Overview of Current Staff
Faculty Staff and Bios
Claire Katz is the Claude H. Everett, Jr. ’47 Endowed Chair in Education and Professor of Philosophy and Education at Texas A&M, where she serves as Department Head of Teaching, Learning, and Culture. She has been on the faculty since 2006, and prior to that she was an associate professor of Philosophy and Jewish Studies at Penn State University. From 2019-2022 she served as Associate Dean of Faculties/Associate Vice President for Faculty Affairs. From 2010-2014 she served as Director of Women’s and Gender Studies (Texas A&M). In September 2020 she was named a Presidential Professor for Teaching Excellence (Texas A&M) and in May 2021 she was selected for a Piper Professorship. A Baltimore native, she majored in philosophy at UMBC. She holds a Master’s of Arts in Teaching (teaching of philosophy to K-12 students) from Montclair State University and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Memphis. She teaches and conducts research in two primary areas: (1) the intersection of philosophy, gender, education, and religion and (2) K-12 philosophy. At Texas A&M, she developed and piloted courses in Jewish philosophy, Philosophy and Gender, and K-12 Philosophy. In 2015, Dr. Katz launched a highly successful K-12 philosophy program, which includes three prongs: educator workshops for K-12 and university teachers/administrators, which have reached more than one hundred teachers and administrators throughout Texas; training for university students in facilitating philosophical discussions with pre-college students, which includes an undergraduate course that teaches students to teach philosophy to K-12 students; and developing and running a week-long philosophy summer camp (Aggie School of Athens) for 6th-12th graders, which attracts middle and high school students from communities across Texas and around the United States. Her development of the pre-college philosophy program at Texas A&M, including the philosophy summer camp, has become leading model for pre-college philosophy programs nationally and internationally. Under her direction, P4C Texas and the Aggie School of Athens Philosophy Camp for Teens was awarded the 2020 APA/PDC prize for Excellence and Innovation in Philosophy Programs. In 2016, Philosophy Ireland, Ireland’s pre-college philosophy program, appointed her an Ambassador. She held the Liberal Arts Cornerstone Faculty Fellowship (Texas A&M 2011-2015) and a Copeland Fellowship (Amherst College 2011-12) and was recently awarded a 2022 Arts and Humanities Fellowship (Texas A&M) and a 2023 Glasscock Center for Humanities Research Residential Fellowship. She has given more than 150 presentations nationally and internationally. A stalwart defender of the humanities, Dr. Katz presented on the value of the humanities for TEDx TAMU (2015) and in March 2022, she was elected to the Board of Directors for the National Humanities Alliance. In addition to more than 70 journal articles and book chapters, Professor Katz is the author of three monographs: Levinas, Judaism, and the Feminine: The Silent Footsteps of Rebecca (Indiana 2003); Levinas and the Crisis of Humanism (Indiana 2013); and An Introduction to Modern Jewish Philosophy (I.B.Tauris/Bloomsbury, 2014). She is the editor of the four volume Emmanuel Levinas: Critical Assessments (with Lara Trout, Routledge 2005), Growing Up with Philosophy Camp: How Thinking Develops Friendship, Community, and a Sense of Self (Rowman and Littlefield, August 2020), and Philosophy Camps for Youth: Everything You Wanted to Know about Starting, Organizing, and Running a Philosophy Camp (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021). She is the recipient of the 2019 Association of Former Students Distinguished Achievement Award (University Level) for Teaching and the 2019 American Philosophical Association Prize for Excellence in Teaching Philosophy. She is currently working on a monograph tentatively titled, Radical Apology: Gender, Religion, and the Limits of Forgiveness (under advance contract with Indiana University Press) with a chapter devoted to The Chicks. A native of Baltimore, MD, she is loyal fan of the Baltimore Orioles.
