Announcing our Fellows for 2020-21!

April 22, 2020

In the midst of these difficult times, the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics is grateful to be able to announce our new cohorts of Fellows-in-Residence, Graduate Fellows, and Ethics Pedagogy Fellows for 2020-21. They are an exciting and diverse group and we are delighted to have them join our community.

Fellows-in-Residence

Sigal Ben-Porath earned her doctorate in political philosophy from Tel-Aviv University in 2000, after which she received two presidential fellowships and joined Princeton University's Center for Human Values as a post-doctoral fellow. In 2004 she moved to the University of Pennsylvania where she is currently a professor of education, philosophy and political science. Her most recent books are Free Speech on Campus (Penn Press, 2017) and Making up Our Mind: What School Choice is Really About (with Mike Johanek, University of Chicago Press 2019). Her previous books include Citizenship under Fire: Democratic Education in Times of Conflict (2006) and Tough Choices (2010), both from Princeton University Press, and Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship (ed., with Rogers Smith. Penn Press 2012). Ben-Porath serves on the board of the Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy, as well as the Teachers Institute of Philadelphia. As an Edmond J. Safra Center fellow in 2020-21, she will work on a book project on open expression and civic dialog. 

Adoulou N. Bitang is a PhD candidate at the University of Douala, Cameroon. His dissertation focuses on the relationship between modern and contemporary art in order to build the concept of ‘negative modernity’. His first book, À la recherche d’une théorie de la laideur. Petite Critique de la Raison esthétique [translation: nIn Search of a Theory of Ugliness. A short Critique of Aesthetical Reason] is to be published at Éditions Dianoïa, in Paris. He has also published journal articles and book chapters on Paulin Hountondji and African Philosophy (2016), inquiring about the revolutionary content of art (2017), and dealing with Horkheimer and Adorno (2017). He is currently working on a book questioning the philosophical legacy of Marcien Towa. During his time at Harvard, Bitang will advocate for a bioethical constraint on technoscience in the 21st century. Bitang will be the Harvard-EthicsLab Fellow-in-Residence, a joint fellow with the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research and the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. 

Stephen M. Campbell, PhD, MBE, is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bentley University. He received his doctorate from the University of Michigan and served as a postdoctoral fellow at Coe College and University of Pennsylvania's Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy. He has taught for several years for the Summer Institute in Bioethics hosted by Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics. Campbell’s primary areas of research are bioethics, philosophy of disability, philosophy of technology, and ethical theory. His work has appeared in Journal of the American Philosophical Association, American Journal of Bioethics, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Utilitas, Journal of Applied Philosophy, Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Well-Being, and Oxford Handbook on Philosophy and Disability. Currently, he is working on a book on the ethics of preconception and prenatal selection for and against disability. Campbell will be a joint fellow with the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics. 

Linda Eggert will receive her PhD in Political Theory from the University of Oxford in 2020. Her work bridges moral, political, and legal philosophy, and focuses on the ethics of war, global rectificatory justice, and non-consequentialist ethics. Broadly, her research seeks to bring ethical analysis to bear on issues of public concern. Her current project examines how to fairly distribute risks of harm in armed humanitarian interventions. Linda is also interested in the ethical implications of artificial intelligence. As a Technology and Human Rights Fellow with Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy in 2019-20, she has begun research on the ethics of autonomous systems and their implications for the protection of human rights. During her time at the Edmond J. Safra Center, Eggert hopes to advance work on related projects in interdisciplinary ethics, which aim to illuminate issues that arise when we broaden the scope of justice beyond its typical confines. Eggert will be a joint fellow with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. 

Adam Hosein is an Associate Professor at Northeastern University. He works mainly in moral, political, and legal philosophy, with a special interest in areas of international concern and issues relating to race or gender. Before joining Northeastern, he was an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has held fellowships and visiting positions at Chicago Law, Harvard University, the University of Toronto, and the Université Catholique de Louvain. He holds a BA in philosophy, politics, and economics from Merton College, Oxford and a PhD from MIT. During his time at the Center, he will be working on book that aims to provide a moral theory of discrimination and contribute to debates around issues such as racial profiling, disability accommodations in the workplace, and gendered dress and grooming codes. 

