Dawn is a fifth-year PhD student (AY '22-'23) in the Philosophy Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She completed her BA in philosophy at the University of Akron in 2000 and her MA in philosophy at Yale in 2004. Before returning to graduate school, Dawn worked with two educational companies in New England and taught philosophy courses at Fairfield University.
Dawn's primary areas of interest are ancient philosophy, ethics, moral psychology, and philosophical pedagogy. She is writing a dissertation on Democritus's moral theory under the guidance of Mitzi Lee.
As a Graduate Research Fellow, Dawn is studying the emergence of Greek ethical thought. There is a long history that treats Greek ethics as originating with Socrates. Dawn believes that such a view is too simplistic and overlooks interesting, distinct threads in ethical thinking that were gaining traction prior to and contemporary with Socrates. One question Dawn is currently exploring is whether and how to distinguish philosophical ethical thought from non-philosophical, traditional advice on how to live.