U.Va. Philosophy Professor to Give Keynote for Mudd Undergraduate Ethics Conference

By Julie Cline
March 1, 2017

Sahar Akhtar, assistant professor in the department of philosophy at the University of Virginia, is the keynote speaker for the Mudd Undergraduate Conference in Ethics. Her lecture is March 11 at 4:30 p.m. in the Northen Auditorium, Leyburn Library.

Akhtar will be speaking on “Why Religious and Racial Immigration Bans are Wrong.” The keynote and conference are free and open to the public.

It is the only open undergraduate conference in the country solely dedicated to the academic study of ethical issues. All accepted speakers will not only have the opportunity to present their papers at the conference, but also to have them published in the The Mudd Journal of Ethics.

Akhtar’s research interests are in political philosophy, especially global political philosophy, and bioethics. At U.Va., she regularly teaches courses on “Genes, Justice, and Nature” and “Animals and Ethics.”

Her publications in the field of bioethics include “Animal Welfare and Animal Pain,” in “The Oxford Handbook on Ethics and Animals” (2012).

Prior to teaching at U.Va., she was a postdoctoral research associate in the political theory project at Brown University. She received a Ph.D. in economics at George Mason University and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Duke.

Each spring the Mudd Center sponsors the Undergraduate Conference in Ethics featuring papers that will be published in that year’s journal. The Mudd Journal of Ethics is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes undergraduate work on a wide range of topics in ethics.