Graduate Students

MA Program

Ritam Chakraborty entered the MA program in fall 2021, after completing a BA in philosophy and a postgraduate diploma with an advanced major in philosophy, both at Ashoka University, India. His specific areas of interest in philosophy are normative ethics, metaethics, and logic. Besides, he also takes interest in social and political philosophy, philosophy of mathematics, and Indian philosophy.

Supervisor: Dr. Chelsea Rosenthal
Email: ritam_chakraborty at sfu.ca

Yanjie Ding entered the MA program in fall 2021. He graduated from Shandong University with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. He is currently interested in metaethics and moral psychology. He also takes interest in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of cognitive science, and philosophy of action, so as to better understand how people think and act morally.

Supervisor: Dr. Nicolas Bommarito
Email: yanjie_ding at sfu.ca

Shivanshu Mishra entered the MA program in fall 2021.

Supervisor: Dr. Dai Heide
Email: sma270 at sfu.ca

Jacob Schwartz entered the MA program in fall 2021. He graduated with a BA in Computer Science from Vassar College in 2019. He is primarily interested in normative ethics and epistemology. He also has interests in decision theory, social and political philosophy, bioethics, and Buddhist philosophy.

Supervisor:  Dr. Endre Begby
Email: jhs17 at sfu.ca

Tiange (Eileen) Wang entered the MA program in fall 2021, after completing a double major in Computer Science and Humanities (Philosophy) at New York University Shanghai. She is interested in metaethics, normative ethics, and logic.

Supervisor:  Dr. Alex King
Email: twa137 at sfu.ca 

Safa Ahmadian entered the MA program in fall 2022.

Supervisor:  Dr. Endre Begby
Email: 
ssa535 at sfu.ca

Branch Archer entered the MA program in fall 2022.  He has a BA in Plan II Honors and a BS in environmental engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. He has interests in value theory, environmental ethics, free will, and meaningfulness.

Supervisor:  Dr. Alex King
Email:  bta72 at sfu.ca
Office: WMC 4616

Zoe Edelson entered the MA program in fall 2022.

Supervisor:  Dr. Chelsea Rosenthal
Email:  zea4 at sfu.ca

Celia Gentle entered the MA program in fall 2022 after getting a degree in Cognitive Systems from the University of British Columbia. Her philosophical interests broadly include epistemology, philosophy for children (P4C), and the philosophy of hope. 

Supervisor:  Dr. Bruno Guindon
Email:  cmg15 at sfu.ca

Naila Jubara entered the MA program in fall 2022 with a BA in philosophy from the University of Minnesota. She has broad interests but focuses on social and political philosophy, social metaphysics, and ethics. She's increasingly interested in epistemological topics as well, including social epistemology and philosophy of science.

Supervisor:  Dr. Chelsea Rosenthal
Email:  naila_jubara at sfu.ca

  I. Bugra Sagsen entered the MA program in fall 2022 after completing their BA in philosophy at Middle East Technical University. They are primarily interested in epistemology, philosophy of action and perception. They also have interests in cognitive sciences and phenomenology. Currently they are working on epistemic normativity, belief, reasons, and rationality.

Supervisor:  Dr. Bruno Guindon
Email:  sbs5 at sfu.ca

Ronaldo Shrestha entered the MA program in fall 2023.  He holds a BA in Liberal Arts and Sciences from University College Utrecht, where he completed tracks in philosophy, mathematics, physics, and literature.  His current philosophical interests include philosophy of language, epistemology, general philosophy of science, and decision and game theory.  He also has interests in history of philosophy, especially in Aristotle, Kant, German Idealism, and the later Wittgenstein.

Supervisor (interim):  Dr. Sam Black
Email: rss36 at sfu.ca

Tingyu Xu entered the MA program in fall 2023.  Her primary interests at the moment are normative ethics and political philosophy.  Some topics she pays special attention to are promises, practical reason, rationality, and agency.

Supervisor (interim):  Dr. Endre Begby
Email: tingyu_xu at sfu.ca
Preferred Pronouns:  she/her

Mukund Maithani entered the MA program in fall 202, following an integrated BA and postgraduate diploma in philosophy from Ashoka University, India. His main philosophical interests lie in moral psychology, Buddhist philosophy, philosophy of cognitive science, bioethics, philosophy of psychiatry, and phenomenology. His main non-philosophical interests include learning languages, playing badminton, poetry, and food.

Supervisor:  Dr. Nicolas Bommarito
Email: mma332 at sfu.ca
Preferred Pronouns:  he, him

Neha Nandakumar entered the MA program in Fall 2023. She completed her undergraduate education at Ashoka University, India, where she majored in Philosophy and Sociology/Anthropology. Her primary interests lie in the philosophy of reasons, emotions, and the self.

Supervisor (interim):  Dr. Nic Fillion
Email:  nna57 at sfu.ca
Preferred Pronouns:  she/her

Gonzalo Ricaldi Perez entered the MA program in fall 2023.  He holds a BA in Philosophy from Pontifical Catholic University of Peru.  His current interests in philosophy are in the philosophy of language and metaphysics, particularly in the problem of future contingents and theories of assertion.