A native of Terre Haute, Indiana, Daniel Conway received his BA in Philosophy and Economics from Tulane University and his PhD in Philosophy from the University of California, San Diego. He has held faculty appointments at Stanford University, Harvard University, Penn State University, and, since 2006, Texas A&M University, where he is Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Affiliate Professor of Religious Studies and Film Studies, and Courtesy Professor in the TAMU School of Law and the Bush School of Government and Public Service. A former Head of Department, he currently serves the University as Arts and Humanities Fellow, Liaison to the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs, and Member in Residence (and Past President) of the local chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. He also holds leadership positions in the Philosophy for Children initiative (P4C Texas) and the Space Governance Research Group.
Conway has lectured and published widely on topics in post-Kantian European philosophy, American philosophy, political theory, aesthetics (especially film and literature), critical theory, ethics, religion, and genocide studies. Thus far, he has published seventeen books and more than 150 articles in scholarly journals and edited collections. To date, he has delivered more than 280 lectures and conference papers, including invited presentations on six continents. His research and teaching have been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, the Fulbright Specialist Program, the John Templeton Foundation, the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (declined), the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The American Philosophical Association, the National Humanities Center, the Oregon Humanities Center, the Centre for Research in Philosophy and Literature at the University of Warwick, the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University, the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Penn State University, the Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention at Binghamton University, the Southeastern Conference, and the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research. Here at Texas A&M University, he has received competitive grants from the Office of the President, the Office of the Vice President for Research, the Office of the Vice President for Faculty Affairs, Undergraduate Studies, the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, the College of Liberal Arts, the College of Arts & Sciences, the Mays Innovation Research Center, the Academy for Visual and Performing Arts, the European Union Center, and the Office of the Dean of Faculties.
Conway currently serves the profession as a member of the Mellon Philosophy as a Way of Life Network, as Liaison to the Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie, and as a member of the Executive Committee of the Friedrich Nietzsche Society. He serves on the Advisory Boards of Arendt Studies, Basilíade, Symposion, Nietzsche-Studien, Nietzsche Online, Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung (Walter de Gruyter), and Filozofia. He currently serves as a series co-editor for Edinburgh University Press and for Bloomsbury Academic. A former Executive Editor of the Journal of Nietzsche Studies, Conway now serves as a member of its Advisory Board. To date, he has held visiting appointments at Harvard University, University of Oregon, University of Warwick, the National Humanities Center, UMass Amherst, Amherst College, and Deakin University. In 2014 he was named an Honorary Life Member of the Friedrich Nietzsche Society.
He is the proud father of two young feminists.
Charles Carlson received his PhD in Philosophy and a MS in Biology from Texas A&M University, a MA in Philosophy from the University of Toledo, and a BA in Philosophy, Religion, and Government/International Affairs from Augustana University. He held a Post-Doctoral Fellowship and later joined the faculty at Sam Houston State University. He returned to Texas A&M University in 2019, and is a Program Manager in the Division of Academic and Strategic Collaborations. He has been an active part of P4C Texas since its inception, including educator workshops for K-12 and university teachers/administrators, and the Aggie School of Athens summer camp for middle and high schoolers. Charles has also been instrumental in introducing P4C to pre-elementary age kids, in particular through weekly sessions at the Becky Gates Children Center. He is the Convener of the Working Group in Critical Childhood Studies and is active in various outreach programs aimed at supporting the university’s land grant mission. His philosophical work is primarily in American Pragmatism and Philosophy of Biology.
West Gurley is Professor of Philosophy and English at Blinn College in Brenham, TX and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, TX. Professor Gurley’s monograph Minding the Gap: What It Is to Pay Attention Following the Collapse of the Subject-Object Distinction (Scholars’ Press, 2013) approaches the question of what it is to “pay attention” from multiple perspectives. This work informs Professor Gurley’s relationship to the P4C program, which he argues can help to address the seeming inability of current pedagogical models to fully develop this important skill. 2022 marks Professor Gurley’s seventh year with the P4CTexas program, where he served as a collaborator and summer camp instructor. He is also editor and contributing author of the book Phenomenology and the Political (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016).
Rebecca (Becca) Schlegel is a Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Texas A&M University. She is a co-PI in the TAMU Existential Psychology Collaboratory and an associate director of the TAMU Institute for Technology Infused Learning. Becca holds a PhD from the University of Missouri, Columbia and a BS from Kansas State University.Becca’s research is in social and personality psychology, with a focus on existential psychology. She studies issues related to self/identity, authenticity, and meaning in life. In recent years, Becca has worked witheducation researchers, computer scientists, and engineers in an interdisciplinary effort to develop and test interventions that aim to foster an academic sense of self among students in elementary, middle, and high school.
