New Faculty

Assistant Professor Matthew Adams

Matthew Adams specializes in political philosophy, ethical theory, and applied ethics. Much of his research is animated by the question of how normative ideals apply in actual political practice. Some (but not all) of his research is Rawlsian in spirit. His early research focused on developing a new nonideal theory of justice. This theory hinges on an innovation termed “nonideal principles of justice,” which are forged using a Rawlsian contractualist framework. In contrast to most work on nonideal theory, he connects his theorizing about justice to policy questions, such as the viability of affirmative action in a contemporary U.S. educational context.

Matthew Adams

Now he is working away on several new projects. These include exploring the normative significance of political apathy; giving an account—by drawing on Thomas Mann’s novel Doctor Faustus—of what it is for a traditional practice to degenerate; and examining the value of conceptualizing food as medicine. His interests in philosophy have always been very broad. He has also worked on topics ranging from Plato’s late political philosophy to abortion. Finally, he has done some interdisciplinary collaborative research on risk assessment in sentencing. Among other venues, his work has been published in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy and Philosophical Studies.

Assistant Professor Sharon Berry

Sharon Berry has been fascinated by mathematical knowledge and how understanding it can illuminate various areas of philosophy since she did her B.A. (a double major in mathematics and philosophy) at Columbia. She got her Ph.D. from Harvard, and then did postdocs at the Australian National University and the Polonsky Academy in Jerusalem. She spent some time as permanent-track faculty at Oakland University in Michigan, and (briefly) a tenured professor at Ashoka University near Delhi.

Sharon Berry

Her papers on epistemology, metaethics and philosophy of mathematics have been published in journals like Analysis, Philosophical Studies, and the British Journal of Philosophy of Science (and taught at NYU, UCL and Stanford). Her book A Logical Foundation for Potentialist Set Theory (2022) was just published by Cambridge University Press. Among the courses she teaches are Theory of Knowledge (300 level) and Philosophy of Mathematics (graduate level).

Assistant Professor Vera Flocke

Vera was born and raised in Soest, Germany, and studied philosophy in Berlin, Pittsburgh, St. Andrews, before earning her Ph.D. from New York University with a dissertation on Carnap and metaontology. She has since then taught at IU, mostly Introduction to Philosophy, Introduction to Symbolic Logic and metaphysics classes. Outside work, she is interested in environmental topics and animal rights. She enjoys Crossfit and long cross-country bike trips.

Vera Flocke

Assistant Professor Katy Meadows

Katy Meadows joined the department in 2019. Before coming to IU, Katy was the Stalnaker Postdoctoral Associate at MIT from 2017-19; she received her Ph.D. from Stanford in 2017. Her main research interests lie in ancient Greek philosophy. She is particularly interested in Aristotle’s metaphysics; she has published a paper arguing for a causal account of ontological priority in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, and received a CAHI research fellowship in Fall 2022 to work on questions about Aristotle’s understanding of the subject matter of metaphysics.

Katy Meadows

She also has research interests in Plato’s ethics; she is the co-author of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on the Laws and is currently working on a paper on Plato’s answer to the ‘why be just’ question in the Laws. In addition to her individual research work, she is a part of the Open Plato Project, which aims to create open-access editions of Platonic texts with resources aimed at a wide range of audiences.

Oscar R. Ewing Associate Professor David Sussman

David Sussman received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1999. Before coming to IU, he held positions at Princeton University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His work focuses on Kant's moral philosophy and related questions about the nature of personhood, action, and practical reasoning.

David Sussman

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Department of Philosophy

New Faculty

New Faculty

Assistant Professor Matthew Adams

Assistant Professor Sharon Berry

Assistant Professor Vera Flocke

Assistant Professor Katy Meadows

Oscar R. Ewing Associate Professor David Sussman

The College of Arts & Sciences

New Faculty

New Faculty

Assistant Professor Matthew Adams

Assistant Professor Sharon Berry

Assistant Professor Vera Flocke

Assistant Professor Katy Meadows

Oscar R. Ewing Associate Professor David Sussman

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The College of Arts & Sciences