I am an Associate Professor at Nipissing University in North Bay, with a cross-appointment in Philosophy and Political Science.  My doctorate and most of my teaching, however, are in Philosophy.  I completed my dissertation in 2008 at Fordham University in New York and subsequently taught at the University of Winnipeg.  I have been at Nipissing University since 2010.  I am currently the Chair of the Department of Political Science, Philosophy, and Economics.

My research concerns two clusters of issues: (1) materialist social theory (Marx, early Frankfurt School, Habermas, etc.); and (2) the articulation and defence of an ethical, and associated metaethical, theory compatible with materialist social theory. Some of my work has pursued either the first or the second theme on its own; in other places, I have tried to develop the links between them.  Much of my recent work has involved the articulation and defence of a form of contractualism centred on the pursuit of actual agreement in the specific, non-ideal conditions of our existing social world.