New Fellows
Greg Brown
University of Pennsylvania
Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society
Greg D. Brown is a John and Daria Barry Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society (PRRUCS) at the University of Pennsylvania. He works primarily in the philosophy of action and in ethics, with a focus on the virtue of practical wisdom. His dissertation develops a neo-Aristotelian account of practical rationality that is indebted to the work of G. E. M. Anscombe and Philippa Foot, and his interests extend to various other areas, especially to Ludwig Wittgenstein, Thomas Aquinas, (meta)ontology, the history of analytic philosophy, and the philosophy of religion. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Chicago in 2024 and his B.A. in Mathematics from Swarthmore College in 2016.
Christopher Coome
Duke University
Civil Discourse Project
Christopher Coome is a John and Daria Barry Postdoctoral Fellow at the Civil Discourse Project at Duke University. His research examines intellectual and religious history with a focus on civil society, the long 19th century, and transformations in Western religiosity. Before his academic career, Chris worked in both business and politics, and he is excited to put this background to use in advancing the Civil Discourse Project. Chris holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in history from Queen’s University, and a B.A. in history from McMaster University. His doctoral dissertation received an award from Queen’s University for its distinction and is being published by Oxford University Press.
Patrick Fitzsimmons
University of Pennsylvania
Department of Economics
Patrick Fitzsimmons is a John and Daria Barry Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Economics. His research focuses include economic history, political economy, and economic growth. His current research interest is on how conflict and violence have shaped state/empire-building and political systems in the premodern world. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from George Mason University.
Andrew Flynn
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Department of Philosophy
Charlotte Duffee is a John and Daria postdoctoral fellow with the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the history and philosophy of suffering in Western thought, with an eye toward medical debates over the assessment and treatment of suffering. She is currently at work on a new book project using digital humanities tools to analyze ideas about suffering across different versions of the Western canon. She completed her Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science at the University of Toronto, where she also obtained a B.A. in philosophy and a M.A. in the history and philosophy of science. She holds additional M.A. degrees in philosophy and in bioethics from the New School and New York University respectively.
Justin Hawkins
Columbia University
Center for Medical Ethics
Justin R. Hawkins is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Columbia University Center for Medical Ethics. His research areas include virtue ethics, bioethics, disability theory, and the relationship of political theory and Christian theology. His current research project examines the history of American presidential bioethics commissions and councils to investigate whether and how they serve a significant pedagogical and advisory purpose in the development of bioethics policy. He received his PhD with distinction from Yale University. He also holds an MAR in the Philosophy of Religion from Yale Divinity School, and a BA in Government from Georgetown University.
Thomas Holman
Princeton University
James Madison Program
Thomas W. Holman is a John and Daria Barry Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions in the Department of Politics at Princeton
University. His work focuses on the role of communication and debate in politics, especially in the context of twentieth century continental thought. Thomas holds a Ph.D. from The Catholic
University of America, where he completed a dissertation on Hannah Arendt and Eric Voegelin’s 1953 debate over totalitarianism. He is currently working on a book project which explores the
role of the human person in the thought of Hannah Arendt.
Landon Hobbs
Zephyr Institute
Landon Hobbs is Senior Fellow and Director of Academic Programs at the Zephyr Institute in Palo Alto, California. His area of academic research is Ancient Greek philosophy, especially the theoretical philosophy of Aristotle, and his current research focuses on the metaphysical principle that the cause must precontain its effect. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Stanford University and a B.A. in Philosophy from Pepperdine University.
Julia Nakamura
Harvard University
Human Flourishing Program
Julia Nakamura will be John and Daria Barry postdoctoral fellow with the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University (starting in January 2026). Her research integrates theories and perspectives from health psychology, epidemiology, biostatistics, and translational science to identify, understand, and intervene upon prosocial behaviors (e.g., volunteering, helping behaviours, charitable giving) that improve health and well-being. Julia received her M.A. in Health Psychology from the University of British Columbia, and her B.S. in Psychobiology from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is currently completing her Ph.D. in Health Psychology at the University of British Columbia.
Frank Ngo
Ohio State University
Salmon P. Chase Center for American Civics, Culture, and Society
Frank Ngo is Post Doctoral Researcher at the Salmon P. Chase Center for American Civics, Culture, and Society. Trained as a social anthropologist, his research examines religion, secularity, time, gender, labor, and debt through their intersection in the concept of the vocation. His current project focuses on social institutions as the sites of cultivating meaningful and purposeful lives. Ngo received his PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, MA in Global Studies at Sophia University in Tokyo, and BA in Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.
Sophie Pangle
Princeton University
James Madison Program
Sophie Pangle is a John and Daria Barry Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. Her research in the history of political thought addresses theories of dignity, indignation, justice, and freedom, with a focus on late modern responses to ancient Greek political philosophy. Her current book project compares the concepts of amour-propre and thumos in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s response to the thought of Plato. Her work has been published in History of Political Thought and The Political Science Reviewer. She holds a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University and a B.A. from the University of Chicago.
Armando Perez-Gea
Stanford University
Program in Civic, Liberal, and Global Education
Armando Perez-Gea is a Fellow to Diversify Teaching and Learning at the Civic, Liberal, and Global Education Program at Stanford University. His research proposes a role morality of authority relations that builds on Aristotle's theory of rule and the neo-republicans' concept of domination by proposing that there are four kinds of authority relations that each has its own standard of what counts as domination. He has published in Ancient Philosophy. Armando holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and Philosophy, M.A.R. in Philosophy of Religion, and M.A. in Economics from Yale University, as well as M.A. in Philosophy and B.A. in Political Science and Economics from Stanford University.
Wanning Seah
Princeton University
James Madison Program
Armando Perez-Gea is a Fellow to Diversify Teaching and Learning at the Civic, Liberal, and Global Education Program at Stanford University. His research proposes a role morality of authority relations that builds on Aristotle's theory of rule and the neo-republicans' concept of domination by proposing that there are four kinds of authority relations that each has its own standard of what counts as domination. He has published in Ancient Philosophy. Armando holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and Philosophy, M.A.R. in Philosophy of Religion, and M.A. in Economics from Yale University, as well as M.A. in Philosophy and B.A. in Political Science and Economics from Stanford University.
Avery Williams
Princeton University
James Madison Program
Avery Williams is a John and Daria Barry postdoctoral fellow with the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. His research focuses on the history of political thought with an emphasis on the political philosophy of Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle. His forthcoming book, Universal Tyranny: The Socratic Attack on Tyrannical Psychology, discusses the widely misunderstood critique of tyranny and the psychology of the tyrant in the early Socratics. He received his Ph.D. in Government from the University of Texas at Austin.