PPE WELCOMES FIVE NEW FACULTY MEMBERS IN 2024!
Read more about our new faculty below.
Cara Nine, Associate Professor, Political Science
Cara Nine received her Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Arizona and her B.A. in philosophy from Carleton College. Nine is coming to the Political Science Department at UNC Chapel Hill in the Fall of 2024 as a Core Faculty member in the PPE Program. She is coming from the University of Nevada, Reno where she is currently the Chair of the Department of Philosophy. Before the University of Nevada at Rena, Nine taught in the philosophy department at University College Cork, Ireland. Her work mainly focuses on issues in justice and location, or how one’s location (residence, territorial citizenship, where one happens to be on the sidewalk, etc.) can affect what is owed to that person as a matter of justice.
John Bare, Charles Schaffer Distinguished Fellow and Professor of Practice in Philanthropy
For 26 years, John held leadership positions with three U.S. foundations. He served as Vice President of Programs for John Templeton Foundation (2021-2023), Senior Vice President at The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation (2004-2021), and Director of Planning & Evaluation at The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (1997-2004). John is currently a Senior Fellow with Aspen Institute’s Opportunity Youth Forum (OYF), a member of the OYF Research Advisory Committee on Belonging, Meaning, Wellbeing and Purpose, and a member of the Board of Advisors for Inclusivv. As an independent research and writer, he has worked with Winston Family Foundation, Omidyar Network, Templeton Foundation, Propper Daley, Life Stories, HalfTheStory, and the Los Angeles City of Awe project. He holds the courtesy title of Disruptor-in-Residence at Babson College’s Institute for Social Innovation. In his foundation staff roles, John managed grantmaking and evaluation across multiple portfolios, including journalism & democracy, mental health & well-being, education, social justice, arts, food systems, children’s health, environmental conservation, and documentary film.
Will Conner, Teaching Assistant Professor, PPE Program
Will joined the department in the summer of 2024 as the Applied Epistemology Project Postdoctoral Fellow/Teaching Assistant Professor in the PPE Program. He received his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in 2024. Before this, he studied philosophy and classics at Wake Forest University (BA, 2016). His main research interests include the epistemology of testimony and trust, the epistemology of perception — especially biased perceptual experiences — moral epistemology, and applications to debates about prejudice, extremism, misinformation, and conspiracy theories.
Sam Fullhart, Teaching Assistant Professor, PPE Program
Sam Fullhart joined the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics program at UNC as a Teaching Assistant Professor on July 1, 2024. Before coming to UNC, he earned his PhD in Philosophy at Princeton University. His current research interests include ethics, the theory of rationality, and the philosophy of action.
Paul Garofalo, Teaching Assistant Professor, PPE Program
Paul Garofalo joined the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program at UNC in August 2024 as a Teaching Assistant Professor. Prior to that he earned his PhD in philosophy from the University of Southern California in 2024. His research interests focus on questions of the legitimacy and justification of political authority, with his current research examining the norms and institutions required by public justification. He also is interested in the history of political philosophy, especially the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes.