Meet Ethics Lab's New Postdoctoral Fellows
Kate Wojtkiewicz and Shannon Brick both joined Ethics Lab at the start of the 2022–2023 academic year. Just several weeks into their first semester, hear from them about their research interests, what first drew them to Ethics Lab, and what they’re looking forward to in the year ahead.
Kate Wojtkiewicz
Postdoctoral Fellow
Kate Wojtkiewicz is a postdoctoral fellow at Ethics Lab, where she works to develop and deploy novel pedagogical techniques suitable to a variety of audiences. With specialities in social epistemology and the philosophy of art, Wojtkiewicz’s research investigates the influence popular fictions have on our epistemic toolsets, as well as the responsibilities incurred by that influence–for audiences and creators alike.
Wojtkiewicz has held teaching positions at City College, Baruch College, and Siena College, where she developed courses on ethics, reasoning, and the philosophy of gender; she earned her PhD and MPhil from the City University of New York Graduate Center as a Graduate Center Fellow. Her dissertation on the hermeneutic responsibility of fiction creators was awarded a fellowship by the American Society for Aesthetics.
Tell us a bit about your philosophical interests.
My interest at the moment revolves around questions of responsibility, in particular about us as knowers. I’m interested in the kinds of epistemic and hermeneutical responsibilities’ intersections with popular culture. My dissertation argued that creators of fiction have an epistemic responsibility to not include harmful stereotypes in the fictions that they write, and that also adjusts based on how popular the author is or ultimately becomes.
I’m also a nerd outside of professional settings. I love stories in ways that they are told, but particularly stories in the form of video games and in Dungeons and Dragons which I play with my friends.
What drew you to Ethics Lab?
Oftentimes college students are being asked to take rubber stamp kinds of courses. They learn about Kant and utilitarianism, then they immediately forget about it as soon as the exam is done because it’s never applied anywhere. Whereas Ethics Lab is doing what needs to be done, which is taking lessons from these philosophers then trying to integrate them into places where students will actually think about them and make use of them as they enter their professional life.
It’s not this high floating theory that’s completely separate from everything you’re going to do but rather something that is very much a part of what you’re doing now. You’re doing it in the computer science classroom, you’re working it into the way that some of these external partners are building these projects.
And this seemed really important to me, and it’s something that I’ve been frustrated in the past in the way that other philosophy programs have been doing it.
What's something the Lab is working on that connects with your curiosities?
On the internal side of things, the Data Ethics courses that the Lab has been developing and teaching are very much in line with my questions about responsibility for how information is spread, and how we use that kind of information. There’s this epistemic question of what we are responsible for when we come to conclusions and share them with others.
On the external side of things, we’re getting together with companies at the ground level to build a structure for the companies to grow on that integrates questions about ethics, and how to build their tech responsibly.
What’s something that’s inspiring you right now?
The new A League of Our Own series that just came out recently from Abbi Jacobson. It’s been a while since I have really cared about a TV show. I’m more of a genre fiction person—I love fantasy and sci-fi. To really be drawn into something that’s very much a historical realist story is new for me, and it’s really just delightful to watch and experience. It gives me a bit of a resurgence to see these kinds of stories that can take diverse experiences in a historical context and be really genuine about the experiences of characters in a way that doesn’t make you feel depressed at the end of the day. It’s a breath of fresh air, so in that regard it kind of gives me that refreshing energy to move forward.
Shannon Brick
Postdoctoral Fellow
Shannon Brick is a postdoctoral fellow at Ethics Lab, where she is helping the team to develop creative classroom engagements and seed ethical thinking in disciplines outside of philosophy. Brick’s research examines questions at the intersection of ethics and epistemology. She is particularly interested in the ways we communicate about evaluative matters, and is currently working on projects that examine gossip, moral testimony, and the idea that literature can “show,” rather than merely “tell.”
While at the City University of New York, Brick developed her interest in enabling philosophers to benefit from a deeper engagement with the methods of other disciplines. She helped organize the “Towards a Feminist X-Phi” workshop series, which was funded by a Hypatia Diversity Grant. The project equipped philosophers working in feminist philosophy with the skills necessary to be responsible producers and consumers of empirical research.
Shannon has a PhD from the City University of New York, Graduate Center. She holds an MA from The University of Melbourne, and a BA in Philosophy and Politics from Monash University.
Tell us a bit about your philosophical interests.
I had no idea philosophy existed as a discipline until my second or third year of university. I had always thought that philosophy was like alchemy—this kind of discipline from the Middle Ages. Some of my friends were taking philosophy classes, and they were having these very serious, rigorous conversations about the implications of time travel. I was just struck by the fact that you could have conversations that were completely sci-fi and sort of silly, but they seemed so smart and really, really fun.
My research is at the intersection of social and feminist epistemology— how knowledge circulates among social groups. I’m particularly interested in how close personal relationships like friendships and intimate relationships impact what we’re likely to know, what questions we’re likely to ask, what we’re inclined to care about, and what knowledge of value is likely to translate into action and emotion.
I also have an interest in philosophy of art and aesthetics. I have a pretty solid understanding of how literature can show rather than just tell, but the understanding is still pretty metaphoric. I’m interested in giving a non-metaphoric account.
What drew you to Ethics Lab?
I really love teaching. That was probably the most meaningful academic experience that I had as a PhD student, and when I was in Melbourne I worked for this program that did philosophy with very young children. Then, in New York, I was a part of this program that facilitated philosophy workshops in high schools. I’ve been thinking creatively about what happens in philosophy classrooms, and that means that I’m really interested in thinking of creative activities that get students out of their seats and moving around the classrooms. It struck me that Ethics Lab is a place where people are thinking really creatively about pedagogy.
I would really like to be able to teach a class in philosophy of AI, data ethics, and technology. This is a booming area in philosophy that is super important, and Ethics Lab is clearly a place where I’ll be able to develop that kind of knowledge.
What's something the Lab is working on that connects with your curiosities?
We learned about the external projects of Ethics Lab, and this was one of the most exciting sessions. We’re working with a start-up that is doing biopharma research, coming up with a cure for preeclampsia which is a huge cause of maternal morbidity. We’re coming up with ethical frameworks for testing drugs on pregnant people, and this is so exciting because the real-world impact is incredibly clear. Even if the drug doesn’t succeed, having a framework for thinking about how you could run research seems incredibly important.
What’s something that’s inspiring you right now?
All the trees in DC! They’re just putting me in a good mood constantly. Biking to campus, DC is just so green and clean, and it’s doing positive things for my mental health.