Department of Philosophy

Xueqiu Deng (Snowball) graduated from Beijing Normal University with a bachelor's degree in philosophy. Over the past years, she has developed a very strong passion for philosophy. Her primary research interest is philosophy of action. She is also interested in epistemology and philosophy of perception.

Snowball likes watching films, animations and reading comics. She is also a sports fan, especially favoring soccer and baseball.

Born and raised in a small town in Connecticut, Megan recently graduated Summa Cum Laude from Manhattan College in New York City with a BA in both Philosophy and Communication. Her current philosophical interests include applied ethics, philosophy of language, political philosophy and epistemology. She is thrilled to be joining the 2020 cohort at Brandeis and looks forward to further pursuing her philosophical passions. As a former Division 1 collegiate dancer, Megan enjoys staying active and exercising. In her free time, she also enjoys writing, listening to music, discovering incredible food in the greater Boston area, and playing with her golden retriever puppy, Delilah.

I grew up in Utah and attended Brigham Young University where I studied classical music performance and philosophy. In my study of both, I have developed a love of analysis and an enthusiasm for hard work (so I am excited to continue studying at Brandeis!). My current philosophical interests include epistemology, the philosophy of language, and Kantian philosophy. I love good conversations, and in my free time I enjoy playing board games, creating digital art, and finding new hiking trails.

A Seattle native, Nicolas studied Philosophy and History at Western Washington University (focusing on metaphysics and European intellectual history, respectively). After a detour in the music business, Nicolas attended the New York University School of Law and worked as a litigation associate at Willkie Farr & Gallagher in New York and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan in Seattle. His current philosophical interests are normative ethics, philosophy of law, and political philosophy. Nicolas spends his free-time reading, listening to records, watching films, playing with his dog Jasper, and discussing each of those activities with friends and loved ones.

I graduated from Carleton College with a BA in philosophy (focusing on Ludwig Wittgenstein's later philosophy in particular). My primary interests are in the philosophy of language, history of philosophy, and epistemology. I enjoy reading, watching movies, and going for walks.

I graduated with a degree in philosophy from the College of William and Mary in 2019 and worked at a think tank in the year between my undergraduate degree and coming to Brandeis. My primary interests are in metaethics, social theory, political philosophy -- its intersection with the social sciences, -- and existentialism. The philosophers who most directly inspire my own thinking are John Rawls, Elizabeth Anderson, Sharon Street, and Samuel Scheffler. When I am not learning about philosophy, I enjoy playing chess, video games, watching films, and weightlifting.

A Boston native, Aran graduated from Boston University in 2019 with a BA in classics and philosophy, and looks forward to continuing his studies at Brandeis. Having been strongly influenced by de Beauvoir, Hume, and Aristotle, his philosophical interests center on classical and modern ethics and political philosophy, as well as a more casual enjoyment of epistemology and problems of perception. In his free time, he enjoys reading and theater (from Homer to Flann O'Brien), hiking, video games, and missing baseball.