Graduate Facilitators and Researchers and Bios
David J. Anderson is a seventh year doctoral student in philosophy at Texas A&M University. His research interests are in Wittgenstein, Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion, moral and religious epistemology, and the epistemology of trust and authority. He began practicing P4C with preschoolers in 2016 at the University of Texas at El Paso and continues to practice P4C with Dr. Charles Carlson at the Becky Gates Children’s Center at Texas A&M. Additionally, he and Kenji Blum engage in P4C at College Hills Elementary School in College Station and lead an undergraduate project titled “Philosophy in the Classroom” through the Aggie Research Scholars Program aimed at teaching P4C methodology to both philosophy and non-philosophy majors from diverse backgrounds.
Haley Burke is a Ph.D. Candidate in Philosophy and MA student in English at Texas A&M University. She received her MA in Philosophy from the University of New Mexico in 2018 and her BA in Philosophy from Metropolitan State University of Denver in 2016. Her research interests include phenomenology, hermeneutics, existentialism, social and political philosophy, and aesthetics. She is currently working on an MA thesis on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s notion of divinity. 2020 was her first year facilitating the Aggie School of Athens Philosophy Camp for Teens
Nicholas Charles is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Philosophy at Texas A&M University. His primary area of research is pragmatism.
Brady DeHoust is a Ph.D. student in Philosophy at Texas A&M University. He received his Batchelor of Arts in Philosophy and Communication Studies (double major) from Christopher Newport University (Newport News, VA). His research interests include post-Kantian Continental philosophy (especially hermeneutics, phenomenology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of religion), ethics, Ancient Greek philosophy, rhetoric, and literature. He likes to spend his leisure time on good stories, good food, good friends, and the outdoors. Summer of 2022 is his first year working with the Aggie School of Athens Philosophy Camp for Teens.
Allyson Duarte is a PhD student in Philosophy at Texas A&M University. She received her MA in Philosophy and Social Policy from American University (Washington, D.C.) in 2020, and her BA in Philosophy with minors in Marketing and Spanish from The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in 2016. Her research interests include Social and Political Philosophy, as well as Latin American, Mexican and Latinx Philosophies. Allyson is currently working on two book translation projects of Mexican philosophers Leopoldo Zea Aguilar (1912 – 2004) and Luis Villoro Toranzo (1922 – 2014). 2022 will be Allyson’s first year facilitating the Aggie School of Athens Philosophy Camp for Teens.
Victoria Green is a PhD student in the Department of Philosophy. She completed an MS in Primate Behavior at Central Washington University and a BS in Evolutionary Anthropology and Philosophy at Rutgers University. Her research focus is on environmental and animal ethics, as well as philosophy of science. In particular, she studies methodologies in field primatology and explores the complex relationship between scientists and nonhuman animal subjects.
Joseph Maffly-Kipp is a sixth-year graduate student in Clinical Psychology, currently completing his clinical internship at The Ohio State University Medical Center. He grew up in North Carolina and attended Bates College for his undergraduate degree, and Texas A&M University for his MS and PhD (currently Ph.D. candidate). His research interests lie at the intersection of existential psychology and mental health/illness, particularly surrounding concerns about mortality, meaning, authenticity, and identity. Specific areas of inquiry have involved the relationship between mood disorders and meaning-making, fluctuations in self-concept/self-definition over time, and the existential function of conspiracies and psychotic delusions.
Michael Portal is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Texas A&M University. His primary areas of research are post-Kantian European philosophy and Jewish philosophy. His first year facilitating the Aggie School of Athens Philosophy Camp for Teens was 2019.
Ananya Usharani Ravishankar is a first year Ph.D. student in the Department of Philosophy at Texas A&M University. She received her B.A. in Philosophy from Trinity College, Hartford in 2021. Her research interests include social and political, decolonial, anti-colonial, and post-colonial philosophy. 2021 will be her first year working with the Aggie School of Athens Philosophy Camp for Teens.
