Professional Biography
Michael Vazquez is Teaching Assistant Professor and Director of Outreach in the Department of Philosophy and the Parr Center for Ethics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania in May 2020, and completed the post-baccalaureate program in Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania in 2015.
Michael is committed to forging lasting, democratic, and collaborative partnerships between the academy and the community, and to cultivating the philosophical voices of people of all ages. At Penn he was awarded the inaugural Provost’s Graduate Academic Engagement Fellowship to design and teach a new Academically Based Community Service course on public philosophy & civic engagement. At UNC he primarily teaches experiential education courses in philosophy and works closely with educators and other community partners to promote philosophical and ethical reflection in schools, correctional facilities, intergenerational spaces, and more.
As a historian of philosophy Michael specializes in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, especially Stoicism. He also draws actively on his community engagement efforts to conduct research in political philosophy and the philosophy of education. At Penn GSE he has served as a lecturer on the Social Foundations of Education for Penn’s Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership.
