Alison Simmons the Samuel H. Wolcott Professor of Philosophy and Harvard College Professor at Harvard University.
Education
Simmons studied psychology as an undergraduate at Bucknell University, graduating summa cum laude with highest honors in psychology in 1987. She initially attended Cornell University as a graduate student, studying cognitive and perceptual psychology with Elizabeth Spelke. She received her Doctor of Philosophy in philosophy from Penn in 1994 and took her first academic job as Assistant Professor at Harvard University.
Career
Her primary scholarly interests are in early modern theories of mind (17th-18th century), the relationship between mind and body, and sensory perception. She transferred a year later to the University of Pennsylvania to study philosophy under the direction of Gary Hatfield. In 2002, she became the first woman to be tenured from a junior faculty position within Harvard’s philosophy department.
(Gisela Striker is the first woman to have a tenured position in the department, in 1989) In 2008 Simmons was named the Samuel H. Wolcott Professor of Philosophy, and in 2011 she was named a Harvard College Professor.
As a graduate student, Simmons held fellowships from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She was named a Dean’s Scholar in 1993.
Her article, “Changing the Cartesian Mind” was selected for Philosopher’s Annual in 2001. Simmons" work on Descartes has been particularly influential.
Views
"“Guarding the Body: A Cartesian Phenomenology of Perception,” Contemporary Perspectives on Early Modern Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Vere Chappell, edited by Paul Hoffman and Gideon Yaffe (Broadview Press, 2008), 81-113. “Spatial Perception from a Cartesian Point of View” Philosophical Topics 31 (2003), 395-423.