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I am a historian of philosophy whose primary research interest research is the philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, its wider context in Early Modern European philosophy and science, as well its reception in later German and French philosophy. I find inspiration in Leibniz’s model of philosophy as a universal intellectual practice that synthesizes ideas from any and all sources.

My publications have centered on Leibniz’s conception of the living soul as a self-moving “spiritual automaton” on analogy with a mechanical clock. You can learn more about my research and find links to papers here. Currently, I am completing a book project that traces the concept of the “spiritual automaton” across the history of modern European philosophy that examines figures including Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, and Deleuze. The book manuscript has benefitted from the support of the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University, where I was a Visiting Scholar in 2024-2025.

My initial philosophical interests were nurtured by the Departments of Philosophy and German Studies at Boston College. After studying for a year as a Fulbright Research Fellow at the Albert-Ludwigs Universität Freiburg, I enrolled in the PhD program in Philosophy at Villanova University, from which I graduated in 2016. From 2018-2025, I taught at New College of Florida, a public liberal-arts honors college in Sarasota. At New College, I taught a range of courses in the global history of philosophy, as well as courses that connected philosophy with literature and film. You can learn more about my teaching here. I have recently published this essay about my experiences there that lays out my reasons for leaving and attempts to clarify some of the philosophical stakes of the contemporary academic culture war. I am currently Adjunct Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Missouri-St Louis. In addition to philosophy, I enjoy listening to underground and experimental music, watching films, and playing Go.