Personnel

Lyceum Personnel

Here are some people you will meet at the Lyceum. Our summer session also includes instructors from among the faculty and graduate students from the University of Iowa Department of Philosophy.

2026 Lyceum Program Organizers

Chaeyeon Lee (she/her)

2026 Program Director

2025 Program Director

2024 Program Director

2023 Assistant Director

2022 Program Organizer

Chaeyeon Lee is from Seoul, South Korea. She received her B.A. and M.A. in philosophy from Ewha Womans University in Seoul. Chaeyeon is a philosophy Ph.D. student with research interests in social ontology, metaphysics, ethics, and philosophy of education. For over five years, she worked as a lecturer and program coordinator for Ewha Saturday Philosophy Class, a Philosophy for Children program. Her passion for facilitating philosophical inquiries for teenagers led her to the Iowa Lyceum.

Hyunchae Kim

2026 Program Organizer

Hyunchae Kim is a Ph.D student in philosophy, with broad interests in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of AI. He received his B.A from Korea University and his M.A from Seoul National University.

Maile Huffman

2026 Program Organizer

Maile Huffman is a Ph.D student in philosophy at the University of Iowa. She received her B.A. in Ethics & Public Policy and Philosophy from the University of Iowa. Maile has broad interests in ethics, social ontology, and philosophy of AI.

Colin Troesken

2026 Program Organizer

2025 Program Organizer

Colin is a Ph.D student at the University of Iowa. His main philosophical interests are in social philosophy, epistemology, and ethics.

Program Founders, Past Presidents, & Faculty Instructors

Kristopher G. Phillips:

Co-Founder & President Emeritus

Originally from Michigan, Kris attended Central Michigan University as an undergraduate, earning a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy in 2003. After a brief hiatus from school, he returned to earn a Master's degree in Philosophy in 2007 from Western Michigan University. He started school at the University of Iowa in 2007, earned a second Master's Degree in Philosophy in 2010, and earned his Ph.D. in 2014. His primary interests lie in Early Modern Philosophy (17th and 18th century philosophy, specifically the work of Descartes, Cavendish, and Shepherd). He has published broadly, in the history of philosophy, the philosophy of education, and in pre-college philosophy. Kris is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy and department chair for Languages & Philosophy at Southern Utah University. He is co-founder of the Utah Lyceum, and currently serves as Associate Editor of Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice. He is a dedicated teacher, having earned a handful of teaching awards including the "Distinguished Educator Award" at Southern Utah University in 2019, an "Innovative Pedagogy Award" from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at SUU in 2018, and an "Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award" from the University of Iowa Council on Teaching in 2011. Most recently, he was one of five finalists for the APA/AAPT Prize for Excellence in Philosophy Teaching.

A list of Kris's publications can be found here.

Greg Stoutenburg:

Co-Founder & President Emeritus

Greg is originally from Michigan. After earning his B.A. and M.A. degrees, Greg started work on his Ph.D. at the University of Iowa in 2011. While working on his M.A. degree, Greg became fascinated with issues concerning our control (or lack of control) over what we believe. That got him thinking about epistemology and ethics even more. Greg's primary interests are in epistemology (theory of knowledge), ethics, and philosophy of mind. He completed his dissertation, focused on how good a person’s reasons must be in order to have knowledge, here at the University in 2016. Greg is an excellent instructor and earned an "Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award" from the University of Iowa Council on Teaching in 2013. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at York College of Pennsylvania.

Greg's website can be found here.

Landon D.C. Elkind:

Previous Program President (2016-2018)

Landon is originally from Texas. He completed a B.A. in philosophy and an B.Sc. in mathematics at George Washington University in 2013, and he received a Ph.D. in Philosophy and an M.S. in Mathematics from the University of Iowa in 2018. Landon's research specialties include history of analytic philosophy, philosophy of language, and philosophy of logic and mathematics. After receiving his Ph.D., Landon served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. Landon is currently a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Alberta.

Landon made significant contributions to the Iowa Lyceum program. He served as the program president from 2016 - 2018 and helped the Lyceum to gain recognition from PLATO (see here).

