Graduate Prizes

The Philosophy Department awards two annual prizes to graduate students: the Herbert Heidelberger Prize—for the best starred paper during the academic year—and the John Robison Prize for excellence in teaching by a graduate student. See below for more details about each of the prizes, as well as a list of past awardees.

The Herbert Heidelberger Prize

Herbert Heidelberger was an important member of the department from 1967 to 1982, when he died of cancer. Professor Heidelberger was an inspiring teacher and influential philosopher and colleague who played an important role in contributing to the early quality and reputation of the department.

The Heidelberger Prize is awarded in recognition of outstanding starred papers during an academic year. Its main value is the recognition it confers upon a paper as an outstanding piece of philosophical writing.

Members of the reading committee for a starred paper may nominate it for the prize, as long as it received a grade of PASS. The full faculty considers nominated papers from both semesters, and a unanimous vote is required for awarding the prize.

The prize and associated monetary award may be shared, or not awarded at all. No student may win the prize more than once.

2025Youngchan Lee, “Counterexamples to Mandelkern’s Bound Theory”
Jungmin Ohn, “Neither Equal nor Unequal: Democritus’ Cone and Smooth Infinitesimals”
2024Jillian Powell, “Reliably Rational: Process Reliabilist Permissivism and the Value of Rationality”
2023Marina Pérez del Valle, “A Pragmatic Account of Normative Generics”
2022Firdaus Gupte, “In Defense of Humean Non-Universal Laws”
2021Minghui Yang, “Quantifier Variance and Commensurability”
Erin Wiebe, “Plato’s Views on Women: A Closer Look at Book V”
2020Mathura Samaram, “A Branching, Growing Block Account of Time Travel (with Hypertime)”
Cruz Davis, “Non-Spacial Matters: On the Possibility of Non-Spacial Material Objects”
2019Chaeyoung Paek, “Collectively Making Things: Problems for Evnine’s Neo-Aristotelianism”
2018David Turon, “A New Probability-Raisers of Processes Account of Causation”
2017Justis Koon, “Options Must be External”
Ryan Olsen, “Moving Through Time:The Stoics on the Division Between Past and Future”
2016Patrick Grafton-Cardwell, “A Solution to the Enigma of Categories”
2015Cameron Gibbs, “Hume’s Dictum”
John Robison, “Skepticism about Skepticism about Moral Responsibility”
2014Pengbo Liu, “Higher-Order Thought and Higher-Order Misrepresentation”
Tricia Magalotti, “On The Prospects for a Social Defense of Armchair Methods”
2013Robert Gruber, “A Desertist Solution to a Puzzle about Justice”
2012Julietta Rose, “In Bad Company: Fodor’s Informational Semantics and Euthyphro’s Fallacy”
2011Casey Knight, “Primitive Grounding and Reduced Fundamentality”
2010Matthew Gifford, “Skepticism and Elegance”
2009Heidi Buetow, “Relativism and Ignorant Assessors”
Kristian Olsen, “The Imagination Model of Dreaming: Not the Complete Solution to Dreaming Skepticism”
2008Kristoffer Ahlstrom, “What Descartes Didn’t Know”
2007Ed Ferrier, “Priority Monism”
Alex Sarch, “What‘s Wrong with Megalopsychia?”
2006Jeff Dunn, “The Obscure Act of Perception”
2005Meghan Masto, “On Williamson on Evidence and Justification”
Kirk Michaelian, “(Aristotle on) What Oedipus did at the Crossroads”
2004Brad Chynoweth, “Descartes’ Resolution of the Dreaming Doubt”
2003Stephan Torre, “Identity, Time, and Change in Hume’s Treatise”
2002Brandt Van der Gaast, “Supervenience vs. Recombination”
Jason Raibley, “An Examination of Perfectionism”
2001Kris McDaniel, “Tropes and Ordinary Physical Objects”
Michael Rubin, “Aristotle on Ignorance and Involuntariness”
2000Marcy Lascano, “Incontinence: Does Aquinas Have It?”
Stephen Masterman, “Are We Free to Change God’s Beliefs?”

The John Robison Prize For Excellence in Teaching

The Robison Prize is awarded to the graduate student(s) who, in the judgment of the Department, made the most valuable contribution to the Department’s undergraduate teaching mission, as a TA or TO, during Spring and Fall of the previous academic year.

2024Lauren Wong (TA), He Yuan (TA), J. P. Cordero Rojas (TO), Thomas Morrison (TO)
2024Youngchan Lee (TA), Jillian Powell (TA), Firdaus Gupte (TO)
2023Bex Staneslow (TA), Sam Schechter (TO)
2022Marina Pérez del Valle (TA), David Turon (TO)
2021Shane Henckel (TA), Erin Wiebe (TA), Justin Mooney (TO)
2020Chaeyoung Paek (TA), Patrick Grafton-Cardwell (TO)
2019Tim Juvshik (TA), Thomas Shea (TO)
2018Molly O’Rourke-Friel (TA), Wally Wirchnianski (TA), Cameron Gibbs (TO)
2017Justis Koon, Ryan Olsen
2016Bailie Peterson, Andréa Wilson
2015Tricia Magalotti, John Robison
2014Josh Di Paolo, Robert Gruber
2013Luis Oliveira
2012Miles Tucker
2011Edward Ferrier, Kristian Olsen
2010Casey Knight, Josh Moulton
2009Donovan Cox, Sam Cowling
2008Heidi Buetow, Dan Doviak
2007James Johnson
2006Meghan Masto