Current Students

Born in the Bronx, NY, Robert discovered his passion for philosophy during his senior year of high school. After graduating from La Salle University with a BA in Philosophy and Communication he discovered that he also had a strong passion for education, and he was determined on becoming a professor of philosophy. In his words, “The greatest way in which I can add to the betterment of society and incite social change is by influencing the minds of our future generations. I intend to get to the root problems in education and reform it in a way that will empower individuals to achieve their personal goals, not simply join in the rat race of the monotonous workforce.” His research interests include but are not limited to education policy, epistemology, and existentialism. He is also interested in thinkers like Dewey, Rousseau, and Montaigne. Robert currently works as a presenter with a company called Elevate Education in which he goes out to middle/high schools throughout the five boroughs and he helps the youth to become better students by teaching them various study skills and belief systems. When he is not engaging in scholarly endeavors, he can be found skateboarding around the concrete jungle of NYC.

Zev is a master's student from California. He holds his B.A. in Philosophy from Reed College, at which he matriculated after two years of study at Montana State University. Zev is deeply experienced with youth work, and currently serves as the Program Director for the Leadership & Service program of the National Student Leadership Conference. He is committed to creating change in young people worldwide, through education and through philosophy and through their entanglement in content and in form. Beyond academia, Zev is an avid fly fisherman and musician.

Joseph Hagan graduated from the University of Southern Maine in 2020 with a B.A. in Philosophy, in which he discovered Existentialism, the nature of emotions, relationships between philosophy and literature, poetic language, and compassion. After graduating, he continued working in a vocational high school music program and substituting grades K-12 within Portland Public Schools in Maine. Some interests he brings to the Philosophy and Education program include the importance of self-awareness and reflection, bringing philosophy to middle and high schools, the lessons of boredom and loneliness, the meanings of suicide and courage.

Kevin is a first-year Master’s student hailing from Chicago, where they helped oversee educational programs of a nonprofit K-12 learning center working in one of the two largest Rohingya refugee communities in the United States. Kevin is interested in critical social theory and education as a prefigurative practice. They like to connect with youth, activism, and others committed to social transformation and imaginative play. Kevin is Mexican-born and holds a B.S. in Mathematics from DePaul University.

Hieu earned his Bachelor from London School of Economics (UK) in 2007, his Ph.D. from Stanford University (USA) in 2012, and an MBA from University of Oxford (UK) in 2016. Hieu is a leading expert in Vietnam’s education sector, directly setting up and transforming 100+ Vietnamese and foreign K-12 schools, colleges, education institutes, non-profit organizations, ranging from boutique models to big-scale systems, in multiple capacities: school model design, new school creation, school restructuring, product R&D, professional development, general management, corporate finance & strategy, system operations. As a teacher & professor, Hieu has taught the entire range of primary, middle, high school, college, graduate school students, young professionals and corporate executives across multiple subjects. Dr. Nguyen is a pioneering thought leader in Vietnamese education and an active contributor on national news, media as well as a published author with numerous best-selling books in education and related issues.

Brittany holds a BA in English and art history from Muhlenberg College and an MA TESOL from the New School. She teaches English as a Second Language at the American Language Program, Columbia University. Brittany’s pedagogical interests include extensive listening, critical thinking, and incorporating art, poetry, and music into ESL instruction. At TC, Brittany hopes to study the relationship between poetry and education and the ethics of English-language teaching. In her free time, Brittany reads and writes poetry about rock and roll, films, and other poems.

Lake Ouyang was born in Guangdong, China. He graduated from Stony Brook University with a BS in Mathematics and an MAT in Mathematics. During his undergraduate years, he has done personal readings in Buddhist philosophy, Confucianism, and Daoism, finding a deep resonance with all three. This experience formed his belief that education fundamentally cultivates and influences the development of humanity, and shapes our future world. Driven by this conviction, Lake became a middle school teacher. He has a research interest in Virtue ethics and Character Education, seeking answers to questions such as how to teach virtue and practical wisdom, how to guide people in pursuing a good life, and how to introduce philosophy to both children and the general public. Additionally, Lake enjoys comparative studies of Eastern and Western philosophy and wishes to find common ground between these traditions.