Landon's website can be found here.

Laura Brown:

Previous Program Director (2018-2019)

Laura's University of Iowa departmental page can be found here.

Danielle Colburn:

Previous Program Director (2020-2021)

Danielle is originally from Pennsylvania. They completed a B.A. in philosophy and psychology at Roger Williams University where they received the "Dr. Rodolphe-Louis Herbert Award for Excellence in Philosophy". Danielle’s primary research interests involve the intersection between philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology, and their current research focuses on the nature of "self". Danielle received an M.A. in philosophy from the University of Iowa and is currently working on their dissertation.

Danielle was the Program Director for the Iowa Lyceum in 2020 and 2021, created the current Lyceum website, and organized the publication of an article about the Iowa Lyceum in 2021. Danielle's University of Iowa departmental page can be found here.

Joe Glover (he/him)

Previous Program Director (2021)

2023 Program Organizer and Advisor

2022 Organizer & Advisor to the Director

2019 & 2020 Program Organizer

Joe is originally from California. He received his B.A. in philosophy from San Jose State University and his M.A. from Northern Illinois University. Joe is a fifth-year graduate student, with primary interests in philosophy of language, logic, and the history of analytic philosophy. His secondary interests include metaphysics and ancient philosophy.

Cassie Finley (she/her)

Previous Program Director (2022)

2024 Program Organizer and Advisor

2023 Program Organizer and Advisor

2020 & 2021 Program Organizer

Cassie Finley is originally from Bend, Oregon. She received her B.A. in philosophy from Pacific University in Portland, Oregon in 2018. Cassie is a philosophy PhD Candidate at the University of Iowa, and is interested in questions involving virtue theory, epistemology, education, and technology. In addition to her studies and involvement with the Lyceum, she is an active member of the Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO) and teaches online middle school philosophy classes.

Emily Lemmon (she/her)

Previous Program Director (2023)

2022 Assistant Director & Financial Officer

2021 Program Organizer

Emily Lemmon is from Farmington, Utah. She received her B.A. in both Philosophy and Spanish from Southern Utah University. Emily is a Ph.D. candidate in the philosophy program at the University of Iowa. Her academic interests are in aesthetics and philosophy of art, philosophy of literature, Wittgenstein, and epistemology.

Professor David Cunning:

Lyceum Instructor & Chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of Iowa

Dr. Cunning is a philosophy professor at the University of Iowa. His research and teaching interests include the history of the mind-body problem, the methods of rationalism, free will and determinism, agency, and existentialism. He completed a book-length study of the philosophy of the 17th-Century philosopher and scientist, Margaret Cavendish. She defends the view that the bodies that surround us, and the bodies that compose us, are sophisticated and intelligent. Then she proceeds to develop a number of compelling theses about freedom, agency, and obligation. He is continuing to work on Cavendish and on related issues in Spinoza's monism and pan-psychism.

David has worked hard to help graduate students keep the Iowa Lyceum funded. His support has been vital to keeping the Lyceum going each year, and his assistance was vital in making the 2020 Lyceum possible, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

David's departmental page can be found here.

Richard Fumerton:

Lyceum Supervisor & Instructor

Richard Fumerton earned his Ph.D. from Brown University in 1974, and is the F. Wendell Miller Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. He is the author of Metaphysical and Epistemological Problems of Perception (1985), Reason and Morality: A Defense of the Egocentric Perspective (1990), Metaepistemology and Skepticism (1995), Realism and the Correspondence Theory of Truth (2002), Epistemology (2006), and Mill (2009, co-authored with Wendy Donner), and he is the co-editor of Introducing Philosophy Through Film (2009, co-edited with Diane Jeske). His teaching and research interests include epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and value theory. Professor Fumerton has several awards honoring his excellence in education. In 1994, he earned the M.L. Huitt Award for Excellence in Teaching from the University of Iowa, and in 1996, he earned a Collegiate Teaching Award from the University of Iowa. In 1997, Fumerton earned the Regents's Award for Faculty Excellence.

Richard's departmental page can be found here.