Photo by Callan Fritsch

Research

I have a diverse research background in cognitive neuroscience, cognitive phenomenology, and ethics in negotiation.

My experience includes involvement with Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and Bloomberg School of Public Health, as well as extensive work on philosophy of mind. I primarily work on philosophy of sport, personal identity, and performance psychology, though I am also deeply interested in sport bioethics, normative ethics, and imagery.

Presently, I am exploring the relationship between personal and athletic identity. Specifically, I am investigating whether the degree of overlap between an athlete's self-concept and athletic role affects pre-game stress, in-game performance, and post-game affect. This project frames athletic performance as a holistic endeavour by combining philosophical and psychological theories of personal identity and performance with normative accounts from the philosophy of sport. This perspective aims to support the design of interventions that engage the whole person—not just the competitor—leading to more sustainable, ethical, and human-centred approaches to athletic performance.

You can find my CV here.

A paper on the nature of sport: A Value-Neutral Definition

  • Abstract: This paper explores the foundational definitions of sport and proposes why a value-neutral definition of sport offers the most defensible approach. My definition refrains from attributing moral or cultural worth to the activity and recognises that such worth, when present, is contingent rather than essential. Sport can be a site for excellence, but it can also be a site for exploitation. The point remains that it is a sport regardless.

    My approach aims to disentangle the descriptive core of sport from its evaluative framework, offering a cleaner and arguably more defensible account of what sport is, independent of any judgment about what it should be.

A paper on the utility of shame

  • Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between a self-regarding emotion, namely moral shame, and the self. This investigation requires that we carefully parse through existing accounts of the self and of shame to understand what utility comes with shame. What does it mean for us when we experience shame? And what does it mean for others when we ask them to feel shame? These questions are at the center of this paper. I argue that there ought not to be morally justifiable utility to shame because it is harmful to the self. This paper has salient practical implications for today’s society; especially when we consider the use of online shaming and the shaping of personal identity on the internet, considering the interactions between moral shame and the self is of particular importance.