Our post doctoral fellowship program has grown since we first offered fellowships four years ago. We started with two post doctoral fellows and this year, we are excited to have seven. Three of the fellows are returning for a second year and four are new to Stanford.

New Spencer Foundation Grant / Post Doctoral Fellows
We are also pleased to announce a three-year grant that we received from the Spencer Foundation earlier this year. This grant allows us to design a comprehensive project that looks at equality and K-12 education. Education is one of the most powerful levers a society has for shaping its future citizens and while the American education system has a lot to be proud of, many children receive a far more inferior education than their peers. With this grant from the Spencer Foundation, three of our incoming post docs will be working with Stanford faulty, bringing ideas from moral and political philosophy to bear on the questions of education theory, policy, and practice. Meet our 2011-2012 Spencer Foundation post doctoral fellows.


The 2011-2012 Center for Ethics in Society Post Doctoral Fellows

Sam Arnold
Sam received his Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton in September, 2011.  His research interests include the liberal tradition, distributive justice, and the place of meaningful work in liberal egalitarian theory.  Sam won a Princeton University Center for Human Values Graduate Prize Fellowship in 2009-2010 and a Quin Morton Teaching Fellowship in 2010-2011.  His work has appeared in the Journal of Political Philosophy.

As a postdoctoral fellow, Sam will work on turning his dissertation into a book manuscript.  He will also begin a new project on equality of opportunity.   

 Tom Dougherty (returning post doc)
Tom did his graduate work at MIT. His dissertation is entitled, “Help! Not Just Anybody. Essays on Altruism and Conflicts of Interest.” It looks at what beneficence requires of us as individuals. His primary research interests are in ethics. His paper, "On Whether to Prefer Pain to Pass" was recently published in Ethics. At the Center, he is teaching the courses, Justice, and Contemporary Moral Problems, and his research will continue to focus on questions concerning our obligations to people in need, as well as ethical issues concerning tense and foundational issues in a theory of rights. In July 2012, he will take up a continuing position at the University of Sydney.


Joseph Mazor (returning post doc)
Joe completed his Ph.D in the interdisciplinary Political Economy and Government Program at Harvard and spent the 09-10 academic year as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton.

In his dissertation, Joe examines the normative foundations of natural resource property rights.  He argues for a more egalitarian global distribution of natural resource wealth and for more robust global institutions to manage common environmental resources.

Joe's primary research interests lie in distributive justice, environmental political theory, and deliberative democracy. During his time at Stanford, Joe plans to prepare his dissertation for publication and to work on new research projects on public goods and fair prices.

 Jean Thomas (returning post doc)
Jean received her B.A. and an M.A. in English literature from the University of Toronto, where she also completed her J.D. She received her doctoral degree in law, as well as her L.L.M, from New York University. Her main interest is in the area of legal philosophy, and in rights theory in particular. Her doctoral research was grounded in the question of which private actors should, under which circumstances, bear the burdens associated with public law rights. Her dissertation explored the possibility of human rights enforcement in private litigation, and the relationship between human rights and private obligations.

In her post-doctoral work at Stanford, Jean is developing several projects in the area of human rights theory such as human rights in the private sphere, and the relationship between human rights and property rights, as well as in tort theory. She teaches a course called 'Human Rights and Moral Questions,' about the intersection between human rights and ethical issues such as cultural diversity and democratic governance. She is also working on a project related to cultural norms in liberal society.

Spencer Foundation Post Doctorual Fellows

Kendra Bischoff
Kendra, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellow, completed her Ph.D. in Sociology at Stanford in 2011. Her research focuses on the causes and consequences of racial and economic segregation in neighborhoods and schools, the effect of school context on student outcomes, and civic engagement among disadvantaged youth. Her dissertation examined the academic achievement and social experiences of participants in a school desegregation program.  

While at Stanford, Kendra will revise and expand her dissertation for publication. She looks forward to collaborating on questions pertaining to the intersection of education policy and ethics, especially as they relate to racial and socioeconomic integration in schools.

Sarah Hannan
Sarah received her D.Phil. in Political Theory from Oxford. Her dissertation was entitled "Balancing Parental Authority and Children's Rights: A Role-Based Solution."

While at Stanford, Sarah is looking forward to joining the project examining equality of opportunity in education. She will also develop sections of her thesis for publication and work on issues surrounding the purported right to procreate.






Hugh Lazenby
Hugh completed his D.Phil. at Oxford University, writing a thesis entitled, "A Conception of Equality of Opportunity." The thesis sought to elaborate a luck egalitarian conception of equality and apply that conception in particular contexts.

While at Stanford, Hugh will be contributing to the Spencer Foundation sponsored project on "Equality of Opportunity in Education."






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Past Post Doctoral Fellows