Placement of MA Graduates
The table below gives, for each year from 2013 to 2025, the number of MA degrees conferred that year, the number of those students seeking placement in a philosophy PhD program, and information on programs to which they were successfully admitted (with funding). Each program listed admitted just one of our graduates that year unless a number in parenthesis indicates multiple admissions.
| Year | # of MA degrees | # seeking PhD Placement | Placement Information |
| 2025 | 2 | 1 | University of Florida |
| 2024 | 2 | 2 | University of Texas – Austin, University of Florida |
| 2023 | 0 | 0 | |
| 2022 | 2 | 2 | York University |
| 2021 | 2 | 1 | University of Florida |
| 2020 | 0 | 0 | |
| 2019 | 5 | 4 | University of Kent, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, University of Florida (2) |
| 2018 | 3 | 1 | Florida State University |
| 2017 | 5 | 2 | University of Texas – Austin, University of South Florida |
| 2016 | 4 | 2 | |
| 2015 | 4 | 4 | University of California – Davis (2), University of Missouri – Columbia, Arizona State University |
| 2014 | 3 | 3 | Johns Hopkins University, University of Miami, Arizona State University |
| 2013 | 4 | 2 | University of California – Santa Cruz, University of Massachussetts – Amherst |
PhD Degrees, Theses and Placement
The information below gives, for each year going back to 2000, the year of the PhD, the title of the dissertation, the most recent information available regarding an academic position or academic-adjacent position, and the dissertation director.*
| Year | Name and Dissertation | Placement Information | Supervisor |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Julianna Costanzo, How Do Computing Technologies Impact Justice?: A Democratic Egalitarian Perspective | Instructor, University of West Florida | Jaime Ahlberg |
| 2024 | Thomas Schuyler Sturm, Just Predictive Machine Learning: Accounts of Sufficiently Good Data, Dual-Threshold Satisficing, and Algorithmic Transparency | Adjunct Lecturer, University of Florida | Duncan Purves |
| 2024 | James Wetzel, The Platonic Inheritance of Aquinas’ Doctrine of Creation | Visiting Assistant Professor, University of North Florida | John Palmer |
| 2024 | Shadi Heidarifar, The Conflation Of Epistemic And Moral Virtues: An Avicennan Response | Assistant Professor in Bioethics, Roseman University of Health Sciences (Nevada) | Jaime Ahlberg & Amber Ross |
| 2023 | Chris Becker, The Value of Work | Jaime Ahlberg | |
| 2023 | James Gillespie, An Agent-Centered Theory of Epistemic Rationality | Education Specialist, University of Florida Graduate School | John Biro |
| 2023 | Rusong Huang, Mental Anti-Representationalism: The Prospects for a Noncognitivist Account of Psychological Discourse | Adjunct Lecturer, University of Florida | Gene Witmer |
| 2023 | Mihana Mitchell, Social Suffering: A Moral Concept | Adjunct Lecturer, University of North Florida | Jaime Ahlberg |
| 2023 | David Ortiz, Pleasure, Perception, and Natural Harmony in Plato and Epicurus | Language Arts Teacher, East Hill Christian School (Pensacola, Florida) | John Palmer |
| 2023 | James Simpson, A Defense of Fallibilism | Adjunct Lecturer, University of Florida | John Biro |
| 2017 | Ron Claypool, Locke on Ideas | Assistant Professor, Santa Fe College | Stewart Duncan |
| 2017 | Andreas Falke, Excluding Thoroughly: Theories of Causation and Their Impact on the Exclusion Problem | Head of Marketing at Dialog Ticket Translation Agency | Gene Witmer |
| 2014 | Edward Perez, On the Ontological Status of Propositions: Why Linguistic Logical Form Cannot Ground Propositional Structure | Lecturer, Coastal Carolina University | Michael Jubien & Greg Ray |
| 2012 | Kirk Walker, We Do Not Have Free Will: A Critique of Libertarianism | Adjunct Professor at Florida Southwestern State College | Robert D’Amico |
| 2012 | Eugenio Zaldivar, Substance and the Substance of Minds in Descartes and Locke | Associate Professor, Santa Fe College | Stewart Duncan |
