Career Outcomes

The graduate program in philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh attracts students from all over the world and prepares them for a diverse range of careers within and beyond the academy. Below is a list of career outcomes for all students who were awarded a PhD through the program. "Initial Career Outcome" refers to first career outcome with the following possible exception: if a student received temporary employment at the University of Pittsburgh department of Philosophy immediately following their PhD, but has gone on to a new career, the latter career outcome is listed as the initial outcome. (It should be noted, especially of recently graduating classes, that it is not uncommon for students to complete their PhD and take a visiting lectureship in the department before seeking employment outside the university.) Though every student granted a PhD has an entry, we are continuously in the process of updating records, especially for students from earlier years. Please let the webmaster know if you catch any mistakes or have any updates.

 

KEY

  • (TT) = tenure track
  • (T) = tenure or the equivalent
  • (P) = postdoc
  • (V) = a visiting or other temporary position
  • (C) = continuing position
  • (O) = ongoing education
  • (PS) = non-academic private sector career
  • (G) = non-academic public sector career
  • (U) = 'unknown' or 'other'.

Career Outcomes: A Snapshot (2017–2022)

 


Dissertation Title
(Advisor)
Initial Career Outcome Most Recent Career Outcome
2022-2023
Individuals and Institutions: Essays on Social and Political Epistemic Systems (Shaw and Zollman (CMU)) Investment Associate at Bridgewater (PS)  
In Defense of Concept Variability (Shaw) Texas Christian University (TT)  
Let's Get Real: Counterfactual Moral Theories in the Actual World (Pallikkathayil/Lewinsohn) Stanford University McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society (P)  
2021-2022
"Idealizations in Epistemology" (Shaw, Gallow) NYU, Bersoff Fellow (P)  
"Substructural Content" (Brandom) Concordia University (P)  
"Morality and the Good Friend" (Pallikkathayil) U Arkansas Fayetteville (V) University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (TT)
"Understanding the Social Dimensions of Morality: Three Essays in Contractualist Moral Reasoning" (Pallikkathayil) Wabash College (V) Lingnan University (C)
"Imperfect Duties and Good Will" (Thompson) NIH Department of Bioethics (P) University of Kansas City (TT)
"Intentionality: A Problem-Solving Approach" (Shaw, Grush (UCSD)) Oklahoma University (TT) University of Miami (TT)
"Knowledge, Objectivity, and Self-Consciousness: A Kantian Articulation of Our Capacity to Know" (McDowell) National University of Singapore, Honors College (C)  
"Explanation, Understanding, and Counterfactual Dependence" (Batterman) Research staff at Germany's Federal Office for Nuclear Waste Management (G)  
2020-2021
"The Elements of Aristotelian "Philia"" (Whiting) Univ of Rochester (P)  
"Normality, Indifference and Induction: Themes in Epistemology and Logic" (Shaw) University of Minnesota (G)  
2019-2020
"Talking to Skeptics" (McDowell) Wuhan Univ. (P) Haverford College (V)
"Perceptual Constancy" (Chirimuuta) Chapman Univ (P) SUNY Albany (TT)
"The Sociality of Agency" (Pallikkathayil/McDowell) NYU Law School (O) Associate at Cleary Gottlieb (PS)
"Inner Speech: Philosophical and Psychological Investigations" (Machery) Florida State University (TT )  
"An Unexplored Aspect of Following a Rule" (Ricketts/Wilson) U. of Pittsburgh (V)  
"Perception and Inference" (McDowell) The Access Project (PS)  
2018-2019
"Practical Knowledge Within Our Means" (McDowell) U. of Pittsburgh (V) (U)