Supervisor (interim):  Dr. Nic Bommarito
Email:  ggr1 at sfu.ca
Preferred Pronouns:  he/him/his

AJ Jinkins entered the MA program in fall 2023 after completing her BA in philosophy at Portland State University. Her philosophical interests include epistemology, rationality, and perception. 

Supervisor (interim):  Dr. Alex King
Email:  ajj5 at sfu.ca
Preferred Pronouns:  she/they

Reetika Kalita entered the MA program in Fall 2021. She has a BA in History from Delhi University, and an MA in Liberal Studies with a concentration in Philosophy from Ashoka University, India. Her interests lie primarily in metaphysics and philosophy of mind and, in particular, their relationship to logic and normativity. She is also interested in political theory, and spends time thinking, especially, about issues in feminist philosophy and Marxism.

Supervisor:  Dr. Kathleen Akins
Email:  rka102 at sfu.ca

Chrysogonus Okwenna entered the MA program in fall 2021. He completed his BA in Philosophy from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. At the moment, he is more broadly interested in the intersection between African philosophy, ethics, epistemology and the associated areas of philosophy of medicine and bioethics. He is particularly interested in the ethical-epistemic issues in medicine, science and society. In addition, he approaches these issues from an African perspective.

Supervisor: Dr. Chelsea Rosenthal
Email: cmo4 at sfu.ca

Junyi Guo started her MA in Fall 2021. She holds an MSc in Political Theory from LSE, UK, and a BA in Politics and Public Administration from Sun Yat-sen University, China. Her focus was on political freedom, its definition, and its realization via political action and judgment. Currently, she’s interested in Reason, Luck, and Morality. She's writing a thesis on Buddhist Philosophy. Besides Philosophy, she enjoys doing abstract line works and sketching cats, leaves and butterflies. 

Supervisor: Dr. Nicolas Bommarito
Email: jga153 at sfu.ca
Preferred Pronouns:  she/they

 

 

Yangyang Wang entered the MA program in fall 2021. Her interests are broad. Initially she was fascinated by Ancient Greek philosophy and spent most of her effort studying Plato and Aristotle’s metaphysics. Later she developed more interests in contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of language. Currently she wants to explore more on logic, feminist philosophy, philosophy of technology and social epistemology.

Supervisor:  Dr. Jennifer Wang
Email:  ywa389 at sfu.ca

Grace Shaw entered the MA program in fall 2022 after completing her BA in Cognitive Systems from the University of British Columbia with a minor in philosophy. She is interested in philosophy of mind, social justice, and speculative fiction.

Supervisor:  Dr. Holly Andersen
Email:  gashaw at sfu.ca

Nayancee Shrivastava entered the MA program in fall 2022.

Supervisor:  Dr. Evan Tiffany
Email:  nsa149 at sfu.ca

Gavin Victor entered the MA program in fall 2022.  Prior to entering the program, he graduated from Whitman College with a bachelor's in philosophy. His main areas of interest are aesthetics and philosophy of mind. In aesthetics, he is interested in aesthetic value, representation, and broadly the nature of aesthetic experience. In philosophy of mind, he is interested in cognition, imagination, and perception. He is also interested in environmental ethics, environmental humanities, and philosophy of technology. 

Supervisor:  Dr. Evan Tiffany
Email:  gjv3 at sfu.ca

Tessa Whittle entered the MA program in fall 2022 after graduating from the University of Western Ontario with a BA in philosophy. She is currently interested in broad ethical questions, like what 'should we do?' and 'how do we determine what we should do?', and the historical answers and puzzlings over these questions (particularly in the early modern period). At SFU she is hoping to explore these questions, as well as explore the current philosophical tradition more broadly.

Supervisor:  Dr. Dai Heide
Email:  tmw16 at sfu.ca

Hao Yang entered the MA program in fall 2022 after completing a BA in philosophy at Wuhan University. He is currently interested in metaphysics, philosophy of science, and philosophical logic. He is particularly interested in how to develop a theory of fundamentality and apply it to various metaphysical issues.

Supervisor:  Dr. Tom Donaldson
Email:  hya126 at sfu.ca

Tony Kohan entered the MA program in fall 2023.  He has a BSc in computer science from the University of Victoria and a BA in philosophy from the University of British Columbia.  His interests include logic, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mathematics. 

Supervisor (interim):  Dr. Dai Heide
Email: aka305 at sfu.ca
Preferred Pronouns:  he/him

Cihan Capan entered the MA program in fall 2023.  He graduated from Bilkent University with a BA in Philosophy and a minor in Psychology.  He is interested in, especially epistemic, paradoxes, logic, and formal epistemology.

Supervisor (interim): Dr. Kino Zhao
Email: cca427 at sfu.ca

 

Javad Hajialikhani entered the MA program in fall 2023.  His main philosophical interests are metaphysics and the philosophy of language, especially topics like meta-ontology, and higher-order metaphysics.

Supervisor (interim):  Dr. Chelsea Rosenthal
Email: mha215 at sfu.ca

 

Feiya Zhang entered the MA program in fall 2023. Prior to this, she accomplished her MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London. She is interested in topics such as theories of emotion, temporality, fiction, and the comparison of values from ethics and aesthetics. Beyond her philosophical research, she is exploring the relationship between fictional writing and philosophical argumentation, and how the two can be combined.

Supervisor (interim):  Dr. Holly Andersen
Email:  fza67 at sfu.ca