Brandon Morgan-Olsen
UW Philosophy
Photo of Brandon Morgan-Olsen


I am currently serving as Biological Futures Research Associate with the Program on Values in Society, where I will be working in collaboration with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center's Center for Biological Futures and the UW Simpson Center for the Humanities. For more more information about this collaborative project, visit:

I recently completed a year spent as Postdoctoral Fellow in Democracy and Diversity at Queen's University, under the supervision of Professor Will Kymlicka. Prior to that, I earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Washington, defending a dissertation entitled “Listening in Public: Duties of Civility in a Pluralistic Democracy” in June of 2010. My undergraduate work was done at Grinnell College, where I graduated with a B.A. in philosophy (see Curriculum Vitae).

My primary research is in social and political philosophy, and I am in the final stages of projects about our civic obligations with respect to public political deliberation and about the public “translation” of minority group claims. Moving forward, I am engaging with issues having to do with competing interpretations of multiculturalism, public discourse about undocumented immigration, and the "democratization" of science (see Research).

After spending a considerable amount of time teaching during my graduate tenure at University of Washington, I had the opportunity to develop a new course while at Queen's that discussed issues of respect, tolerance, and civility. I was able to teach this course last Winter Term as a third-year course in Contemporary Moral Philosophy (see Teaching).


Contact Information

Brandon Morgan-Olsen
Simpson Center for the Humanities
University of Washington
Box 353710
Seattle, WA 98195-3710

Office Phone: (206) 221-6510
Email: olsenb3[at]uw.edu


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Brandon Morgan-Olsen | olsenb3@uw.edu
University of Washington