Theseus has spent the past two decades working at a nonprofit youth organization, where he developed, implemented and managed comprehensive afterschool programs for elementary and middle school students in public schools throughout Manhattan. These programs supported learning goals in literacy, STEM and leadership development through project-based learning. He is currently building a new nonprofit organization that will work to support the social/emotional needs and mental wellness of children and teens.

Emilia has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Maryland-College Park. Her experiences with researching empathy in STEM education surprised her, resulting in a desire to pursue more philosophical questions about STEM and education. Emilia also currently teaches kindergarten and first grade Math full-time at a public charter school in the South Bronx.

Yuri Zhang has worked for five years in China's education system. During that time, she served as a primary school teacher and textbook creator. She also held several marketing positions in international schools. Yuri comes to the philosophy and education program with lots of questions. She is eager to understand education as a whole by reflecting on the big issues confronting education today. Her hobbies are meeting different people, going to the gym, and taking dance classes. She hopes to have a dog one day.

Addison Zipter graduated from Texas A&M University with a bachelor's degree in Education. Inspired by her year of student teaching, she is eager to explore and research the big questions of teaching, such as what to teach, how to teach, and the underlying purpose of education. She hopes to find answers throughout her master's program.

Sam obtained a Master of Arts from the Philosophy and Education Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She has been an educator across New York City for the past 10 years. Sam currently teaches second grade at City and Country School, a progressive school in Greenwich Village. Prior to studying at Teachers College, Sam majored in Philosophy and English and was a Take Five Scholar in Mathematics at the University of Rochester. She is particularly interested in studying the ways in which educators can engage in philosophy with young children, what it means to be a philosopher, and how philosophy serves as a foundation for education. Her current research interests include Plato, Rousseau, Marx, Dewey and the work of Caroline Pratt. Sam loves exploring New York City and spending time with her husband and cat. 

Maxwell Anthony is an incoming doctoral student in the Philosophy and Education program at Teachers College. Prior to TC Maxwell taught High School Latin and studied Ancient Greek and Latin in the Rutgers University Classics Post-Baccalaureate program. He received a Masters in Liberal Arts from St. John's College in Annapolis, MD and a BA in Philosophy from George Washington University.  

Chiara Ginevra Berra is a first year doctoral student in the Philosophy and Education program at Teachers College, Columbia University. In 2023, she received a Master’s in Liberal Arts from New York University and a BA in Philosophy and Literature from San Raffaele University, Italy. Chiara’s interest in classics led her to teach Latin language and Literature at La Scuola D’Italia in New York. Her research aims to describe the intersection between Philosophy of Literature, Psychoanalysis and Education.

Emy Cardoza is a Ph.D. student in the Philosophy and Education Program at Teachers College, where her research interests include critical race theory, higher education, and the concept of reconciliation. Prior to joining the TC community, Emy earned a Master of Divinity from the University of Chicago Divinity School, a Master of Education from Loyola University Chicago and a BA in Religious Studies from Rollins College. She currently serves as the Associate Dean for Student Life at Barnard College.

I got my Bachelors in Philosophy from Biola University. There, I also participated in the Torrey Honor's Institute Great Books program. I've been teaching for 2.5 years, and I am thrilled with M.A. program in Philosophy and Education.

Cole Donovan is a PhD student in Philosophy and Education at Columbia University’s Teachers College. His scholarly interests center on medieval institutions of education and the historical imaginary that carries these institutions into modernity and beyond. He holds a B.S.Ed. in English from the University of Georgia and an M.A. in Humanities with a concentration in Medieval Studies from the University of Chicago. Prior to arriving at TC, he taught World Literature and AP Research at Thomas County Central High School in rural southwest Georgia.

Before starting his PhD in Philosophy and Education at Teachers College, Stefan earned his MA from the same program. He is primarily interested in American Pragmatism, particularly the work of Richard Rorty and John Dewey. Stefan is also interested in the teaching of ethics, and he regularly serves as a judge at the annual Long Island High School Ethics Bowl.

Yuval Dwek is a Ph.D. student in the Philosophy & Education program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Yuval completed his B.A. in Philosophy and M.A. in Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His academic interests include civic education, political and social philosophy, philosophy of emotions, and moral psychology. He is passionate about the possibility of exploring new pedagogies and conceptual analysis in conflictual societies to cultivate democratic capacities and better civic dialogue.