| 2011 | Shawn Burtoft, Cognitive Significance and Coextensionality | John Biro | |
| 2011 | Carlos Bernal Pulido, Living Together Within a Legal Practice: a Theory of Law As Collective Intentional Activity | Associate Professor, Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics at Macquarie University | Kirk Ludwig |
| 2011 | Casey Woodling, Intentionality and Self-Knowledge | Assistant Dean of Academic Outreach and Continuing Education and Senior Lecturer, Coastal Carolina University | John Biro |
| 2011 | Ana Andrei, The Nature and Significance of the Explanatory Gap | Kirk Ludwig | |
| 2010 | Joy Hayes, Liberalism, Communitarianism, and Self-Determination | Vice President of Ethics & Compliance at Activism Blizzard | Marina Oshana |
| 2009 | Ching-E Ang, Homosexual Poets and Successful Gangsters: An Examination of Aristotelian Naturalism, and the Skeptical Worries Confronting It | Senior Lecturer, Idaho State University | David Copp |
| 2009 | Jesse Butler, Clearing a Path for Conventionalist Modal Semantics | Kirk Ludwig | |
| 2009 | Ivana Simic, Intuitive A Priori Knowledge: Reliability and Rationality | Assistant Director, UF Internal Review Boards | Kirk Ludwig |
| 2009 | Elisabeth Shortsleeve, A Study of Belief | Visiting Assistant Professor, College of William & Mary | Kirk Ludwig & Gene Witmer |
| 2009 | David Tostenson, The Connection Principle: An Exegesis and Defense | Associate Professor, Fort Hays State University | John Biro |
| 2008 | Bill Butchard, Grounding Explanations: The Role of ‘In Virtue of’ in Philosophical Inquiry | Visiting Assistant Professor: University of Central Florida | Gene Witmer |
| 2008 | Catherine Campbell, Identity, Persons, and Political Theory: A Defense of John Rawls | Assistant Professor, Family Youth & Community Sciences at the University of Florida | David Copp |
| 2007 | Emil Badici, The Inexpressibility of Truth | Associate Professor, Texas A&M at Kingsville | Greg Ray |
| 2007 | Shin Sakuragi, On Propositional Memory | Assistant Professor, Shibaura Institute of Technology | Kirk Ludwig |
| 2006 | Anton Tupa, Development and Defense of a Desire-Satisfaction Conception of Well-Being | Visiting Assistant Professor, Saginaw Valley State University | David Copp |
| 2005 | Huiming Ren, Self-Knowledge and Narrow Content | Professor, Shandong University | Kirk Ludwig |
| 2005 | Peter Barry, Wanting the Bad and Doing Bad Things: An Essay in Moral Psychology | Professor, Saginaw Valley State University | David Copp |
| 2005 | Kathryn Lammens, Defense of Conceptual Analysis and Thought Experiments | Visiting Assistant Professor, James Madison University | Kirk Ludwig & Gene Witmer |
| 2004 | Ellen Maccarone, Impartiality: Its Nature and Application | Associate Professor, Gonzaga University | Robert Baum |
| 2003 | Matthew Hallgarth, Bernard Gert’s Theory of Moral Rules and American Professional Military Ethics | Associate Professor, Tarleton State University | Robert Baum |
| 2003 | Daniel Boisvert, Expressive-Assertivism: A Dual-Use Solution to the Moral Problem | Senior Lecturer, University of North Carolina – Charlotte | Kirk Ludwig |
| 2002 | Carlos Garcia-Duque, Four Central Issues in Popper’s Theory of Science | Professor, Universidad de Caldas and Universidad de Manizales | Chuang Liu |
| 2001 | Eva Kort, Substance, Sorts, and Consciousness : Locke’s Empiricism and his Account of Personal Identity in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding | Lecturer, Coastal Carolina University | Kirk Ludwig |
| 2000 | John Peoples, A New Theory of Counterfactual Conditionals | Lecturer, Open University | Kirk Ludwig & Greg Ray |
*In 2008, the economic recession prompted the university to suspend admissions to a number of doctoral degree programs, including that in philosophy. Admissions to the philosophy doctoral program were reopened in 2018. This accounts for the lack of PhDs produced during much of the 2010s.