I am an Associate Professor in the School of Philosophy at the Australian National University (ANU). I work on issues in philosophy of mind, moral psychology, and ethics in both mainstream and Indian Buddhist philosophical traditions. I also have research interests in epistemology, philosophy of action and ancient Greek philosophy.

My current research explores the intersection of Indian Buddhist philosophy and contemporary emotion science about the nature of fear, anxiety, and their cognitive and social regulation. I also have active research interests in Buddhist ethics and Buddhist pragmatic arguments, especially concerning the role of self-concepts in mindfulness research and in navigating decisions under uncertainty related to karma and rebirth. See below for details of some of my projects and my research page for links to my publications.

Buddhist ethics
and moral epistemology

I have research interests in Buddhist ethics, meta-ethics, and moral epistemology. Some of my early work critically explores the meta-ethical possibilities and limits of Madhyamaka Buddhism (2011, 2015, 2018) as well as issues concerning ethical agency when contextualised in Pramāṇavāda Buddhist epistemology (2010) and in dialogue with classical Chinese Confucianism and Daoism (2011a, 2011b). More recent work explores the evaluative relations underpinning Buddhist ethical reasoning (2017), the implications for moral responsibility of the Buddhist view that there is no self (2022) as well as Buddhist attitudes towards animals and arguments relating to vegetarianism (2017, forthcoming).

Fear and its regulation:
An interdisciplinary study

I am writing an interdisciplinary book aimed at creating dialogue between Indian Buddhist philosophy and emotion research about the nature of fear, anxiety, and their cognitive and social regulation. I have published several seed articles from this project (2019, 2021, 2023) as well as the popular media article: Can we Reinvent Ourselves? A Buddhist View (2018). My most recent article explores Buddhist views on self-related processing in relation to the mechanisms of mindfulness for the treatment of anxiety and depression (2024).

Buddhist pragmatism and philosophy of mind in dialogue with science

My research increasingly focuses on Buddhist philosophy of mind in dialogue with science. A recent article shows that the Buddha anticipates Pascal's Wager in several important respects and provides the earliest textual evidence of dominance reasoning (2024). Some work explores Buddhist arguments for idealism (2018) and for the reflexive self-awareness of consciousness (2018). I critically discuss the limits and possibilities of interdisciplinary engagement between Buddhism and science (2020), and explore the potential of treating the Buddhist commitment to karma and rebirth as a pragmatically "useful fiction" (2024)