Nick teaches first year courses, philosophy, and humanities courses at Stella and Charles Guttman Community College, CUNY. His research looks at how public school teachers' critical relationship to the apparatus of teaching can facilitate a more open learning environment for their students. He enjoys the outdoors and lives in Brooklyn.

I got my B.A. in Philosophy from Universidad de Los Andes in 2014. I then taught high school philosophy, which is part of the Colombian curriculum, for five years. I am mainly interested in animal ethics in education, psychoanalysis, and teaching philosophy in schools.

Vikramaditya (Vik) Joshi is a second-year doctoral student in the Philosophy and Education program. Before coming to Teachers College, Vik graduated from Bard College with a B.A in Philosophy and Literature. He then graduated from the University of East Anglia with an M.A in Biography and Creative Non-Fiction. He served as an academic advisor for the Bard Prison Initiative, a college-in-prison program. He held a fellowship at the Center for Justice at Columbia University and is currently part of the inaugural cohort of Fellows at the Gathering for Justice. He led the development of a curriculum on anti-Muslim bias, supported by EdVenture Partners, the McCain Institute, and the Department of Homeland Security, securing funding and the Invent2Prevent scholarship. He is working on a manuscript (biography) of a Professor at Bard who was a spy in the French Resistance. Vik’s research at TC is focused on the work of B.R Ambedkar, an architect of the Indian Constitution and, in 1913, a student at Columbia University under the tutelage of John Dewey.

Shapel LaBorde, a proud Queens native, teaches TESOL at an elementary school in Queens. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Philosophy from Spelman College and a Master's degree in TESOL from Hunter College School of Education as well as a Master's degree in Philosophy and Education from Teachers College Columbia University. Additionally, she holds dual vocations as a Licensed Esthetician and Licensed Nail Technician. Currently, she is enrolled in the Doctoral program in Philosophy and Education.

Shapel's interests include exploring themes of knowledge construction with the senses, embodied knowledge, feminist ethics, and critical race theory. Deeply committed to her community and family, she continually seeks ways to improve their conditions. Raised by her mother, Ramona, and her Great Grandma Babe, she upholds the mantra instilled by her great-grandmother: "God, Brains, and Manners." 

Shapel lives and loves with her active and amazing pre-schooler, Sage Ali.

Joseph earned a B.S. in Biology from Georgia State University in Atlanta and an M.A.T. in Secondary Education from Piedmont College, where he was a Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellow. After obtaining his master’s in 2017, he taught science and coached athletics at public schools in Georgia and Indiana. Joseph’s research interests are epistemology, ethics, and teacher education. More specifically, he wants to explore the interaction between ethics and epistemology, including the concept of judgment in John Dewey’s philosophical thought, and the potential implications for teachers.

Maja Morsing is PhD student starting in the fall of 2024. Maja earned her first bachelors degree in Chemistry from the University of Cape Town in South Africa in 2016. She also completed a Bachelors in Secondary Education through the Teach for Sweden work-study program. In 2023, Maja graduated with an MA in Educational Theory from Malmö University, Sweden. 

In addition to her educational background, Maja has worked as a high school teacher in both Sweden and New York City for a total of 7 years. She has also been involved in local politics in both Malmö, Sweden, where she served on a city council, as well as in NYC. Maja has a deep passion for and interest in democratic processes and participatory decision making. Her commitment to philosophy of education is fueled by a desire to actively confront the value systems and prioritization in current public education decision making and research. Through educational theory, Maja aims to make educational value choices explicit and available for discussion. In her spare time, Maja also likes to engage in discussions on education through open mic performances of original anecdotal think pieces wrestling with her experiences with the realities of the education system.

Sam Piede joins the program fresh from receiving her M.Ed. in English Education from Millersville University, focusing her research on the staging of absurdism in theatre post World War II.  A teacher first and above all, Sam has served for ten years as the gifted coordinator for Elizabethtown Area High School in Elizabethtown, PA and instructed both the school's Inquiry Seminar and the AP Capstone courses (AP Seminar & AP Research).  She also works as an academic dean for the Summer Institute for the Gifted.  Sam is a staunch advocate for inquiry-based and democratic classroom models, and she is interested in exploring the epistemic and ethical underpinnings of high school language arts curriculum development, particularly in how students are exposed to research tasks.  She is excited to have found a program and cohort that values exploring similar issues.  When not teaching and learning, she enjoys rock climbing, reading science fiction, and indulging in/critiquing the works of her two favorite Johns (Dewey and Rawls).

