College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences > Academics > Philosophy > About > Graduate Student Bios

Graduate Student Bios

Tawfeak Ahmed
Bio coming soon

Jessica Avery
Jessica earned a B.S. in biology and a B.A. in philosophy from the University of New Mexico, where she completed an honors thesis on existentialism in Harry Potter. She received her M.A. in philosophy from DePaul University. Her primary areas of interest include 19th and 20th century continental philosophy, philosophy of science, existentialism, philosophy of literature, hermeneutics, and philosophy of film. Jessica is particularly concerned with the intersection of philosophy and science, and her most recent work focuses on nihilism as it relates to science and technology.

Ellery Beard
Born and raised in Alabama, Ellery received his BA in Philosophy & Cultural Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His dissertation is a study of emanation in Plotinus, including its precursors in Plato and Aristotle and its afterlife in modern philosophy. He is also a fourfold division of nature respecter (Uncreated Creator, Created Creator, Created Non-Creator, Uncreated Non-Creator). Outside of philosophy, Ellery enjoys pulp sword & sorcery novels, old-school heavy metal, and the music dramas of Richard Wagner.

Joseph Bermas-Dawes
Joseph Bermas-Dawes received his BA from Macalester College (St. Paul, MN) in 2017 with a philosophy major, German studies minor, and concentration in critical theory. He is interested in modern and contemporary social and political philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the ontology of immanence. Joseph also works on ethical and political issues related to comedy and laughter. Outside of philosophy, Joseph enjoys cooking, playing video games, watching movies, and going on runs along Lake Michigan.

Harrison Brennan 
Harrison received BA degrees in philosophy, economics, international politics, and Asian studies from the Pennsylvania State University. He is interested in the intersection of metaphysics, the philosophy of technology, and political philosophy within 20th century continental thought, specifically within the work of Deleuze, Foucault, and Heidegger. Harrison’s recent work focuses on control societies, temporality, and algorithmic modulations of the future.

Laura Campos
Laura was born and raised in Austin, Texas and completed her BA in Philosophy and Classical Studies at Texas A&M University. Her research is focused on contemporary phenomenological approaches to questions about the soul and divine and human persons in Medieval and Ancient Greek philosophy.

Chris Chiasera
Chris earned a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Trinity College, Hartford, CT in 2024. His Philosophy degree culminated in an honors thesis on the role of religious faith in the writings of Søren Kierkegaard. At DePaul, Chris remains deeply interested in the intersection of philosophy and theology, particularly vis-á-vis questions of the possibility of individual and collective redemption. His own thinking draws especially on the proto-existentialism of Kierkegaard, the negative theology of Simone Weil, and the practical philosophy of Immanuel Kant. He hopes to orient his future work in the direction of German Idealism and 20th-century French philosophy (e.g., Derrida, Levinas), with an emphasis on their potential continuities with his current areas of interest.

Will received his BA in Comparative Literature from Stanford University and his MA in Philosophy from Duquesne University. He studies the transition from late medieval to early modern philosophy, along with its reception in twentieth-century historicist thought. He currently serves as the Assistant Editor of Philosophy Today.

Yohanes graduated from The Widya Sasana School of Philosophy and Theology, Malang, Indonesia, both for his BA and Master Program. His recent research focuses on two areas; religion in the public sphere in Habermas' perspective and the east philosophy in the architecture of Candi Borobudur (Borobudur Temple), one of the largest Buddhist temples in the world, located in Indonesia.

Jennifer earned her BA and MA in Philosophy from the University of New Mexico. She teaches courses in continental philosophy, history of philosophy, affect theory, existentialism, race and culture, ethics, and carceral studies. Her dissertation argues that models of universal, progressive history and objective, linear historiography not only distort our understandings of selves and worlds, but fail to accommodate those living in the aftermath of colonial trauma. She draws on Nietzsche’s philosophy of history and Gloria Anzaldúa’s autohistoria-teoría to develop a concept of history that is essentially an-archic and creative, and to suggest modes of historiography capable of honoring the often violent multiplicity of inheritances contemporary selves grapple with through ethical engagement with the past and future.

John received his BA in Philosophy from SUNY Purchase. His research interests include theology, political philosophy (Schmitt, Bloch, Agamben, Marx and Foucault) and German philosophy (Kant, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, and Adorno). Currently, he is focused on Heidegger's discussions of nuclear weapons and critiques of it by Günther Anders.

