I am a PhD candidate in philosophy at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. I hold a BAH in German and Philosophy from Queen’s University, an MA in Intercultural German Studies from the University of Waterloo/Universität Mannheim, and an MA in Philosophy from Wilfrid Laurier University. My research is focused primarily in the areas of bioethics, metaphysics, and the philosophy of medicine/psychiatry, and centres on questions around personal identity, the nature of mental disorders, natural kinds, and healthcare access issues for marginalized populations.

My doctoral research investigates the intersection between biological approaches to psychiatry, natural kinds, and the practice of utilizing statistical information about mental disorders to inform health care policy pertaining to those disorders, taking the 2022-23 Canadian ban on persons with mental illness(s) as their sole underlying condition accessing medical assistance in dying as a test case. 

I seek to demonstrate that, while biological approaches to psychiatry are broadly beneficial for the practice of psychiatry, utilizing statistical information about psychiatric natural kinds in the development of health policy is, at best, epistemically fraught and ethically suspect.