Our Faculty

Dean of Academics

Peter Bach-y-Rita

Ph.D., MIT (Philosophy); J.D., Stanford Law School; A.B., Princeton University (highest honors). Dr. Bach-y-Rita’s dissertation at MIT was at the intersection of ethics, biology and technology. He has published work on intellectual property, bankruptcy law, and the nature of legal causation. He is a former member of the board of directors of the Prison University Project (now Mount Tamalpais College), an independent liberal arts college operating in San Quentin State Prison in California. He co-founded Reason & Rationality in 2023.

Senior Teaching Fellow, Head of Instruction

Joe Schmid

Joe earned a BA in Philosophy with highest distinction from Purdue University and is currently a Philosophy PhD student at Princeton University. He has published 16 articles on topics in metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and ethics in leading peer-reviewed philosophy journals. He also authored the books Existential Inertia and Classical Theistic Proofs (with Dr. Daniel Linford) and The Majesty of Reason: A Short Guide to Critical Thinking in Philosophy. On the popular level, he creates lecture videos and hosts discussions with philosophers on his YouTube channel Majesty of Reason. His videos have attracted nearly 1.5 million views in total.

Teaching Fellow

Noah McKay

Noah is a PhD student in philosophy at Princeton University. He earned his BA in philosophy from Covenant College (summa cum laude) and his MSc in philosophy from the University of Edinburgh (First Class Honours). He has published several peer-reviewed academic articles about epistemology, metaethics, and philosophy of religion and presented original research at about a dozen conferences. He has also coached high school debate for seven years.

Teaching Fellow

Florence Bacus

Florence is a Philosophy PhD student at Harvard University. She received a BS in mathematics and physics from the University of Michigan in 2018, and an MA in philosophy from Tufts University in 2020. Her current work concerns the nature of rational agency and free will and what that has to do with the foundations of ethics, in particular influenced by the moral theory of Immanuel Kant.

Teaching Fellow

Sophia Wyatt

Sophia received her undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago in 2021 and entered the Ph.D. program there in Fall 2025. Her primary interests lie in ethics and epistemology, particularly at their intersection.

Teaching Fellow

Sagar Rao

Sagar is a PhD student in the Joint Program in Philosophy and Religion at Princeton University. He earned his BA in Philosophy and Biology with Highest Honors from Swarthmore College, and prior to beginning his PhD studied at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute Center for Buddhist Studies in Kathmandu, Nepal. His work focuses on the history of philosophy in South Asia, as well as contemporary issues in epistemology, philosophy of religion, and Buddhist philosophy.