Zura was born and raised in Tbilisi, Georgia, and earned a BA in Philosophy from Ilia State University. After that, he pursued an Erasmus Mundus joint master’s program called Europhilosophy, studying at the University of Wuppertal in Germany and Charles University in the Czech Republic. His primary interests lie in phenomenology, existentialism, and the history of philosophy. Zura is particularly fascinated by the relationship between theory and practice—how they converge or diverge. This is especially apparent in the connection between metaphysics and ethics, where a metaphysical framework can inherently carry ethical and political implications. Even seemingly neutral worldviews can profoundly shape our practical lives.

Carlie earned her BA in Philosophy from the University of North Dakota. Her research interests include political economy, feminism, environmental philosophy and 20th century continental thought. Her dissertation project is presenting a reading of Georges Bataille as an ecological thinker, and will aim to place his theory of general economy in conversation with contemporary Eco-Marxist and environmental thought.

Bio coming soon

Brett received his BA from Loyola University-Chicago in Philosophy and English Literature. His research interests include contemporary French philosophy, political philosophy, and psychoanalysis.

Val received their BA in Philosophy, History, and Women’s Studies from the University of Georgia. Their current research interests include French feminist receptions of psychoanalysis, particularly in Irigaray, Kristeva, Clément, and Kofman. Their most recent project engages Freud and Anzaldúa in contemporary trauma theory. They also work as a graduate student mentor for the Trio McNair Scholars Program, which aims to diversify higher education.

Bio coming soon

Bio coming soon

Bio coming soon

Kannon received his BA in Philosophy, BA in Environmental Studies, and minor in Classics from Loyola University-Chicago. He is primarily interested in the phenomenology and epistemology of Husserl and Heidegger in relation to the transcendental idealist projects of Kant and Fichte. Particularly, the paradoxes of subjectivity in architectonic systems. He is additionally interested in the meta-philosophical reflections of Rorty and Gadamer in the areas of foundationalism and hermeneutics, respectively.  

Aurora received her BA in philosophy with minors in German Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Oregon. Her main research areas are Social and Political Philosophy, 19th and 20th Century Continental Philosophy (especially Arendt and Foucault), Genealogy, Trauma Theory and Feminist Philosophy. She is also interested in bioethics and its critics, particularly within interdisciplinary and applied ethical contexts. Her approach to bioethics is informed by Disability Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Queer Theory.

Originally from Seattle, Washington, Mary completed her BA in philosophy at Whitman College. Her areas of interest include political philosophy, existentialism, and deconstruction. She currently works on psychoanalysis, focusing on questions related to incompatibility, quantitative/qualitative thresholds of excitation, and the ~responsibilities~ of the ego.

Caroline Loftus is from Indiana and received a B.A. in philosophy and sociology from Grinnell College in Iowa. Their current interests revolve around German Idealism, psychoanalytic theory, and the relationship between philosophy and literature. 

Bio coming soon

Jack received his BA in philosophy from Grinnell College in Iowa. His primary area of interest is contemporary French philosophy, focusing on themes of science, ideology, and epistemology. Specifically, he is interested in influence of French historical epistemology on the work of Louis Althusser, Gilles Deleuze, and Alain Badiou.

Originally from Brazil, Rosa graduated from the Philosophy MA program at the New School for Social Research with a minor in Capitalism Studies. There, she studied the first generation of the Frankfurt School, German Idealism (Kant and Hegel), and political and social philosophy, completing her thesis on Adorno’s liberalism via Rousseau’s conception of social freedom. She is interested in the history of philosophy through the lens of the Hegelian concept of history as the unfolding of the consciousness of freedom. At DePaul’s doctorate program, Rosa is thinking about the question of freedom in light of capital as social domination informed by Adorno’s negative dialectics and Nancy Fraser’s analysis of capitalism as an institutionalized social order.  

Nicoleo Matranga

Nicoleo was born and raised in Los Angeles. He attended U.C. Berkeley where he received his B.A. in rhetoric. His honors thesis emphasized fruitful possibilities of correspondence between philosophical and philological methodologies for interpreting Anaximander’s extant fragment. Nicoleo remains committed to exploring the ways modern philosophical discourses contribute to encounters with ancient philosophical themes and how such encounters can bring unique possibilities for thinking to light. Nicoleo’s interests tend to coalesce around questions of justice, freedom, ontology, and dwelling.


