The Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA) is governed by a Board of Trustees. The Trustees elect officers to carry out the business of the association. Given our present stage of organizational growth, we welcome members to propose new officer positions and to submit nominations for them or for existing posts.
Board of Trustees
SOPHIA’s Board of Trustees is made up of nine members. Each link in the following list will take you that person’s biographical information here below on this page.
Dr. Anthony Cashio
Dr. Andrea Christelle
Dr. Tommy Jermaine Curry
Dr. Jacquelyn Kegley
Dr. John Lachs
Dr. George R. Lucas
Dr. Bertha Manninen
Dr. John R. Shook
Dr. Kenneth Stikkers
Dr. Eric Thomas Weber
Officers
The board of trustees elects officers to carry out the business of the society. These officers include a Chairman of the Board, a Vice Chairman of the Board, an Executive Director, a Treasurer, a Secretary, a Membership Officer, a Communications Officer, and such officers, if any, as the Board of Trustees may from time to time appoint or elect. Each link in the following list will take you that person’s biographical information here below on this page.
Chairman of the Board:
Dr. John Lachs
Vice Chairman of the Board:
Dr. Kenneth Stikkers
Executive Director and Treasurer:
Dr. Eric Thomas Weber
Chapter Development Officer:
To be filled
Membership Officer:
Erik Jarvis
Editor of Civil American:
Vacant
Liaison Officer:
Dr. Daniel Brunson
Secretary:
James William Lincoln
Bios
Dr. Daniel Brunson
Dr. Brunson is SOPHIA’s Liaison Officer to other professional societies and is a Lecturer in the department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Morgan State University. He also taught courses at Penn State University. Brunson is a leader and officer also in other associations including the Josiah Royce Society and the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. Anyone interested in partnering with SOPHIA or in putting on or joining a panel that SOPHIA could put together at a professional conference should be in touch with him. His research involves applying and updating classically informed pragmatism, especially rooted in the work of Charles Peirce and Josiah Royce, to issues in contemporary social epistemology. Particular topics of interest include cognitive neuroscience, disability, emotions, history, risk, and technology. He has taught courses in logic, critical thinking, ethics, ethical leadership, the philosophy of science, writing, ancient philosophy, early modern philosophy, Nineteenth Century philosophy, and pragmatism and American philosophy. He has published on topics including community, memory, moral vision, contemporary psychology, and philosophical issues in technology, such trust and “big data.” You can learn more about him on his Web site at Morgan State University and you can follow him on Twitter @DanielJBrunson.
Dr. Anthony Cashio
Dr. Cashio is a Trustee on SOPHIA’s board, co-host of SOPHIA’s radio show and podcast, Philosophy Bakes Bread, and is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, in Wise, Virginia. His work focuses on issues of social justice, the role of value systems in problem solving, the relationship between history and value structure, the nature of non-violence, and the role of the environment as a social institution. He is also fiercely dedicated to teaching, both in and out of the classroom. His passion and his dedication were recognized with two major awards both issued in 2016, one from students and the other from fellow faculty members. He received the Student Government Association’s Professor of the Year Award in 2016, as well as the faculty-nominated Outstanding Teaching Award. You can follow him on Twitter @anthonycashio. Dr. Cashio’s term as trustee runs through 2021.
Dr. Andrea Christelle
Dr. Christelle is a Trustee on SOPHIA’s board and has served as the Director of the Philosophy in the Public Interest (PPI) program and Assistant Professor of Practice at Northern Arizona University. Dr. Christelle is a co-founder of the Sedona Philosophy Experience. Under her leadership, the PPI program earned recognition from the American Philosophical Association, honored with the APA/PDC Prize for Innovations in Philosophy Programs. You can follow the NAU PPI program on Twitter @NAU_PPI and “like” the PPI Facebook page @NAU.PPI. Be sure also to visit and “like” the Sedona Philosophy Experience’s Facebook page as well. Dr. Christelle’s term as Trustee continues through 2020.
Dr. Shane Courtland
Dr. Courtland is SOPHIA’s Editor for Civil American and is the Managing Director of the Center for Free Enterprise at West Virginia University. Previously, he was an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, where he was also the Director of the Center for Ethics and Public Policy. He is the author of Hobbesian Applied Ethics and Public Policy (Routledge Press, forthcoming), as well as of a number of articles. His work has been recognized with the Ehlers Prize for the best philosophy paper of the year and the 2016 Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Public Service at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Dr. Courtland has been a exemplary public philosopher, with engagements including on hospital ethics committees and in public interviews and lectures, such as on KUMD and KBJR. He is also experienced with social media management, including for the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Center for Ethics and Public Policy, which group you can join on Facebook, and for West Virginia University’s Center for Free Enterprise, also on Facebook. You can follow him on Twitter @ShaneCourtland. You can learn more about him and his work on his Web site here.