Mason Marks is an Assistant Professor of Law at Gonzaga University and an Affiliated Fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project. Prior to joining Gonzaga’s faculty, Dr. Marks was a Research Scholar at NYU Law School’s Information Law Institute and a Visiting Fellow at Yale Law School. His research focuses on health law, privacy, and FDA regulation. He is particularly interested in the use of artificial intelligence to promote public health and improve medical decision making. Before transitioning into academia, Marks practiced intellectual property law in the San Francisco Bay area. He received his J.D. from Vanderbilt Law School and his M.D. from Tufts University School of Medicine. Marks has written about law and technology for the The Washington Post, The Guardian, Slate, WIRED, Vice News, The Seattle Times, Stat News, and The Houston Chronicle. His academic writing has been published or is forthcoming in the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, the U.C. Irvine Law Review, and the NYU Journal of Legislation and Public PolicyMarks will be a joint fellow with the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School. 

Ivan Petrella holds a PhD in religious studies and law from Harvard University (GSAS). He has served in politics and government in his native Argentina. He was Director of Argentina 2030, the President’s table for long term strategic thinking, where he fostered government-wide discussions on topics such as the future of food production, CRISPR, populism and governance, and artificial intelligence. He also served as Secretary for Federal Integration and International cooperation in the Ministry of Culture, where he focused on “democratic culture” as a means to strengthen both political institutions and public debate, and as an elected member of the legislature of the City of Buenos Aires. Before entering public service, he was a tenured professor at the University of Miami. He is the author and editor of several books, including Beyond Liberation Theology: A Polemic; The Future of Liberation Theology: An Argument and Manifesto; and Que se metan todos: el desafío de cambiar la política argentina [translation: Let’s All Jump In: The Challenge of Changing Argentine Politics]. Petrella is a frequent contributor to Argentina's most important news outlets. At the Center, he will focus on the impact that technological innovation has on democratic culture, with a particular focus on what contribution liberation theology can make to current debates. Petrella will be a joint fellow with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. 

Adrienne Stang is the K-12 History and Social Studies Coordinator for the Cambridge Public Schools in Massachusetts. She facilitates the creation and implementation of inquiry-based, culturally responsive social studies curriculum, mentors teachers, and leads collaborative professional learning opportunities. She taught history, anthropology, sociology and government courses at public high schools in Florida and Massachusetts for eighteen years. Prior to her current position, she directed a Teaching American History Grant, which provided professional learning opportunities for teachers in the greater Boston area. She holds a BA in anthropology from Princeton University and a MAT from Brown University. Stang will be the Edmond J. Safra Democratic Knowledge Project Fellow-in-Residence. 

Graduate Fellows

Evelyn Boyden is a PhD candidate in Government specializing in Political Theory. Her primary research interests concern the development of the concept of sovereignty, theories of political resistance and its justification, and conflicts between political and ecclesiastical authority. Her dissertation tracks these themes in early modern political thought through the episode of James I’s Oath of Allegiance and the Jesuit response it evoked. Her other research areas include theories of citizenship and civil liberties, the rise of technocracy, and the early modern roots of liberalism. Evelyn holds an AB in Government and Theology from Georgetown University. 

Jovonna Jones is a PhD candidate in African & African American Studies at Harvard University, with a secondary field in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Her research interests include social and cultural history, black cultural production in the U.S., visual studies, and political aesthetics. Jovonna’s dissertation traces the historical and imagined presence of black women within American urban housing discourses of the mid-20th century, from federal policy to visual culture. Jovonna has served as a teaching fellow for courses on African American history, black radical movement, and race, gender, and performance. She practices public pedagogy through the Black Studies Reading Room, a monthly public study session on new scholarship, exhibits, and critical ideas in the field, both in and outside of the academy. Jovonna holds a B.A. in African American Studies and Philosophy from Emory University. 

Darien Pollock is a graduate of Morehouse College, where he majored in Philosophy and concentrated in Leadership Studies at the Andrew Young Center for Global Research. As a PhD candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University, the core of his research centers on the development of a philosophical method that he calls "street philosophy." In addition to his work as an academic philosopher, Darien is the founder and president of the Street Philosophy Institute, Inc. (SPI), a Massachusetts based think-tank dedicated to promoting research in the areas of public philosophy and civic engagement. 

