Katie

Profile

I completed my PhD in philosophy at MIT in July of 2026. Before that, I did my undergraduate studies at UChicago, graduating in 2021. In between undegrad and grad school, I worked at a trans community and advocacy center on the South Side of Chicago.

Research interests

My guiding interest in philosophy is the question of how our ordinary, embodied ways of making
sense of the world challenge many of our foundational theoretical assumptions. I’ve previously written on the place of embodied expression in contemporary trans discourse, on why the dispute about whether trans women are women is not a merely verbal dispute, and also on why data from how we justify action to one another tells against a nonfactualist semantics of epistemic modals. I’m currently writing on whether a radical approach to politics can be reconciled with the ideal of civility in political life. My future research has two broad strands: i) on the distinction between interpretation and explanation, and the distinctive role that interpretation has in how we make sense of our shared social and political reality; and ii) the normative relation that we stand in to our own minds and bodies.

Qualifications

• PhD in Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• AB in Philosophy, University of Chicago