Welcome to my website! Here you’ll find (mostly academic-related) information about me, my interests, and my work/teaching. I’ll also try to update my blog every now and again.
I’m currently a 5th-year Ph.D candidate at the University of Western Ontario, under the supervision of John L. Bell. My work right now focuses on how the development of modern logic, especially the work of Rudolf Carnap, has influenced our understanding of mathematics and the exact sciences.
I was born in Toronto and grew up in Mississauga, a suburb thereof. Regarding my undergraduate studies, after a year attending Wilfrid Laurier University I transferred to the University of Toronto and Sheridan College. They jointly offered an interdisciplinary program called Culture, Communications and Information Technology. While interesting, it was a little light on both the philosophy and IT for me, and so transferred yet again, taking philosophy as a specialist and graduating with distinction in 2006.
Coming to UWO, I completed my Master’s in 2007 and have stayed on for my Doctorate. We have a very lively and cordial group here, and I enjoy being relatively active in the department. In my first two years at Western I helped with the organization of the annual Philosophy of Mind, Language, and Cognitive Science graduate conference. And since then I have helped to organize the annual Logic, Mathematics, and Physics philosophy graduate conference (to say that we have a lot of annual graduate student conferences here is a bit of an understatement!) I have in the past also organized the Philosophy Graduate Student Association’s weekly colloquium, which you can read about on the philosophy department’s blog. Last fall I organized a very lively Carnap Reading Group, where we made our way through a part of LSL in excruciating detail.
Besides my academic pursuits, I spend a good deal of my time thinking about and playing tabletop strategy games, both board games and rpgs. My current favourites are Twilight Imperium, Agricola, and Tigris and Euphrates. If you dare (and can handle a substantial amount of overwrought in-character prose), you can take a look at my rpg campaign page here. I enjoy cooking and baking quite a bit, mostly vegetarian fare, and often bake my own bread. I also have a love of old books, fine beers, camping/canoeing, billiards, and running.
Finally, I use LaTeX for most of my typesetting needs, and you can too. The software is free to use and open-source, and so an excellent alternative to many other expensive (and inferior!) software packages. In the same vein I am also a supporter of the Open Access Movement, meaning I think scholarly work should be disseminated for free and available to anyone with interest, rather than owned by publishing houses and stuck behind a pay-wall. Peter Suber has a wonderful discussion on the ins and outs of the idea here. Here is a list of some open-access philosophy journals.
