2000s Philosophy Alumni Updates
We'd love to hear from you. Please send us your news.
Amy Atticks '05 I've obtained an M.A. in Public Humanities from Brown University, and have been working for a year as the Individual Giving Manager at the Richmond Symphony. I am a founding member of the RVA Downtown Arts Think Tank, in the 2016-17 Moose Management Academy Cohort, a digital administrator for the Church Hill Association, and a member of the Church Hill Home Owners Association. Fellow alum, Meghan Townes, and I have started a Richmond-based book club. We are currently reading "The Age of Wonder" and are welcome to additional alumni participants. I am also interested in starting a Richmond-based philosophy reading group if there is such interest. (September 2016)
Stephen Chanderbhan '07 I received my doctorate in Philosophy from Saint Louis University in Spring 2012. My dissertation was a study of emotions in the thought of Thomas Aquinas - what they are and the roles they may have in moral reasoning and knowledge. As of Fall 2011, I am an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Canisius College, in Buffalo, N.Y. September 2012
Andrew Coombs ('03): After completing my Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics at Rochester Institute of Technology in 2008, I was awarded a two-year position as Artist in Residence at the Clay Art Center, a nonprofit ceramic studio and school in Port Chester, N.Y. I have just finished my residency and am continuing to work as an artist, teacher, and Programming Associate at the Clay Art Center. In addition I teach at several other art centers in the area. (2010)
Devin DeBacker '08 I am graduating from the University of Virginia School of Law in May 2011, where I served as Articles Development Editor of the Virginia Law Review and had the privilege to work on the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. After taking the bar exam this summer, I will serve as a law clerk for one year to Judge Thapar on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky and then as a law clerk for one year to Judge Smith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. After my clerkships, I am joining the D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis as a trial and appellate litigation associate. Of the more philosophical moments I've enjoyed during law school, one of the most memorable has been the privilege of taking Jurisprudence with Professor Fred Schauer, which served as a nostalgic reminder for my days in the W&M Philosophy Department. (In more personal news, I have been married to a (soon-to-be former) third-grade teacher for three years and am expecting my first child - a daughter! - 12 days before the bar exam!). April 2011
Daniel Hieber '08: I just started grad school at the University of California, Santa Barbara working towards my PhD in linguistics. My work is on documenting endangered languages of East Africa, and analyzing archival manuscripts from extinct languages of the US Southeast. (February 2014)
Daniel Hieber ('08): I just had an article published on Mises.org, an institution dedicated to advancing the scholarship of liberty in the tradition of the Austrian School of economics. The article looks at the issue of language endangerment and how it relates to governments from a praxeological perspective, in the tradition of libertarian thinkers like Ludwig von Mises. (2010)
Jennifer Lodi-Smith '01: After learning I could collect data in the psychology department on what I learned about faith development in the philosophy development, I got my M.A. in psych at W&M and my Ph.D. in personality psych at the University of Illinois. After a postdoc studying neurocognitive aging, I am now an assistant professor of psychology at a small liberal arts college in Buffalo NY. I study identity development (including faith identity) across adulthood, mentor a variety of student research, teach, run, and spend time with my two amazing kiddos. (September 2014)
Jason Swartwood '06: I received my Ph.D. in philosophy in 2013 from the University of Minnesota, and I now have a tenure-track position teaching philosophy at Saint Paul College in Saint Paul, Minnesota. (October 2014)
Jason Swartwood ('06): I am currently a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Minnesota. I am beginning work on my dissertation, which will give an account of the intellectual virtues involved in successful moral inquiry. (2010)
Arthur Traldi ('03): I'm working in the Hague right now. Am glad to hear that the department has been so well and active. (2010)
