I am thrilled to announce that this summer I have been awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor. With the support of my department chair and college dean, I went up a year early and received unanimous support at every step. There are so many people that helped in immeasurably in reach this point in my career. First and foremost is my amazing spouse, Lesley Robinson (who is ridiculously talented and productive; her first book is due out this fall!). I’ve also had the privilege to work with a bunch of different co-authors, all of whom have been a pleasure to work with. Each of those articles helped me get to this point.
There were numerous times that I never expect to get to this point. I was on the job market for 6 seasons. At times it was pretty bleak. At least once, I got total of zero first-round interviews for TT positions. As I finished my third and final year as a visiting assistant professor, I had one on-campus interview and did not get the job. Going into summer, I had nothing lined up. With luck and the recommendation of a friend, an interview with Michael O’Rourke for a post-doc with the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative at Michigan State materialized. Being hired for that position was the only thing that kept me in academia. (So not only am I incredibly grateful to Michael O’Rourke and TDI for enabling me to stay in academia, he and they have been wonderful to work with! I couldn’t have asked for a better post-doc and group of people to still be collaborating with.) In my second year as at this post-doc, I had one on-campus interview for my current job, which I thankful to have gotten. I am incredibly lucky. Much, if not almost all, of my success is due to luck and the help of a lot of people.
I have a some exciting plans for tenured life. At the moment, I’m working on a couple of papers on ambiguity. Tracing the theory of ambiguity back through Plato has been very enlightening. I’m beginning the process of writing a book on philosophy of language and moral psychology. At the moment, some colleagues and I are awaiting news on an NSF grant proposal, which (if awarded) will fund a three-year project and end up generating one of the coolest data sets in philosophy of science. Some co-authored, TDI projects on integration are in the work as well. Lastly, if there’s time, I may conduct a few experiments in moral psychology.