Rachel Seher proudly serves as the Principal of City-As-School, a public alternative high school in New York City, where she collaborates with young people, educators and families to create a vibrant and personalized learning community in which each young person can thrive.  Rachel is a scholar-practitioner who believes that liberatory change emerges through praxis, the creative synthesis of theory and practice.  She uses egalitarian inquiry methods, like Descriptive Inquiry and Critical Participatory Action Research, to facilitate transformational learning in her school community and intends to use this methodology in her dissertation research, which will focus on the moral aspects of public school leadership.  Rachel graduated from the College of William & Mary with a B.A. in Political Science, Teachers College with an M.Ed. in Organizational Leadership and Yale University with a Ph.D. in Political Science.  She also studied and taught in the Leadership Programs at Bank Street College of Education.

Sulki Song is a Ph.D. Student in the Philosophy and Education Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She earned a B.A. in Education and M.A. in Philosophy of Education, both from Seoul National University, South Korea. Her master thesis was titled, “Education for the Formation of Self-Identity: Drawing upon Charles Taylor’s Concept of Authenticity.” She is deeply interested in answering the question philosophically: what does the education look like as a way of supporting human beings to live their own lives fully and freely? Her current research interests include identity formation, value education, character education, and the concept of understanding, especially during the school-ages years.

Scott C. Taylor earned his BA in philosophy and sociology from the College of Mount Saint Vincent, his MA in philosophy (with a concentration in psychoanalysis) from The New School for Social Research, and his MSW from Fordham University, Graduate School of Social Service. His research interests include pragmatism (esp. G.H. Mead and John Dewey), psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, embodied cognition studies, and the philosophy of work and adult education. 

In 2018 Scott was awarded the Silberger Scholar Paper Prize from Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute for his interdisciplinary work in psychoanalysis. Most recently, he was the recipient of the SIU Dewey Center Emerging Scholars Award. He has taught at the undergraduate and graduate level for over a decade. His published works can be found in American Imago, European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. He will contribute a book chapter on the pragmatic naturalism of his late MA thesis advisor, philosopher Richard J. Bernstein, forthcoming with Fordham University Press. 

Outside of academia, Scott is a psychotherapist at the Institute for Personal Growth and proudly serves as a career firefighter for the Jersey City Fire Department. All the above would not be possible without the love, support, and inspiration from his wife, Maura, and daughters, Sabina and Fiona, the constancy and lightheartedness that his friendships impart, and the tenaciousness that his family instilled.

Prior to his arrival in New York City, Rory worked as a teacher at Scottsdale Preparatory Academy, a Great Books-based liberal arts school in Arizona. Before that, Rory earned a B.A. in American History and an M.A. in Political Theory, both from Arizona State University. Rory's time in the Sonoran was preceded by a deeply cherished period of immiseration, commonly called ‘youth,’ in the Appalachian backwoods of Western Pennsylvania.

Rory’s most salient philosophical, moral, and political commitments are to critical theory, integral theory, cosmopolitanism, and direct deliberative democracy. These commitments shape his feelings, thoughts, and actions in two important ways. First, these commitments mean that he seeks always to unite theory with practice, as beautifully summed up by Marx: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it." Second, these commitments mean that the end to which this union of theory and practice is directed, always, is human liberation—from hierarchy, oppression, injustice, false consciousness, and the illusion of the self, among other things. Through such emancipation can arise autonomy, actualization, and transcendence, and Rory believes that helping to realize these potentials for all persons, including oneself, should be the purpose of any compassionate life. This way of being is exemplified, in Rory’s opinion, by Nietzsche’s figure of Zarathustra, whom he therefore denies accordingly.

Ting Zhao received her B.E. in Materials of Science and Engineering from Zhengzhou University, China. During her undergraduate period, she realized her love and passion for education. So after graduation, she went to Beijing Normal University to study the Foundation of Education and got a M.A. in education. There she developed a more systematical understanding of education as well as love for philosophy of education. Before coming to Teachers College, Columbia University, she went to the Ohio State University to study philosophy of education and got her second M.A. in education. She was enrolled in Philosophy and Education program in Fall 2017. Her current research interests include teacher education, Chinese traditional philosophy and education, the aesthetic education, and cosmopolitanism.