Thanks for stopping by. I am a Professor in the Department of Philosophy and a Community Professor in the Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine’s program in Medical Ethics, Humanities, and Law at Western Michigan University. In 2014, I graduated, magna cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School and went on to clerk for the Honorable Chief Justice Craig F. Stowers of the Alaska Supreme Court. After the clerkship, I was a Fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Law and the Biosciences.  In 2018, I was a Fulbright Specialist in the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Iceland.

Most of my writing and teaching is in applied ethics, ethical theory, and philosophy of law. My first monograph was Terrorism, Ticking Time-Bombs, and Torture (University of Chicago Press, 2012; also see here). I am now working on a monograph tentatively entitled Bioethics: New Directions (Oxford University Press, under contract). I have edited books on a range of topics, including Binary Bullets:  The Ethics of Cyberwarfare (Oxford University Press, 2016). My popular articles have appeared in Slate and The AtlanticThe National Science Foundation has funded several of my research projects, with almost $1,000,000 in support.

When not doing philosophy or law,  I am often on the tennis court. I played Division I college tennis at William & Mary and the University of California at Santa Barbara—I have since been nationally ranked in various age groups. One summer, I biked the TransAmerica Trail from Virginia to Oregon, 4,232 miles in 87 days. I volunteer in a program to help rural Alaskans with their taxes. Outside the academic year, I spend as much time as possible in northwest Montana, at my parents’ home near Glacier National Park.  Finally, and despite being a University of Michigan alumnus, I am a certified master gardener through Michigan State University Extension’s Master Gardener Program.