I am a Ph.D. Candidate and Connaught Scholar in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. In the Fall I begin as an Assistant Professor in the Teaching Stream at U of T.

I study inferential communication, social dynamics including norms and expectations, social meaning, abduction, conversational implicature, and Peircean pragmatism and semiotics. 

Here's the abstract to my dissertation:

How is social awareness necessary to catch what is said “between the lines”, i.e., inferentially? How can ordinary behaviors like push-ups communicate things as explicitly as through language? How are autistic traits related to each other? How can speech influence us without our awareness? This dissertation takes on each of these questions in turn. In doing so, it reveals a new dependence relation between social expectations and inferential communication: fluency in the latter requires comprehensive awareness of the former. This dissertation also pushes back on the widespread assumption that inferential interpretation is usually guided by a cooperative principle of some kind. Rather, I argue that mutually-recognized expectation is the fundamental mechanism that enables humans to communicate explicitly without words, codes, or conventions. A pretense of cooperation is merely one way to coordinate our mutually-recognized expectations. In the process of making these arguments I offer a precise set of mechanics for how humans deviate from mutually-recognized behavioral expectations to conduct explicit acts of inferential communication. I also identify a powerful form of influence by which humans control and motivate each other: encouraging ingroup bias while shielding the target from their own bias. This strategy best explains the profit and/or influence enjoyed by some strategic signaling such as George W. Bush Sr.’s 1988 ‘Willie Horton’ ad campaign, racialized uses of ‘inner city’, the reality show The Biggest Loser, as well as the most popular reality show of all time: Love is Blind. The dissertation concludes by sketching a view of inferential communication based on mutually-recognized expectations that can potentially explain a more complete set of cases than conversational implicature or Relevance Theory.

My thesis is co-supervised by Cheryl Misak & Nate Charlow, and it is advised by Brendan de Kennessey and Joseph Heath. 

In addition to philosophy I have a passion for issues surrounding mental health and disability. During the pandemic I trained as a peer counsellor and helped found our department's inaugural Mental Health & Disability Caucus, receiving a Graduate Student Service Award for my work in this role. 

Before attending the University of Toronto I received a B.A. in Philosophy with Honors and a minor in Physics from the University of Tennessee.