"Herder’s Science of Man: The Origins of Anthropology in the Philosophy of Language" (Brandom) Stanford Law School (O) New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (PS)
"Constitutivism and Natural Normativity in Ethics" (Thompson) Creighton Univ (C)  
"Acting for Reasons" (Thompson) Colgate U. (TT)  
2017-2018
"Understanding Moral Principles: Jonathan Dancy, Iris Murdoch, and Particularism" (Engstrom) Colgate U. (V) Colgate U. (C)
"Reasons and Modals" (Gupta/Shaw) South China Normal University (P) South China Normal University (TT)
"Models and Multiplicities: Logical Pictures in Hertz and Wittgenstein" (Ricketts/Wilson) California Institute of Technology -  Research Assistant Professor & Junior Editor at Einstein Papers Project (V)  
"Free Will as Etiological Self-Sufficiency" (McDowell/Thompson) Vassar College (V) Univ. of Chicago (P)
"The Material Conditions of Freedom" (Pallikkathayil) Georgia State (TT)  
"Teleology and its Limits in Aristotle and Kant" (Engstrom/Lennox) Catholic University of America (TT)  
"The Human, Love, and Inner Life: Ethics after Murdoch" (McDowell) (U)  
"Experience and Belief: An Inquiry into the Doxastic Variability of Experience" (Gupta) Ashoka U. (TT) Ashoka U. (T)
2016-2017
"Sensing Values" (Machery) High-School Instructor (PS) Concordia University Irvine (TT)
“Experiential Consciousness: Rationalism about the Value and Content of Experience” (Engstrom/ McDowell) Auburn University (V)  
2015-2016
"Cognition in Practice:  Conceptual Development and Disagreement in Cognitive Science" (Brandom) Texas Christian University, John V. Roach Honors College (TT) Texas Christian University (T)
"On Learning from Experience" (Gupta) Christ's College, University of Cambridge, Junior Research Fellow (P) Ben Gurion U. (TT)
"Thinking Forms in Images:  Aristotle on Intellectual Capacities, Activities, and Virtues" (Lennox/ McDowell) Catholic University of America (TT)  
"What is Inference? Or the Force of Reasoning" (Brandom) Concordia University (TT) Concordia University (T)
"A Defense of Equilibrium Reasoning in Economics" (Wilson/ Woodward) Lake Forest College (TT) Duke University (TT)
"Planning for Failure" (Shaw/Schafer) National Institute of Health, Department of Bioethics (P) University of Nebraska, Omaha (TT)
2014-2015
"Four Essays on Self- Knowledge" (McDowell) Junior Research Fellow- St. Hilda's College, Oxford (P) SUNY Binghamton (TT)
"Thinking about Action" (Thompson) Writer (PS)  
"Generics, Epistemic Luck, and Knowledge" (Schafer/ Setiya) Notre Dame (P) University of Navarra (C)
"Moral Rights and Social Conventions: Three Studies in Metaethics"
(Thompson)
Stanford Center for Ethics and Society (P) Concordia University (TT)
"Kant's formal idealism, the synthetic a priori, and the contitution of objects of experience" (Engstrom) Washington University- St. Louis Adjunct Professor (V) U. of South Carolina (TT)
"Chemicals, Organisms, and Persons:  Modal Expressivism and a Descriptive Metaphysics of Kinds" (Brandom) University of Nevada, Las Vegas (V) University of Hradec Králové in the Czech Republic (P)
"Ways of Appearing: Experience and its Phenomenology (Gupta) University of Belgrade (TT)  
2013-2014
"Duhem's Balancing Act:  Quasi-Static Reasoning in Physical Theory"
(Wilson/ Batterman)
Baylor Univeristy (P) Loyola University Maryland (TT)
"From Punishment to Recognition:  Toward a Hegelian Theory of Criminal Justice" (Brandom) Howard University (TT) Howard University (T)
"Lying, Misleading, and Language" (Setiya/ Shaw) University Wisconsin- Milwaukee (C)  
"Grounding Constitutivism"
(Setiya)
St. Louis University (TT) U. of South Carolina (TT)
Truth, Semantic Closure, and Conditionals" (Gupta) University of Melbourne (P) National Taiwan University (TT)
