Graduate Students

Hannah is a third-year graduate student in the Philosophy Department at the University of Utah. Her current research with UCEER is with James Tabery; together, they are investigating the StatevillePenitentiary Malaria Studies. This infamous research project resulted in the discovery of the G6PD deficiency, a keystone in the foundation of pharmacogenetics. They seek to understand how race and notions of racial differences worked their way into the Stateville studies and how they subsequently shaped the pursuit of pharmacogenetics. Her other research includes projects more broadly related to the ethical, legal and social implications of genetic and genomic research.

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Research Interests: philosophy of biology, environmental ethics, and philosophy of race.

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I am mostly interested in the philosophy of art and intend to research the intersection between art and ethics. My main interest in this area is in the relationship between ethical flaws or merits in an artwork and the effecton the aesthetic value of the object. I am also interested the language we use when we make judgements about art. We often use metaphors when we describe art objects, and I am interested in why metaphors seem particularly apt for aesthetic judgements, rather than being the result of some language deficiency, as is a common thought in the philosophy of language.

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I'm interested in the normative side of philosophy, including bioethics, environmental philosophy, moral psychology, and political philosophy. A few projects I am currently working on include the following: the ethics of restrictive COVID policies, reducing wild animal suffering in conservation, and the moral psychology of leftists. I hope to expand my research in the future to encompass a wide array of pressing societal issues, with an emphasis on doing philosophical workthat can directly inform practical solutions.

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I’m Zhanshuo Zhang. Before I came here, I graduated from Wuhan University in China with a BA in philosophy. I mainly work in social philosophy. My research focuses on following topics: bureaucratic mechanisms and forms of oppression, family structure and intergenerational trauma, public emotions and medicalization, personal identity and relational autonomy. I’m also interested in Chinese philosophy, including Xunzi, Zhuangzi and Wei-Jin metaphysics, especially topics related to social or cultural construction of categories, ideology critique and error theory.

I am a feminist philosopher working in applied ethics, social metaphysics (particularly gender), and political theory.

Originally from Quitman, MS, I graduated with my BA in Social Studies from Harvard ('24), where I investigated the influence of religion on drug policy, specifically within the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain). I then undertook a year-long Frederick Sheldon Postgraduate Travelling Fellowship to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where I explored BJJ as a method of improving the intelligibility of grappling analogies used in the history of philosophy (e.g., discourses on the practice of dialectic in Aristotle, Plato). Following this, I studied the philosophy of pedagogy as a member of the inaugural Teaching Fellowship at the Tidelines Institute in Alaska. Today, my main philosophical interests have developed from the political towards the metaphysical and epistemological, but my attention has been most consistently called to the philosophy of mind and history of philosophy (esp. Descartes and Kant).

I graduated from Baylor in 2023, double majoring in philosophy and film & digital media. After working in the post-production industry in New York City for a year, I began an MA in philosophy at Western Michigan University. My main philosophical interests are (1) epistemology, especially applying formal epistemology to other areas, (2) philosophy of art and philosophy of film, and (3) philosophy of science, particularly the realism debate. I am also interested in the connection of each of these to the philosophy of religion. My main hobby is picking up cool hobbies. Recent ones include building a ship in a bottle and learning to juggle. Previously, I picked up lock-picking, unicycling, rock climbing, and flying FPV drones.”

Fengyuan Liu (he/him) entered the PhD program in Fall 2026. He holds a master's degree in philosophy from Simon Fraser University, a research master's degree in philosophy from Utrecht University, and a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Nankai University. He is interested in areas such as philosophy of science, social epistemology, history of science, early modern European philosophy, and Chinese philosophy. He is currently working on topics related to scientific pluralism and community-based knowledge. Outside academia, he loves hiking, cycling and detective novels.

“I am interested in areas of philosophy which are motivated by practical, political, and moral stakes. This interest has often led me to the following topics: applied ethics, social epistemology, embodiment & phenomenology, critical theory, materialism, anti-colonial philosophies, and environmental humanities.”