Placement

Departmental Placement Record

The job Placement Record lists the current/first positions of all students that completed a PhD in philosophy at the University of Toronto since 1970:

Every effort is made to ensure that our record is accurate; we welcome any corrections or updates (please email Evan Drapeau with any relevant information).


Current Placement Candidates (2025-2026)

AOS: Area of specialization
AOC: Area of competence

Matthew J. Delhey, PhD

AOS: 18th and 19th Century Philosophy (especially German Idealism), Social and Political Philosophy
AOC: Early Modern Philosophy, 20th Century Continental Philosophy, Frankfurt School Critical Theory, Philosophy of Technology, Ethics (including AI Ethics)
Link to personal website

Alexandra Gustafson, PhD

AOS: Moral Psychology, Ethics
AOC: Aesthetics, AI Ethics/Ethics of Computing, Philosophy of Disability, Existentialism
Link to personal website

Michael Kirley, PhD

AOS: Philosophy of Mind and Action
AOC: Ethics, Moral Psychology, Epistemology
Link to personal website

Liang-Zhou Koh

AOS: Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind
AOC: Political Philosophy, Chinese Philosophy

Henry Krahn, PhD

AOS: Political Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
AOC: Philosophy of Law, Metaethics, Applied Ethics
Link to personal website

Michaela Manson, PhD

AOS: History of Ethics, Feminism, Philosophy of Human Sexuality
AOC: Early Modern Philosophy
Link to personal website

David Rattray

AOS: Philosophy of Biology & Cognitive Science, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Action
AOC: Feminist Philosophy, General Philosophy of Science
Link to personal website

Zain Raza, PhD 

AOS: Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind
AOC: Metaphysics, Philosophy of Biology, Ancient Greek Philosophy, 20th C. Analytic Philosophy
Link to personal website

Zachary Weinstein, PhD

AOS: Aesthetics, Philosophy of Art, Mind, and Language
AOC: Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Post-Kantian Continental Philosophy, Philosophy of Technology, Applied Ethics
Link to personal website


Departmental Placement Statistics

The following tables show the various sectors in which percentages of our PhD graduates are employed, as well as the locations of their employment, and the average time to the first tenure-track position of academically-employed alumni. The department’s alumni are contrasted with other U of T alumni, alumni from the Faculty of Arts & Science, and alumni from other humanities programs/departments.

Main Employment Sectors of All PhD Graduates, 2000-2015

Department/Division/Faculty/UofTTotal GraduatesPost-secondary Education (PSE): Tenure-TrackPost-secondary Education (PSE): Other PSEPrivate SectorPublic SectorCharitableIndividualOther (Deceased)Unknown
Department of Philosophy15780 (50.96%)41 (26.11%)10 (6.31%)5 (3.18%)2 (1.27%)4 (2.55%) 0 (0.00%) 15 (9.55%)
Faculty of Arts & Science42591353 (31.77%) 1178 (27.66%)661 (15.52%)244 (5.73%)123 (2.89%) 100 (2.35%) 13 (0.31%) 587 (13.78%)
Humanities1588568 (35.77%)502 (31.61%) 77 (4.85%) 62 (3.90%)54 (3.40%) 71 (4.47%) 6 (0.38%) 248 (15.62%)
U of T108862850 (26.18%) 2711 (24.90%) 1996 (18.34%) 1051 (9.65%) 313 (2.88%) 286 (2.63%)36 (0.33%) 1643 (15.09%)

Current Employment Location of PhD Graduates, 2000-2015

Department/Division/Faculty/U of TTotal GraduatesTotal Found GraduatesEmployed in CanadaEmployed in USAEmployed Outside Canada/USA
Department of Philosophy15714267 (41.18%)52 (36.62%) 23 (16.20%)
Faculty of Arts & Science425936722159 (24.75%)909 (24.33%) 604 (15.45%)
Humanities15881340837 (62.46%)326 (24.33%)117 (13.21%)
U of T 1088692436136 (66.39%)1918 (20.75%)1189 (12.86%)

Average Time to First Tenure-Track (TT) Position, 2000-2015

Department/Division/Faculty/U of T Total TT ProfessorsTotal TT Professors w. Identified Date of Appointment (Excluding Outliers)Average Time to TT in Years
Department of Philosophy8033 (41.25%)1.64
Faculty of Arts & Science1353587 (43.39%)2.34
Humanities568218 (38.38%)2.05
U of T 28501201 (42.14%)2.50

About the department’s Placement Director

The department appoints a Placement Director to counsel students at any stage of the doctoral program, and also to provide assistance especially to those nearing completion and preparing to enter the job market in philosophy. The Placement Director for 2025-26 is Professor Jennifer Nagel, and the Placement staff person is Evan Drapeau.

The Placement Director provides general information about this market and about how to determine one’s readiness for it. The Placement Director also oversees the job application process by, among other things, reviewing the students’ completed dossiers;  arranging practice job talks and mock interviews;  and advising students who are interviewing for jobs via Skype and during campus visits.

Planning for the academic job market

 Although many of the Department’s job candidates compete successfully each year for teaching positions that are listed by colleges and universities throughout North America (and beyond), the department cannot guarantee a job for those who complete the PhD.
Since the doctoral program is a period of both academic and professional training, the department urges its students to plan for the marketplace in a careful and gradual way as they advance through the program (for example, by attending local conferences, publishing papers, submitting a paper to the organizers of a conference as well as volunteering to prepare a commentary for an accepted paper, and becoming a member of the Canadian Philosophical and American Philosophical Associations).
Throughout the placement process, students should seek regular advice from graduate faculty with common interests, and particularly from the members of their Qualifying and Thesis Committees.