"An Aristotelian Solution to the Problem of Internal Minorities"(Thompson) (U)  
2012-2013
"Hegel's Critique of Kant's Standpoint on Finitude" (McDowell) Hunter College (V)                                                            
"Action and the Good: An Essay on the Nature of Practical Reason and Will" (Thompson) University of Chicago Harper and Schmidt Fellow (P) University of South Carolina (TT)
"The Method of Moral Hypothesis" (Brandom/ Thompson) Gartner Research Board, Information Technology Consulitng (PS)  
"Carnap's Pragmatism" (Ricketts) Texas State, San Marco (V)  
2011-2012
"Kant and the Meaning of
Existence: A Modal Account"
(Engstrom)
Art Institute of Chicago
(V)
Hunter College (TT)
"Self-Knowledge and Interpretation"
(Thompson/ Machamer)
William and Hobart Smith Colleges (V)  
"Mental Capacities and Their Imperfect Exercises:  The Essential Normativity of the Mind" (Setiya) Syracuse University (TT)  
"Perceiving Multiplicity" (Gupta) Georgetown Univeristy Qatar (TT)  
"Logic and Intelligibility"
(Ricketts)
William Jewell College
(V)
Bridgewater State University (TT)
"Knowledge, Representation, and the Physical World" (Earman/ Norton) Berkeley School of Information (V) and Uber ATG, Data Science (PS)  
"Marx and Morality" (Thompson) St. Joseph's University (TT) George Washington University (TT)
"Grounding Mental Content"    (Gupta) (U)  
2010-2011
 "The Role of Decoherence in the Emergence of Definite Properties" (Earman/ Ruetsche) St. Olaf College (TT)  
"At the Gates of Consciousness: Physicalism and Phenomenal Concepts" (Gupta) Koc University (V) Koc  University (TT)
"Presence to Self: An Essay on the Phenomenal Origins of Intentionality" (Gupta) University of Chicago (TT) University of South Carolina (T)
"Probabilistic Accounts of Inferential Justification: Liberalism and Inference to the Best Explanation" (Gupta/ Dorr) (U) Software Developer, Amazon (PS)
"Generalized Topological Semantics for First-Order Modal Logic" (Belnap/ Awodey) Universiteit van Amsterdam (P) Research Assistant, Department of Computer Science, Oxford University (V)
"Understanding the Social Constitution of the Human Individual" (McDowell) Concordia University (V) Dickinson College (V)
"Happiness, Approbation, and Rational Choice: Studies in Empiricist Moral Philosophy" (Engstrom) Kenyon College (TT)  
"From Conflict to Unity: Motivation and Practical Reason" (Setiya) College Year in Athens (V) National Foundation of Fellowships of Greece, University of Athens (P)
"Kant on Logical Form" (McDowell/ Engstrom) University of Leipzig (V) Univeristy of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (TT)
"Towards the Autonomy of Ethics: Skepticism, Agency, and Normative Commitment" (Setiya) Syracuse University (TT)  
"Kant's Conception of Practical Reason" (Engstrom) College of Wooster (V)  
"Multitasking: Consequentialism and Practical Imagination" (Brandom) University of Sydney (P)  
"Reason's Self-Actualization: An Essay on Self-Consciousness and Rational Agency" (McDowell) University of St. Thomas (TT)    
 "Skepticism About Epistemic Reason" (Setiya)  D. E. Shaw & Co., Investment Management (PS)  
2009-2010
"Wittgenstein on Subjectivity: The Metaphysical Subject in the Tractatus and the Human Being in the Investigations" (McDowell) University of Akron (V)  Tsinghua University (C)
2008-2009
"Ideal Theory as Democratic Theory" (Thompson) University of Chicago (TT)  
"Locke's Perfectionist Liberalism:  An Articulation and Defense" (Thompson) Ohio University (V) College of Wooster (V)
2007-2008
"On the Structure of Communicative Understanding" (McDowell) Claremont McKenna (V) Simon Fraser University (TT)
"Form without Formalism"(McDowell) Glendon College, University of York (TT)  
"Contested Concepts and Competing Conceptions" (Gupta)
 
