My research is mainly in political philosophy and philosophy of social science. This work is shaped by an interdisciplinary focus at the intersection between philosophy, political science, and economics. I developed this PPE approach during some very fruitful years at the Australian National University in Canberra.
But before I moved to Canberra and the ANU for my PhD, I was an undergraduate student at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, where I developed my interest to these disciplines. I was fortunate to learn from some very good researchers in Auckland, and especially Martin Wilkinson, who inspired me to continue my studies at graduate level.
I moved from Auckland to Oxford to study the MSc programme in political theory. The year at Oxford was very busy, but it also greatly improved my understanding of my disciplines. For the progress I made while at Oxford, I owe a lot to my supervisor Zofia Stemplowska, who not only gave me very useful feedback on my work, but also helped me believe in my ideas when I doubted them.
From Oxford, I moved to the ANU, which is one of the other great places to study philosophy and social science. Here I wrote my doctoral dissertation on two conceptions of political freedom and on freedom as non-domination as the core value in a republican theory that is meant to challenge contemporary liberal theories. There is quite possibly no better place than the ANU to study this topic. I have worked with Philip Pettit, the world’s leading proponent of republican freedom, as well as with Keith Dowding, an influential critic of the republican way of conceptualising freedom. My dissertation was approved without corrections and was awarded the Australian Political Studies Association’s prize for the best PhD dissertation in political science in Australia submitted in 2020.
Since November 2021, I have been a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Vienna. In 2023, I was awarded a generous research grant by the Austrian Science Fund to continue my work in Vienna for another three years.