Almira earned a dual BA in Philosophy from Galatasaray University and the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. She has spent a semester at the University of Grenoble, in the departments of Philosophy and Classics. She was an MA student at the Institute of Philosophy at KU Leuven. She received her MA in Philosophy and Social Thought from Istanbul Bilgi University, with a dissertation on Foucault and Kant’s critical tradition. She primarily works on German idealism (esp. Kant, Schelling, Hegel), contemporary French philosophy (esp. Foucault, Ricœur), and ancient Greek philosophy. Her general interests span 19th and 20th century Continental Philosophy, as informed by Classics and reception of antiquity.

Bram Nealon
Bio coming soon

Bio coming soon

Evan O'Donnell received his BA in Philosophy from Connecticut College. His main interests include Pyrrhonian skepticism, German idealism (and Kant more specifically), and contemporary French philosophy, especially the work of Gilles Deleuze.

Sujitha Parshi received her BA in Humanities, the Arts and Social Thought from Bard College Berlin (formerly European College of Liberal Arts) and will receive her MA in Philosophy from Universität Potsdam, Germany.  She primarily works on 19th and 20th century Continental Philosophy (esp. Derrida, Nietzsche and Heidegger). She is also interested in Ancient Greek Philosophy, Early Modern Philosophy and Philosophy of Technology.  

Héctor holds degrees from Macalester College, the LSE (Political Theory), and the University of Warwick. While a student at DePaul, he has also undertaken a yearlong exchange program at the ENS in Paris. His research interests are positioned between Continental philosophy and East Asian philosophy, and are oriented around the overcoming of disenchantment and the remnants of positivism, as well as the integration of the aesthetic, liminal, and extrasensory dimensions of life into philosophical discussion and cultivation of the self. His dissertation focuses on bridging forms of spiritually charged vitalism existing in both the Western and Eastern philosophical contexts, linking modern European philosophers of life to classic figures in the history of Japanese thought.

Originally from Istanbul, Ece earned her BA in psychology from Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey, her MA in philosophy from KU Leuven, Belgium. She also completed the phenomenology module coursework in the MPhil program at KU Leuven. Her research focuses on the notion of affect in relation to the problem of border(ing) and transformation in the social and political field. She mainly works on Deleuze, Foucault, and Spinoza. Her primary areas of interest are 20th century French philosophy, early modern philosophy, and social and political philosophy.

Born and raised in Eugene, Oregon, I decided to remain in my hometown to complete a BA and MA in philosophy at the University of Oregon. Philosophically, I am interested in the incredibly broad range of questions posed in Ancient Greek philosophy, especially as presented in the Platonic dialogues with their way of displaying the activity of questioning and tasking the reader with this activity’s continuation. In this context, one of my abiding questions concerns the nature of philosophical questioning in general and, thus, the meaning of philosophy as a human possibility (even if any given account of this meaning remains perpetually open to other determinations). I am also interested in Early Modern philosophy and the way in which the goal of the conquest of nature, a project outlined perhaps most explicitly by Bacon and Descartes, marks a wider transformation of previous articulations of basic concepts in Western thought. Specifically, I am interested in how this attempt to supply definitive answers to the questions established on the basis of a preconceived aim of mastery represents one historically significant way of understanding philosophy’s purpose, one with effects that reach into our present and stretch into our future.


Bio coming soon

Çiçek Yavuz
Çiçek is a fourth year doctoral student. Her primary research focuses on Hegel and German aesthetic theory, with a secondary interest in twentieth-century philosophy of language, especially Wittgenstein. Her dissertation investigates the epistemological significance of Hegel's use of language and explores how this practice reconfigures debates about formalism in both the philosophy of language and the philosophy of music.

Mohab Younis
Mohab is from Cairo, Egypt, received a BA from St. John’s College (Annapolis, MD). He is primarily interested in 18th to 20th century German thought, especially Kant, Hegel, Freud, and Marx. He is also interested in Greek thought, especially Plato. Ultimately, he is trying to get a better grasp of Hegel’s concept of concrete universality and of its consequences for subsequent modern thought.

Ludovico received both his B.A. and M.A. in Philosophy at the University of Essex, in the UK. His research focuses primarily on Ancient Philosophy, esp. Plato and Aristotle, German post-Kantian philosophy, esp. Hegel and Nietzsche, and on the intersection of themes of morality, psychology and ontology.