Illinois Wesleyan University (TT) Illinois Wesleyan University (T)
"Action and Generality" (Thompson) University of Chicago (TT)  
"The Epistemological Importance of Trust in Science" (Mitchell/ Setiya) University of Last Vegas (V) Hobart and William Smith Colleges (TT)
"The Fact of Modern Mathematics:  Geometry, Logic, and Concept Formation in Kant and Cassirer" University of California, Irvine (TT) University of California, Irvine (T)
"The Rational Unity of the Self" (McDowell) University of  North Carolina (V) University of Idaho (TT)
"Aristotle and the Problems of Concepts" (Lennox) University of North Carolina (V)  
"A Priori Knowledge" (McDowell) Georgia State (V) University of New South Wales
2006-2007
"Perception in Perspective" (McDowell) Australia National University (P) Rutgers University (T)
2005-2006
"Inhabiting the Epistemic Frame of Mind: Plato's Protagoras and the Socratic Denial of Akrasia" (Allen) Doctoral Program in Classics, Brown (O) Sage School (PS)
"Kant and the Significance of Self-Consciousness" (McDowell) Harvard (TT) Chicago (T)
"Wittgensteinian Quietism" (McDowell) Law School (O) Trial Attorney, US Dept. of Justice (G)
 "Cognitive Control in Mathematics" (Manders) Northwestern (V)  
"Kierkegaard's Socratic Task" (McDowell/ Conant) University of Montana (TT)  
"Perception and Representation in Leibniz" (Rescher) 3-year post-doc at Stanford North Carolina State University (TT)
2004-2005
"Practical Reasons and the Conditions of Agency" Harvard (TT)  
"Truth and Alethic Paradox" (Brandom) Ohio State (TT) University of St. Andrews (T)
2003-2004
"The Lens of Character:  Aristotle, Murdoch and the Idea of Moral Perception" (Engstrom) Williams (TT) University of Montana (TT)
"Problems in Applying Mathematics: On the Inferential and Representational Limits of Mathematics in Physics" (Clifton/Norton) University of Kansas (TT) University of Chicago (TT)
"Drawing from the Sources of Reason: Reflective Self-Knowledge in Kant's First Critique" (Engstrom) Georgia State (TT) University of New South Wales
"Norms, Revisions, and Linguistic Practices:  Three Essays on Theories of Conceptual Content" University of Connecticut (TT)  
2002-2003
(Lennox) Practicing Law  
"Accepting Testimony" (Belnap) University of Utah (one year) University of Vermont
2001-2002
"A defense of semantic primitivism" (Brandom) Bowling Green State University (TT) University of Nebraska- Lincoln
"Self-defeat, publicity, and incoherence: three criteria for consequentialist theories" (Gauthier) University of Kansas (TT)  
 "Presence of mind: belief, perception, and expressivity" (McDowell) Johns Hopkins University (TT) Colgate University
2000-2001
 "The moral grip" (Gauthier) University of Utah (TT)  
 Contractarian Prudence (Gauthier)   Penn State University, New Kensington
Contractarianism and Coherence:  Rawls and Scanion on Theory Evaluation (Gauthier) Yale Law School (O)  
"Locality, localization, and the particle concept: topics in the foundations of quantum field theory" (Clifton) Princeton University (TT)  
"Minimal inflationism: A defense of the truth-conditional theory of meaning" (Brandom) Kansas State University (TT)  
"Possible worlds: what they are good for and what they are" (Rescher) Georgetown University (TT) Baylor University
"Justice and the 'metaphysical impulse'" (McDowell) Harvard Law School (O) Clerk for federal appellate court judge in California
1999-2000
"Reasons, justifications and excuses" (McDowell)    
"The role of feeling in moral thought" (McDowell) New School University (TT) Oxford University (T)
"What does it mean to say that logic is formal?" (Brandom) UC Berkeley (TT)  
"The role of necessity in empirical knowledge" (McDowell) University of Toronto (TT)  
"How Beliefs Make a Difference" (McDowell) Duke University (TT)  
     
