Daniel's Interests

Hi. I am an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing. I’m interested in how patients should be treated, people with disabilities should be treated, and how people should be treated in general. Critical to this project is the question of how we understanding theories, events, and each other. Understanding and explanation are everywhere, from introductory geology classes to high-end physics classes to art museums to parenting. I want to know what it means to say that a child or a student or anyone comes to understand something, and how we can bring about that understanding (particularly through explanation). Here are some things I do:

  • Teaching!

    • Advanced nursing ethics

    • Philosophy of science

    • Diversity, equity, and inclusion

    • Ethics of biotechnology

    • In a past life:

      • Classes geared towards philosophy students

      • Classes geared to premed students or engineers

    • Course development

  • Publishing!

    • Vaccine requirements.

    • The role of nursing ethics and codes of ethics.

    • The requirements of informed consent.

    • Appropriate approaches to Autism Spectrum “Disorder”.

    • The nature of understanding and explanation.

    • The ways in which understanding acquisition can change a person.

    • Lots more!

  • Working on acquisition of "basic" understanding, including:

    • Researching explanation, inference, and learning progressions

    • Serving as a post-doctoral research associate for a Moore Foundation project developing a course on critical scientific and philosophical reasoning

  • Advocacy!

    • Inaugural Pitt School of Health Sciences Social Justice Fellowship

    • Design justice for autistic end-users.

    • Founding faculty sponsor of Pitt Autistic Student Union

  • Parenting!

    • Getting my twelve-year-old to help me understand her mystifying world.

    • Getting my seven-year-old to understand understand the mystifying world around him.

    • Getting my four-year-old to understand mystifying and seemingly arbitrary parental rules.

    • Getting my baby to understand that there is a world around her to be mystified by (Does this count as understanding?) (Spoiler alert: probably)

  • ....and much more!

 

 
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