PHILOSOPHY OF AGING:

Recent advances in the biology of aging — particularly the prospect of interventions targeting the underlying processes of aging — raise interesting questions about the place of aging in our lives.

These questions, relating to the value and meaning of aging, are central to my research, which focuses on the normative significance of aging, examining the relationship between biological aging and moral growth. In doing so, I question the assumption that slowing biological aging offers only positive value for the individual, arguing instead that biological aging, despite genuine harms, creates under-recognized opportunities for moral development — virtues like fortitude and humility — and is an important ingredient for moral maturity. While philosophers from Lucretius to Bernard Williams have debated the desirability of immortality, far less scholarship exists on the normative significance of aging beyond a reductive conception of aging-as-mortality. My work canvasses the most informative accounts — from Cicero, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Arthur Schopenhauer, Simone de Beauvoir, and more recently Martha Nussbaum and Samuel Scheffler — to elaborate a philosophically robust analysis of aging’s moral relevance. Additionally, my research explores the ethics of epigenetic clocks and the related concept of biological age.

I served as an editorial fellow with the AMA Journal of Ethics from 2024-2025 to develop a theme issue on geroscience ethics. The collection brings together leading thinkers to address urgent questions at the intersection of geroscience, clinical medicine, and bioethics.

I also co-direct the UW Graduate Aging Group (along with Sarah McKiddy), which is an interdisciplinary, graduate student research cluster that aims to foster a community of scholars interested in aging research. Since 2024, we have been hosting a guest speaker series and a journal/book club, bringing together students and faculty from across the university. The group is generously funded by the University of Washington Retirement Association (UWRA), the de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging, and the Simpson Center for the Humanities.

NEUROETHICS:

I am a predoctoral research associate with the Neuroethics research group at UW, a multidisciplinary lab focused on ethical issues related to neuroscience and neurotechnology. My current projects are two-fold. First, I am taking part in a trial at UW that is investigating the use of implantable brain-computer interfaces in post-stroke rehabilitation. My role is to help conduct qualitative interviews of research participants to give voice to their experiences and explore the participant-side of the trial. Second, I am developing an epistemology of self-tracking, focusing on EEG-enabled devices. My worry is that self-tracking can undermine embodied perception, which would run counter to certain activities of self-tracking, in particular meditation, thus setting up a contradictory relationship between device and activity.

“Age is Just a Number? The Ethics of Epigenetic Clocks” (Submitted)

“The Goods of Decrepitude and the Normativity of Aging” (in preparation)

“Rethinking Healthspan: Beyond the Absence of Disease” (in preparation)

Instructor, Department of Bioethics and Humanities, University of Washington:

• BH 474/574 (PHIL 411) Justice in Healthcare (Winter 2026)

Teaching Assistant, Department of Philosophy, University of Washington:

• PHIL 242 Medical Ethics (Autumn 2020, Winter 2022)
• PHIL 206 History and Philosophy of Science (Spring 2021)
• PHIL 207 Global Justice (Autumn 2021)
• PHIL 115 Practical Reasoning (Spring 2022)

I received a BA with honors in mathematics and a BM in violin performance in the dual-degree program at Northwestern University, studying under the world-famous violinist Gerardo Ribeiro. After spending a year studying Japanese literature and history in Kyoto, I studied at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne with the renowned violinist Gunars Larsens. I returned to the US to study medicine at the Pennsylvania State University, where I was introduced to medical ethics. This motivated me to join the Yale Bioethics Center for their summer internship in bioethics and to take time away from medical school for a MA in philosophy at University College London. I completed a residency in internal medicine at Boston Medical Center and then joined the PhD program in philosophy at the University of Washington.