Undergraduates Receive Selmer Birkelo Scholarships

Congratulations to undergraduate philosophy majors Wolfgang Tattenbach and Jonathan Willard, who were recently awarded 2014-15 CLA Selmer Birkelo Scholarships. To be considered for a Birkelo Scholarship, students must be majoring in fields relating to history, modern languages, classics, or the social and behavioral sciences, and must be nominated to the Office of the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs by their major department. For the 2014-15 academic year, Birkelo Scholarship recipients will receive up to $4,000, dependent on demonstrated financial need.

Graduate Student Spotlight: Awards and Highlights

Brian Wilson has been selected as a 2014-2015 recipient for the Global Spotlight Doctoral Dissertation Award through the Global Programs and Strategy Alliance (GPS Alliance). Read more about his research here.

Shay Logan was recently highlighted in CLA Reach Magazine. Read more about his dissertation project on the philosophical analysis of mathematical practice here.

New Faculty Member To Join the Department

The Department of Philosophy is pleased to announce that Samuel Fletcher will join the faculty in Fall 2015. His work focuses on the foundations of physics and of statistics, and explores how problems in these fields inform and are informed by broader issues in the philosophy of science. Additional interests include the conceptual and physical basis of computation, the philosophy of applied mathematics, and the history of physics and philosophy of science.

Philosophy of Science Grant Awarded

Associate Professor Alan Love has been awarded a $425,000 grant from the John Templeton Foundation for his project "Integrating Generic and Genetic Explanations of Biological Phenomena," with co-principal investigator William Wimsatt (Winton Chair in the Liberal Arts). This project brings together a diverse team of scholars in philosophy and biology to address the problem of integrating different types of explanations from scientific approaches to better understand life's complexity. The project will result in substantial advances in our understanding of three different domains of biological phenomena, establish a new collaborative networks of scientists, and illuminate the means and motivation of progress in biological knowledge over time.

Faculty Member Named Associate Editor

Congratulations to Michelle Mason for being selected as an associate editor for the journal Ethics. Read more here...

Faculty Member Award

Congratulations to Alan Love who was named Scholar of the College (2013-2016) by the College of Liberal Arts.

Undergraduate Research in Philosophy

Interested in doing cutting-edge research in an area of philosophy? The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) makes this possible. UROP provides grants of up to $1,700 for undergraduate students either to carry out a project of the student's own design in close collaboration with a faculty sponsor or work with a faculty member on her/his scholarly or creative project. In the process you develop a detailed knowledge of research methods while the faculty sponsors gain the assistance of enthusiastic and capable students.

For more details about UROP, as well as application materials, please click here.
If you have questions about UROP, please contact
Wendy Nicholson-Kotas, Coordinator
Individualized Degree Programs
30 Johnston Hall, (612) 624-8006
nicho421@umn.edu.