1998 - 1999
"Recipes for the Simple-Minded:  A Constructive Account of Original Intentionality" (Brandom) University of Nevada- Las Vegas (TT)  
"The treasure house of the mind: Descartes' conception of innate ideas" (Engstrom) College of Charleston (TT)  
"Aspects of the theory of qualitative rational belief change" (Belnap) University of Washington (V)  
 "Mental causation: natural, but not naturalized" (Haugeland) University of Utah V) Auburn University (TT)
"Public spirit and liberal democracy: John Stuart Mill's civic liberalism" (Gauthier) University of Minnesota--Duluth (V) Old Dominion University (TT)
"Laws of nature: meeting the empiricist challenge" (Camp/Earman) UNC-Chapel Hill (TT) UNC-Chapel Hill (T)
1997-98
"Appropriating persons: John Locke's theory of private property" (Engstrom) Philosophical Review University of Pittsburgh (C)
"The problem of Mitleid and the morality of Mitleid: a reading of Nietzsche on morality" (Horowitz) University of Iceland  
"Moral attention: toward a liberationist ethics of everyday life"
(Gauthier)
Moravian College (TT)  
"The instability of skepticism"
(Camp)
University of Utah (TT) UNC-Chapel Hill (T)
"Social anatomy of action: toward a responsibility-based conception of agency" (Brandom) University of Southern Mississippi (V)  
"The union of soul and body: Descartes' conception of a human being" (Engstrom) College of Charleston (TT) Hampshire College (TT)
Simon Fraser University (starting Fall 2002)
"Marxism and the critique of moral ideology" (Gauthier) Ohio State University (TT) Harvard University, Dept. of Afro-American Studies (TT)
1996-97
"Whatever is never and nowhere is not: space, time, and ontology in classical and quantum gravity" (Earman) Princeton University (TT) University of Michigan (T)
"Ethics and the intentional"
(Gauthier)
UC Berkeley, Boalt Law School (TT) University of Pennsylvania Law School (T)
"Semantic norms and temporal externalism" (Brandom) University of Toledo (TT) York University (TT)
"Using and understanding"
(Brandom)
Southern Methodist University (TT)  
"Nonsense, logic, and skepticism"
(McDowell)
University of Illinois -- Champaign-Urbana (V) Colgate University (T)
1995-96
"Self, sympathy, and society in Hume's Treatise of Human Nature" (A. Baier) University of Toronto (TT)  
"Toward a coherent theory of moral rights" (Camp)  Northwestern University (TT)  
"Making moral sense: substantive critique as an alternative to rationalism in ethics" (McDowell) Technische Universität - Berlin Humboldt Universtät zu Berlin
"Conformity, creativity and the social constitution of the subject" (Haugeland) University of Oregon (TT) University of South Florida (T)
"Virtue taking form: a study of Plato's 'Protagoras'" (Gill)    
"On the verge of collapse: modal interpretations of quantum mechanics" (Earman) Middlebury College (TT) University of Michigan (T)
The object of reason: an inquiry into the possibility of practical reason" (A. Baier) Kansas State University (V) University of Toronto (TT)
"An investigation in the logics of seeing-to-it-that" (Belnap) Cycorp, Inc. (PS) Indiana University (V)
1994-95
"Analogical reasoning and plausibility in the sciences" (Salmon) University of British Columbia (TT)  
"Speaking my mind: first-person authority and conscious mentality" (Camp) Indiana University (TT) University of Chicago (T)
"Real Properties, Relevance Logic, and Identity" (Belnap) Stanford (V) University of Toronto (T)
"Principle and particularity in justice as fairness" (K. Baier) SUNY-Albany (TT) SUNY-Albany (T)
"John Dewey's epistemology" (Gale) Finance at University of Chicago (O) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Finance (T)
"Property rights and the political philosophy of John Locke" (Gauthier) Kenyon College (V) University of New Hampshire (T)
1993-94
"Significance, emotions, and objectivity: some liimits of animal thought" (Haugeland) Franklin & Marshall College (TT) Franklin & Marshall College (T)
"Cosmoi: the best of all possible worlds" (Gale) West Virginia University (V) Hillsdale College (TT)
"The deliberative landscape: an essay in moral psychology" (Gauthier) University of Chicago (TT) University of Chicago (T)
"Material falsity in Descartes' Meditations" (A. Baier) Singapore National University (TT)  
"Real properties, relevance logic, and identity" (Belnap) Stanford University (V) University of Toronto (T)
1992-93
"Cognitive instability, unpersuadability of the knower, and the deceptiveness of the world: a study in Plato's epistemology" (McDowell) Ohio State University (V) Practicing law (PS)
"Illocutions and attitudes" (Belnap) University of Virginia (TT) University of Virginia (T)
"Probablistic causation in scientific explanation" (W. Salmon) Rice University (TT) California Institute of Technology (T)
"Causation and non-reductionism" (Brandom) Yale University (TT)  
"Descartes's representation of the self" (A. Baier) Hamilton College (V) University of New Mexico (T)
"Misperceptions of Aristotle: his alleged responses to the skeptic" (Whiting) Georgia State University (TT) Brooklyn College (TT)
"A Kantian criticism of consequentialism" (Gauthier) Lafayette College (V) University of Baltimore (TT)
"Reason, persons, and artworks" (A. Baier) University of Nevada - Reno (TT) University of Nevada - Reno (T)
1991-92
"Revision rules: an investigation into non-monotonic inductive definitions" (Belnap) Yale University (V) University of California, Irvine (T)
"Motions of the mind: Thomas Hobbes and the science of moral virtue" (Gauthier) Georgetown University (V) University of Colorado (T)
"Content and confirmation" (W. Salmon) Yale University (TT) Birbeck College, University of London (T)
"Friendship and alienation" (A. Baier) University of Manitoba (TT) University of Manitoba (T)
"From animal rights to animal liberation: an anarchistic approach to inter-species morality" (Whiting) Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University University of Dayton (TT)
"Reason dethroned; knowledge regained" (Camp) Library & Information Science (O)  
"The determinate character of perceptual experience" (McDowell) University of Toronto (TT) University of Toronto (T)
"Subjectivity, real intentionality, and animal minds" (McDowell) Bowling Green State University (TT) Bowling Green State University (T)