I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Duke University, working with Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. In summer 2024, I’ll be starting as an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at York University in Toronto.

I completed my PhD in Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2022. My advisors there were Peter Railton, Chandra Sripada, and Renée Jorgensen in philosophy, and Ethan Kross and Susan Gelman in psychology.

My research focuses on topics relating to mental state control, the ethics of belief, and moral psychology. I’m broadly interested in issues at the intersection of cognitive science, philosophy of mind, ethics, and epistemology. I do both theoretical and empirical work on various topics in this space. My current projects center around doxastic control, the moralization of mental states, and obligations to close others and the self.

You can download my CV here and contact me at laura.soter@duke.edu.

I completed my B.A. in philosophy and cognitive science at Carleton College (in Minnesota). Before moving to the midwest, I grew up in San Francisco, California, where I was blissfully unaware of winter.

If I’m not doing philosophy or psychology, I’m probably playing ultimate frisbee, baking cookies, or hanging out with my covid pup, Nessie.

Pronouns: she/they