I study the philosophy of physics, focusing on the foundations of quantum mechanics, classical field theory, and quantum field theory.  I use tools from metaphysics and epistemology to assess competing proposals about what physical laws govern the quantum realm (such as Bohmian mechanics, the many-worlds interpretation, and GRW theory).  I also work towards improving our understanding of classical field theories, including our theories of the electromagnetic, Dirac, and gravitational fields.  At the intersection of these two topics, I am interested in the way that classical field theories are quantized to arrive at quantum field theories.

I am a professor of philosophy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).  As a student I studied physics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Oxford, and the University of Michigan.  Before coming to Caltech, I was an assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego.

For an introduction to my research, you can read the article I wrote for Aeon ("What's everything made of?"), this Scientific American article on electron spin, or this Caltech interview.

For the latest on the account of electron spin that I have advocated (building on the work of Hans C. Ohanian), see section 4.2 of this article and the references therein.

Publications

Eliminating Electron Self-Repulsion (2023), in Foundations of Physics [arXiv]

Absorbing the Arrow of Electromagnetic Radiation (2023), with Mario Hubert, in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science [arXiv]

The Disappearance and Reappearance of Potential Energy in Classical and Quantum Electrodynamics (2022), in Foundations of Physics [arXiv] [talk and slides]

The Fundamentality of Fields (2022), in Synthese [arXiv]

The Mass of the Gravitational Field (2022), in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science [arXiv] [related notes]

Particles, Fields, and the Measurement of Electron Spin (2021), in Synthese [arXiv]

Electron Charge Density: A Clue from Quantum Chemistry for Quantum Foundations (2021), in Foundations of Physics [arXiv]

Possibility of Small Electron States (2020), in Physical Review A [arXiv] [comment]

Putting Positrons into Classical Dirac Field Theory (2020), in Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics [arXiv]

How Electrons Spin (2019), in Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics [arXiv]

Electromagnetism as Quantum Physics (2019), in Foundations of Physics [arXiv]

Forces on Fields (2018), in Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics [arXiv]

Self-Locating Uncertainty and the Origin of Probability in Everettian Quantum Mechanics (2018), with Sean Carroll, in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science [arXiv] [blog I, II, III] [quanta]

Constructing and Constraining Wave Functions for Identical Quantum Particles (2016), in Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics [arXiv]

Killer Collapse: Empirically Probing the Philosophically Unsatisfactory Region of GRW (2015), in Synthese [PhilSci archive]

Quantum Mechanics as Classical Physics (2015), in Philosophy of Science [arXiv] [blog] [featured in Nature News]

Many Worlds, the Born Rule, and Self-Locating Uncertainty (2014), with Sean Carroll, in Quantum Theory: A Two-Time Success Story, Yakir Aharonov Festschrift [arXiv (updated version)]