Dr. Tommy Jermaine Curry
Dr. Curry is a Trustee on SOPHIA’s board and is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He holds a Personal Chair in Africana Philosophy and Black Male Studies. Previously he was Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and then Professor of Philosophy at Texas A&M University, where he was the recipient of the Ray A. Rothrock Fellowship from 2013-2016). He is the author of the 2018 American Book Award-winning The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood (Temple University Press, 2017) and Another white Man’s Burden: Josiah Royce’s Quest for a Philosophy of white Racial Empire (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2018), and is the editor of The Philosophical Treatise of William J. Ferris: Selected Readings from the ‘The African Abroad or, His Evolution in Western Civilization (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2016). Dr. Curry was a guest on two of SOPHIA’s most downloaded episodes of Philosophy Bakes Bread, episode 9 on “Studying Black Men” and episode 32 on “The Public Philosopher and the Gadfly.” For his publicly engaged work, he was selected for the 2017 Alain Locke Award for Public Philosophy by the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. Dr. Curry is also a past President of Philosophy Born of Struggle, one of the oldest Black philosophy organizations in the United States. You can follow him on Twitter @DrTJC or on his Facebook author page @TommyJCurry. You can visit his Academia.edu profile here. Dr. Curry’s term as trustee runs through 2023.
Erik Jarvis
Erik Jarvis is SOPHIA’s Membership Officer, President of the Lexington SOPHIA Chapter, and is a Senior Facilities Information Service Administrator at the University of Kentucky. Erik has helped to grow the Lexington SOPHIA chapter since its launch in 2018 and was elected Membership Officer in 2020.
Dr. Jacquelyn (Jackie) Kegley
Dr. Kegley is a Trustee and is Professor of Philosophy at California State University Bakersfield and author and editor of over a dozen books and texts. She is a recognized leader in the academy, as well as an engaged scholar in her community. In 2015, she was honored with the President’s Medal for academic leadership at California State University Bakersfield. She was awarded the Herbert W. Schneider Award for Outstanding Contributions to American Philosophy in 2006 and was chosen for the Wang Family Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2000. Her two latest books are Josiah Royce in Focus (Indiana University Press, 2008) and Persuasion and Compulsion in Democracy (Lexington Books, 2013, coauthored with Krzysztof Piotr Skowronski). You can learn more about her and her work on her Web site here and you can “like” the Facebook page for the Kegley Institute of Ethics to follow activities at CSUB. Dr. Kegley’s term as trustee runs through 2022.
Dr. John Lachs
Dr. John Lachs is a Trustee and serves as Chairman of SOPHIA’s Board of Trustees and Centennial Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. He is the author and editor of over a dozen books. He is a past President of the Metaphysical Society of America and has chaired the American Philosophical Association’s Centennial Committee. He is the recipient of numerous teaching awards at Vanderbilt University. Like Dr. Kegley, Dr. Lachs has also been awarded the Herbert W. Schneider Award for Outstanding Contributions to American Philosophy (1997). His latest books include Meddling: On the Virtue of Leaving Others Alone (Indiana University Press, 2014) and Stoic Pragmatism (Indiana University Press, 2012). He has helped lead SOPHIA since its earliest days. Dr. Lachs’s term as trustee runs through 2021.
James William Lincoln
James William Lincoln serves as SOPHIA’s Secretary and is completing his doctoral studies in Philosophy at the University of Kentucky. His dissertation concerns moral perception and in addition to his philosophical studies, he has a background in Project Management, in which he has earned a Master’s degree. James is also the President of the Graduate Student Congress at the University of Kentucky. Before entering the Ph.D. program at UKY, he earned a Master’s in Philosophy at Boston University. James’s specialties are in Ethics and Social and Political Philosophy, but he has taught many courses and has competence in Existentialism, Epistemology, Asian Philosophy, Philosophy of Perception, Moral Epistemology, and Moral Psychology.
