School of Social and Political Science

Background

My PhD dissertation develops a theoretical account of the corporation as a collective moral agent and powerful political actor, together with its responsibilities. I connect recent literature on social ontology and collective agency with legal and economic literature around the 'theory of the firm'. Further, I argue for a conception of the corporation's political responsibility, which problematises its position of power within structural injustice and corporate histories of (re)producing injustice.

I was supervised by Dr Elizabeth Cripps and Dr Philip Cook, and my dissertation was examined by Prof Stephanie Collins (Monash University, Melbourne) and Prof Matthew Chrisman (University of Edinburgh, Philosophy).

At the University of Edinburgh, I am a graduate fellow of CRITIQUE (Centre for Ethics and Critical Thought) and co-founder of CRITIQUE's Environmental Working Group.

Between April and June 2023, I was a visiting doctoral researcher at Utrecht University's Ethics Institute in the project “The Business Corporation as a Political Actor” led by Prof Rutger Claassen.

Between 2022 and 2024, I worked as a research assistant in the UKRI-funded climate finance project Financially re-designing the Anthropocene: Investigating tools, data, and practices for climate risks and targets at Warwick Business School (WBS).

Education

PhD Political Theory, University of Edinburgh (2026)

M.A. Environment and Natural Resources, University of Iceland, Reykjavík (2018)

Diplom (M.Sc. equivalent) Mathematics, minor in Philosophy, Humboldt University of Berlin (2015)

Selected conference papers and presentations

2024 Climate Change as a Structural Injustice, presentation to 2024 Tagung für Praktische Philosophie, University of Passau

2023 Responsibility for Justice, not Governance: A Youngian Approach to Corporate Political Responsibility, presentation to 3rd Wittenberg Business Ethics Conference, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

2023 The Corporation and the Climate: Ontology, Agency, Responsibility, and Justice, invited talk at IKON seminar, Warwick Business School (WBS)

2023 What Responsibility? Whose Power? Net-Zero Alliances in Climate Finance, paper presented at MANCEPT workshop "Business Corporations, Non-ideal Theory and Social Change", University of Manchester

2023 Climate Change as a Structural Injustice and Corporate Political Responsibility in Climate Change, invited talk at the workshop Climate Change and Group Agency, ETH Zürich

2023 Climate Change as a Structural Injustice and Corporate Political Responsibility in Climate Change, invited talk at the workshop The Business Corporation: Between Nature and Value, Utrecht University

2023 Corporate Political Responsibility: Justice, Social Structure, and Corporate Power, paper presented to the Society for Business Ethics, APA Pacific Meeting, San Francisco

2022 'Environmentalizing' Learning & Teaching: An Exploratory Journey into Pedagogy on a Collapsing Planet (with Grace Garland & Talia Shoval), Edinburgh Learning & Teaching Conference, University of Edinburgh

2022 The Emotions-Responsive Corporation: Why Corporations are Appropriate Targets of Moral Blame, presentation to Utrecht Philosophy Graduate Conference, Utrecht University

2021 The Corporation as a Social Fact and as a Social Group, paper presented at MANCEPT workshop "Political Theory of the Business Corporation", University of Manchester

2021 The Corporation as a Social Fact and as a Social Group (video), presentation to Social Ontology 2021, UC San Diego

Teaching

I am an Associate Fellow of AdvanceHE. I have tutored extensively in both the Philosophy and Politics Departments, including on courses such as Political Thinkers (Politics), Morality and Value (Philosophy), Introduction to the History of Philosophy (Philosophy), and Social Theory (Sociology).

Public Engagement

Blog post Why We Should 'Environmentalise' the Curriculum

Blog post The Net-Zero Alliances: Insights from a Political Theory Perspective

Blog post Net Zero Target Setting for Financial Institutions: Academic Insights on “Standards Markets”

Interview with Prof Stephen M Gardiner on Climate Change and Philosophy