Matthew Kahn, a leading investigator of the causes and consequences of urban economic growth, joined Johns Hopkins as the 42nd Bloomberg Distinguished Professor. He holds joint appointments in the Krieger School’s Department of Economics and the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. Kahn also serves as the new director of 21st Century Cities, the university’s hub for urban research, education, and outreach.

Kahn’s research focuses on the significance of quality of life in cities as a driver of economic growth. In recent years, he has worked on measuring the carbon footprint of various cities and explored how urbanites and their cities are adapting to the threats of climate change—the topic of his upcoming book from Yale University Press.

Kahn has held professorships at Columbia, Tufts, UCLA, and, most recently, the University of Southern California, where he chaired the Department of Economics. As a visiting professor, he has taught at Harvard, Stanford, and the National University of Singapore. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research fellow at IZA Institute of Labor Economics. He serves as an associate editor of the Journal of Urban Economics and for PLOS One.

Ian Phillips, an expert in the intersection of philosophy and brain science, was named Johns Hopkins’ 44th Bloomberg Distinguished Professor. He holds joint appointments in the Krieger School’s William H. Miller III Department of Philosophy and in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

Phillips explores the points at which the philosophy of mind and cognitive science intersect, using the strengths of each to inform his work in the other. Studying the relationship between the two, he examines questions of the nature of perception, the scientific study of consciousness, and temporal experience.

Most recently, Phillips was the chair in Philosophy of Psychology at the University of Birmingham in the U.K., and spent the last two years as a visiting research fellow in cognitive science at Princeton University. Previously, he was a professor of philosophy at Oxford University, and before that a lecturer at University College London. Phillips is editor of The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Temporal Experience and has served as editor of the interdisciplinary academic journal Mind & Language and consulting editor of Timing & Time Perception.

Hanna Pickard, a leading applied philosopher in the fields of philosophy of psychiatry and moral psychology, is Johns Hopkins’ 45th Bloomberg Distinguished Professor. She holds joint appointments in the William H. Miller III Department of Philosophy in the Krieger School and in the Berman Institute of Bioethics.

Through her applied approach to research, Pickard explores a range of areas, including mental health, addiction, clinical ethics, the self, and criminal law and policy. Currently, she leads a research project titled Responsibility Without Blame, which explores the counterproductive ways society responds to maladaptive behaviors such as crime or addiction.

Pickard came to Hopkins from the University of Birmingham in the U.K., where she was chair in Philosophy of Psychology, and from Princeton University, where she served as a visiting research scholar in cognitive science for the past two years. Previously, she was a research fellow at the University of Oxford and served for 10 years as an assistant team therapist at the Oxfordshire Complex Needs Service, where she worked clinically in an outpatient therapeutic community for patients with personality disorders and other complex mental health needs.