Jacob Robbins is a second year student in the School Psychology PhD program at Texas A&M. He plans to serve as a school psychologist in the K12 setting and as a professor and researcher. He currently works as a graduate assistant for the Center for Teaching Excellence within the Interdisciplinary Design for Empowerment and Agency through the Learning Sciences (IDEALS) Lab. He enjoys disc golf, mountain biking and Formula 1.
Sijin Yan is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Culture at Texas A&M University. Her research focus is on the philosophy of education, feminist theories, and phenomenology. She started practicing Philosophy for Children in the P4C workshop in 2015 and the inaugural philosophy summer camp in June 2016 as an MS student in education. Afterward, she decided to write on Philosophy for Children as her master’s thesis. She utilized her statistical background to initiate a research project titled Meta-analysis of the effectiveness of philosophy for children programs on students’ cognitive outcomes. The research was published in Analytic Teaching and Philosophical Praxis. In 2017, she realized her passion in this area and became a Ph.D. student focusing specifically on the philosophy of education at Texas A&M in the College of Education.
Undergraduate Facilitators and Bios
Kenji Blum is an undergraduate student at Texas A&M University, where he is studying Environmental Studies and Philosophy. His primary interests are in Environmental Ethics and US Environmental Law. After
taking Dr. Katz’s semester-long P4C course, Kenji became a facilitator in 2018. Along with being a facilitator in the Aggie School of Athens Summer Camp, Kenji works with several local schools to introduce philosophy to pre-college classrooms. He currently practices P4C at the A&M Consolidated High School Philosophy Club and College Hills Elementary School. Additionally, Kenji and David Anderson lead an Aggie Research Project entitled “Philosophy in the Classroom.” Through this project they introduce undergraduate students from various majors to the pedagogical framework of P4C, while also providing them the opportunity to practice in local schools.
Major Eason is currently a student at Swarthmore College. He plans to major in Economics and History. He was a participant in the P4C camp from 2016-2018 and has worked as a Junior Counselor since 2019.
Hello! My name is Griffin Ford, I am a facilitator at here Philosophy camp. I was a camper in the first years of Philosophy camp and as a student as Clark University, MA, I am pursuing a double major in Philosophy and Film. My philosophical interests are in art, media, psychology and human behavior.
Emeritus Staff and Past Facilitators
Martha R. Green, Ph.D. serves as Program Coordinator for Public Partnerships & Outreach, Office of the Provost, Texas A&M University. Dr. Green holds a BA in English and History from the University of Texas at Austin, a M.Ed. in Educational Technology, and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Texas A&M University. She is responsible for development and implementation of continuing professional education programs for K-12 teachers and for supporting faculty initiatives related to K-12 education. Dr. Green’s research focus is the effective implementation of digital technology to teach the writing process and develop critical thinking and problem-solving in mathematics. Dr. Green and the Public Partnership & Outreach collaborated with the Department of Philosophy and College of Liberal Arts to present the first Philosophy for Children workshop in October, 2015. She has been associated with the P4CTexas program from its beginning, assisting in the implementation of teacher workshops and the Aggie School of Athens Summer Philosophy Camp.
Patrick Anderson received his Ph.D. in Philosophy at Texas A&M University. His primary areas of research are Africana Philosophy, Social-Political philosophy, and American intellectual history. In the past, he has taught P4C classes in local high schools, and he is returning to the P4C Aggie School of Athens Summer Camp as an instructor for the second year.
Desirae Embree is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of English at Texas A&M University where she studies gender and sexuality in film and other media. She has been a Graduate Research Assistant with the P4CTexas program since 2016, where she manages the website and social media presence. Additionally, she served as a camp counselor for the Aggie School of Athens Summer Camp since its inception in 2016.
Olivia Conway is a biochemistry and plan II major at the University of Texas at Austin. She has attended philosophy camp since its first summer and is now a facilitator. Her favorite discussion topics are questions about identity and the formation of ethical societies.
Jadyn Driver, bio coming!