenwen Fan (June)

Current Appointment: Manager of Statistical Programming, AbbVie
Dissertation: Moral Wrongness and Reactive Attitudes
Adviser: Vallentyne

Christopher Gadsden (June)

Current Appointment: Adjunct Professor, University of Missouri
Dissertation: Epistemic Duties and Blameworthiness for Beliefs
Adviser: McGrath

Kok Yong Lee (June)

Current Appointment: Professor, National Chung Cheng University (Taiwan)
Dissertation: A Solution to Skeptical Puzzles
Adviser: McGrath

Dan Marshall (June)

Dissertation: Skill-Based Reliabilism
Adviser: Weirich

2012

Crystal Allen Gunasekera (June)

Current Appointment: Associate Professor of Philosophy, Principia College
Dissertation: Justifying War: An Account of Just and Merely Justifying Causes for War
Adviser: Vallentyne

Xiaofei Liu (June)

Current Appointment: Professor, Wuhan University (China)
Initial Appointment: Visiting Templeton Scholar, Calvin College
Dissertation: Choice, Control, and Moral Responsibility
Adviser: Vallentyne

Brian Montgomery (June)

Current Appointment: Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Texas El Paso
Initial Appointment: Lecturer, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Dissertation: A New Defense of the Knowledge Norm of Assertion
Adviser: McGrath

Collin Rice (June)

Current Appointment: Associate Professor at Colorado State
Initial Placement: Assistant Professor, Lycoming College
Dissertation: Optimality Explanations: A New Approach
Adviser: Ariew

Yasha Rohwer (June)

Current Appointment: Professor, Oregon Tech
Initial Placement: Postdoctoral Fellow, Mizzou Advantage One Health/One Medicine Initiative, University of Missouri
Dissertation: Rethinking the Evolution of Human Intelligence
Adviser: Ernst

2011

Darin Finke (August)

Current Appointment: Teaching Professor, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Initial Placement: Assistant Teaching Professor, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Dissertation: Van Fraassen and a Defense of Inference to the Best Explanation
Adviser: Weirich

Ashton Sperry (August)

Current Appointment: Chief Technology Officer, Xeit AI
Initial Placement: Research Scholar, Ronin Institute
Dissertation: Bounded Rationality in Games of Strategy
Adviser: Markie

2010

Joel Dittmer (June)

Current Appointment: Science & Math Specialist, Columbia Independent School
Initial Placement: Assistant Professor, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Dissertation: Rawlsian Ethical Act Contractarianism
Adviser: Kierland and Vallentyne

Michael Hartsock (June)

Current Appointment: Professor and Director of Honors and Director of Recruiting Strategy, College of Arts and Sciences, Millikin University
Dissertation: Absences as Causes: A Defense of Negative Causation
Adviser: Ariew

Andrew Moon (August)

Current Appointment: Associate Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University
Initial Placement: Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Missouri
Dissertation: The Nonepistemic Psychological Requirements for Knowledge
Adviser: Markie

Brandon Schmidly (June)

Current Appointment: Vice President of Advancement, Crown College
Previous Appointment: Professor and Chair, Evangel University
Dissertation: A Proprietarian Theory of Custodial Rights Over Children
Adviser: Vallentyne