Justin Pottle is a PhD candidate in Government. His primary research interests are in democratic theory, focusing on manipulation and the political ethics of the public sphere. Justin’s dissertation draws on the philosophy of language and political psychology to explore how political rhetoric shapes the ways civic actors come to see each other as moral and epistemic agents, and the implications this holds for democratic legitimacy. He also writes on normative issues relating to propaganda, media governance, and American pragmatism. At Harvard, Justin teaches courses on political theory and American political institutions and works with the Edmond J. Safra Center’s Democratic Knowledge Project designing civics curricula on the history of political thought. He holds a BA from Wesleyan University’s College of Social Studies. 

Becca Rothfeld is a PhD candidate in philosophy. Her research focuses on the relationship between different sorts of value, in particular the relationship between aesthetic and moral value. Her dissertation will explore some of the aesthetic and ethical questions surrounding the issue of human beauty. She will ask, for instance, what human beauty amounts to; what is wrong, both ethically and aesthetically, with existing beauty norms; and whether there is an unobjectionable way to equalize access to sexual and romantic “goods.” Becca also maintains background interests in Martin Heidegger and the philosophy of art and literature. At Harvard, she has led sections on the history of philosophy. She has also co-organized a graduate conference on the ethics of love and sex with the aid of a Mahindra Humanities Center Interdisciplinary Conference Grant. She holds a BA in philosophy and German from Dartmouth College and an MPhil in the history and philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge. Before she arrived at Harvard, she served as assistant literary editor of The New Republic

Ethics Pedagogy Fellows

Maya Holden Cohen is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) in the Culture, Institutions, and Society concentration. Her research focuses on the civic formation of American youth, and the impact of political polarization and geographic partisan sorting on American schools and students. She came to HGSE after a decade working with young people to advance issues of equity and unlock their potential as leaders. Prior to her doctoral studies, Maya worked at Northwestern University’s Children and Family Justice Center (CFJC), collaborating with attorneys, community groups, currently and formerly incarcerated individuals, and their families to end life and life-like sentences for youth in Illinois. Before joining the CFJC, Maya was a teacher and Assistant Director at The School for Ethics and Global Leadership in Washington, D.C., a semester program that aims to develop students into ethical leaders who make positive change in our world. From 2011 to 2014, Maya served as the Executive Director of GlobeMed, a global network of undergraduate students and community organizations working together to tackle challenges of poverty and poor health. Maya graduated from Barnard College in 2010 with a BA in English. 

Caitlin Fitchett is a PhD Candidate in Philosophy with research interests in moral philosophy and the philosophy of action. Her dissertation focuses on the normative standards that govern practical deliberation, and that are binding for an agent who asks herself the quintessential question of practical deliberation—What should I do?—against the backdrop of a group action, or potential group action. As a graduate teaching fellow at Harvard, Caitlin has taught courses on the ethics of public policy, economic justice, existentialism and film and literature. Caitlin holds a BA(Hons) in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and an MA in Philosophy, both of which are from the University of Otago, New Zealand. 

Tatiana Geron is a PhD student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education concentrating in Culture, Institutions, and Society. Her research occurs at the intersection of political theory, philosophy of education, and classroom practice. She’s interested in teachers’ moral agency and ethical decision-making and what makes the classroom a unique environment for enacting justice. Before entering the doctoral program, Tatiana taught English Language Arts, Social Studies, and English as a Second Language in Boston and Brooklyn. Tatiana holds a BA in Political and Social Thought from the University of Virginia and a master’s in teaching from the Boston Teacher Residency. 

Rong Huang is a PhD student from the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard, with a focus on the field of comparative religion. Her research deals with the interaction between East Syriac Christianity and medieval Chinese religions (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism) during the Tang dynasty (618-907A.D.). As a PhD student whose research includes a lot of theories about ethics, she hopes to engage in lively discussions at the Center with those who study and teach in professional schools, gain knowledge of current ways of practicing ethics, and learn how to better apply the ethical insights she has obtained from the theorists to real-world problems. Meanwhile, as one of the Ethics Pedagogy Fellows for the 2020-2021 academic year, her solid academic training and abundant teaching experiences will contribute to the diversity of methods and disciplines on which the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics draws, and the range of the social and intellectual purposes the Center serves. 

We look forward to having these new fellows join us as part of the Center community in the fall!