Dr. George R. Lucas
Dr. Lucas is a Trustee, the Stockdale Chair in Ethics at the U.S. Naval War College, Visiting Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Notre Dame, and Visiting Distinguished Research Fellow at Case Western Reserve University’s Inamouri Center for Ethics. He has written or edited a total of 15 books and is a two-time recipient of the Thomas Branch Award for Excellence in Teaching from Randolph-Macon College. Dr. Lucas’s research has been recognized with a Provost’s Research Award at Clemson University and his latest book, Anthropologists in Arms (AltaMira Press, 2009) was named on the 2009 list of Choice “Outstanding Academic Books.” In 2014, he published a co-edited volume on Military Ethics and Emerging Technologies (Routledge Press). Dr. Lucas’s term as trustee runs through 2020.
Dr. Bertha Manninen
Dr. Manninen is a Trustee and is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University and the author of Pro-Life, Pro-Choice: Shared Values in the Abortion Debate (Vanderbilt University Press, 2014). She was honored with the 2014 ASU Founder’s Day Award for Faculty Achievement in Teaching and the 2011-2012 Outstanding Teacher of the Year from the ASU New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. Dr. Manninen has been an exemplary public philosopher, writing regularly for Psychology Today and for The Huffington Post. You can learn more about her and her work on her Web site at Arizona State University. You can follower her on Twitter @BA_Manninen. Her term as trustee runs through 2021.
Dr. John Robert Shook
Dr. Shook is a Trustee and is Research Associate in Philosophy and faculty member of the Science and the Public EdM online program at the University at Buffalo, New York, Associate Fellow at the Center for Neurotechnology Studies in the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Virginia, Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and Lecturer in Philosophy at Bowie State University in Maryland. He has authored six books and edited more than ten other volumes. His recent books include The God Debates: A 21st Century Guide for Atheists and Believers (and Everyone in Between) (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) and Dewey’s Social Philosophy: Democracy as Education (Palgrave Macmillian, 2016). Shook also edits three philosophy journals: Contemporary Pragmatism, Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism, and Philo: A Journal of Philosophy. He assists the editing of Philosophy and Public Policy. You can learn more about him on his Web site, follow him on Twitter @John_Shook, and “like” his Facebook author page @JohnRShook. Dr. Shook’s term as trustee runs through 2020.
Dr. Kenneth Stikkers
Dr. Stikkers is a Trustee Emeritus and served for many years as Vice Chairman of the SOPHIA Board of Trustees. He is Professor of Philosophy and Africana Studies at Southern Illinois University, Visiting Professor of Philosophy at National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and was recently Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warsaw and Professor of Economics and Sociology at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, Mexico. He is also a recent President of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy (S.A.A.P.). He is the author of Economics as Moral Philosophy (under review with Oxford University Press), and editor of five books, including Pragmatic Catholicisms (Fordham University Press, forthcoming) and Problems of a Sociology of Knowledge, by Max Scheler (Routledge, 1980). Dr. Stikkers is a leader in the academy beyond is work with the S.A.A.P. He served as Chair of the Philosophy department at Seattle University from 1991 to 1994 and then at Southern Illinois University from 1997 to 2003. He has been recognized with the Josiah Royce Loyalty Award from the S.A.A.P. (2005) and the Helen Potter Award for the Outstanding Essay in Social Economics, from the Association for Social Economics (1987).
Dr. Eric Thomas Weber
Dr. Weber is a Trustee, serves as Executive Director and Treasurer of SOPHIA, and co-hosts SOPHIA’s Philosophy Bakes Bread radio show and podcast with Anthony Cashio. He is a Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kentucky and author of four books, including Democracy and Leadership (Lexington Books, 2013) and Uniting Mississippi (University Press of Mississippi, 2015). He has received the Cora Lee Graham Award for the Outstanding Teaching of Freshmen and the Thomas F. Frist Student Service Award from the University of Mississippi. He was also honored with the 2015 Humanities Scholar Award from the Mississippi Humanities Council’s Public Humanities Awards program. He served a three year term as Chair of the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on Public Philosophy and presently chairs the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy’s Committee on Public Philosophy. You can follow him on Twitter @EricTWeber and “like” his Facebook author page @EricThomasWeberAuthor. His term as trustee runs through 2022.
SOPHIA is looking to enlist further, energetic members and scholars to take part in the organization’s future. If you are interested in first becoming a member and possibly taking a leadership role in SOPHIA, contact the Executive Director, Dr. Eric Thomas Weber.