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.
| 2024 | Jillian Powell, “Reliably Rational: Process Reliabilist Permissivism and the Value of Rationality” |
| 2023 | Marina Pérez del Valle, “A Pragmatic Account of Normative Generics” |
| 2022 | Firdaus Gupte, “In Defense of Humean Non-Universal Laws” |
| 2021 | Minghui Yang, “Quantifier Variance and Commensurability” Erin Wiebe, “Plato’s Views on Women: A Closer Look at Book V” |
| 2020 | Mathura Samaram, “A Branching, Growing Block Account of Time Travel (with Hypertime)” Cruz Davis, “Non-Spacial Matters: On the Possibility of Non-Spacial Material Objects” |
| 2019 | Chaeyoung Paek, “Collectively Making Things: Problems for Evnine’s Neo-Aristotelianism” |
| 2018 | David Turon, “A New Probability-Raisers of Processes Account of Causation” |
| 2017 | Justis Koon, “Options Must be External” Ryan Olsen, “Moving Through Time:The Stoics on the Division Between Past and Future” |
| 2016 | Patrick Grafton-Cardwell, “A Solution to the Enigma of Categories” |
| 2015 | Cameron Gibbs, “Hume’s Dictum” John Robison, “Skepticism about Skepticism about Moral Responsibility” |
| 2014 | Pengbo Liu, “Higher-Order Thought and Higher-Order Misrepresentation” Tricia Magalotti, “On The Prospects for a Social Defense of Armchair Methods” |
| 2013 | Robert Gruber, “A Desertist Solution to a Puzzle about Justice” |
| 2012 | Julietta Rose, “In Bad Company: Fodor’s Informational Semantics and Euthyphro’s Fallacy” |
| 2011 | Casey Knight, “Primitive Grounding and Reduced Fundamentality” |
| 2010 | Matthew Gifford, “Skepticism and Elegance” |
| 2009 | Heidi Buetow, “Relativism and Ignorant Assessors” Kristian Olsen, “The Imagination Model of Dreaming: Not the Complete Solution to Dreaming Skepticism” |
| 2008 | Kristoffer Ahlstrom, “What Descartes Didn’t Know” |
| 2007 | Ed Ferrier, “Priority Monism” Alex Sarch, “What‘s Wrong with Megalopsychia?” |
| 2006 | Jeff Dunn, “The Obscure Act of Perception” |
| 2005 | Meghan Masto, “On Williamson on Evidence and Justification” Kirk Michaelian, “(Aristotle on) What Oedipus did at the Crossroads” |
| 2004 | Brad Chynoweth, “Descartes’ Resolution of the Dreaming Doubt” |
| 2003 | Stephan Torre, “Identity, Time, and Change in Hume’s Treatise” |
| 2002 | Brandt Van der Gaast, “Supervenience vs. Recombination” Jason Raibley, “An Examination of Perfectionism” |
| 2001 | Kris McDaniel, “Tropes and Ordinary Physical Objects” Michael Rubin, “Aristotle on Ignorance and Involuntariness” |
| 2000 | Marcy 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.
| 2024 | Youngchan Lee (TA), Jillian Powell (TA), Firdaus Gupte (TO) |
| 2023 | Bex Staneslow (TA), Sam Schechter (TO) |
| 2022 | Marina Pérez del Valle (TA), David Turon (TO) |
| 2021 | Shane Henckel (TA), Erin Wiebe (TA), Justin Mooney (TO) |
| 2020 | Chaeyoung Paek (TA), Patrick Grafton-Cardwell (TO) |
| 2019 | Tim Juvshik (TA), Thomas Shea (TO) |
| 2018 | Molly O’Rourke-Friel (TA), Wally Wirchnianski (TA), Cameron Gibbs (TO) |
| 2017 | Justis Koon, Ryan Olsen |
| 2016 | Bailie Peterson, Andréa Wilson |
| 2015 | Tricia Magalotti, John Robison |
| 2014 | Josh Di Paolo, Robert Gruber |
| 2013 | Luis Oliveira |
| 2012 | Miles Tucker |
| 2011 | Edward Ferrier, Kristian Olsen |
| 2010 | Casey Knight, Josh Moulton |
| 2009 | Donovan Cox, Sam Cowling |
| 2008 | Heidi Buetow, Dan Doviak |
| 2007 | James Johnson |
| 2006 | Meghan Masto |