Dr Thomas Crowther is a Commendee in this year’s WATE Awards, which recognises his outstanding contribution to the teaching of Philosophy during the course of this academic year. Tom says:

I am very happy to have been recognised through WATE. I am very proud to be a teacher, and particularly proud to be a teacher at the University of Warwick. I care very much about the work I do in teaching and supporting my students, whether it is inside or outside the classroom. Being recognized by WATE is evidence that I am doing at least something right! This will invigorate me to develop further as a teacher; particularly in negotiating the challenges of moving to blended learning.

Irene Dal Poz and Lorenzo Serini have also won awards in the WATE PGR category. This award acknowledges respectively both Irene and Lorenzo’s gifts of communication and their imaginative flair for engaging students through their teaching. 

Three members of the Philosophy Department have been nominated in this year’s WATE and WATE PGR Awards for their outstanding contribution to Teaching Excellence.

Dr Thomas Crowther has been shortlisted for this year’s WATE Awards in recognition of his inspirational teaching – as well as his dedication to outreach and well-being support for philosophy students. Irene Dal Poz and Lorenzo Serini, both studying for PhDs in Philosophy, have been shortlisted for the WATE PGR Awards. This nomination recognises Irene’s and Lorenzo’s natural flair for teaching in the classroom, as well as their ability to engage and motivate students. Congratulations to all three shortlisted candidates on their nominations. Winners of both categories will be announced in the summer.

Dr Patrick Tomlin has been awarded a year-long Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust, to run throughout 2021. The Fellowship will fund Patrick’s continuing research into the concept of proportionate harm or violence. There is widespread agreement between philosophers working on the ethics of war, self-defence, punishment and many other areas that, if harm or violence is to be justified, it must be proportionate. Patrick will use his Fellowship to develop the argument that this apparent consensus conceals a wide range of knotty philosophical puzzles about proportionality, including how to make proportionality calculations under uncertainty; what the relationship is between the proportionality of courses of action and individual acts; and how we should aggregate small harms or goods in thinking about proportionality. Patrick will publish his research on proportionality in a book which will be published by Oxford University Press.

We are delighted to announce that Dr Massimiliano Lacertosa has joined the Philosophy Department as a Teaching Fellow. Massimiliano (Max) joins the Department from SOAS, University of London, and specialises in Chinese philosophy. He also has wide interests that span ethics, continental philosophy, art, history, archaeology, photography, aesthetics and visual design. Max will be teaching modules in Chinese and comparative philosophy, and will develop our teaching programme in these areas.

We are delighted to announce that Dr Lucy Campbell has been appointed as an Assistant Professor in Philosophy. Lucy will take up her new role from 1 September 2019. Lucy is currently already with the Philosophy Department, on a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, which she will retain.

Lucy completed her PhD at Cambridge University in 2015, and has previously held teaching positions at Oxford (2017-18) and in Edinburgh (2015-16). She also completed an Analysis Studentship, also based in Oxford (2016-17).

Lucy's research interests are in philosophy of mind and action, in epistemology and - especially - in the intersection of these areas. She is currently developing her research on action-theory, particularly in relation to Elizabeth Anscombe.