Melissa Rees

My undergraduate degree was a double-major in Gender & Women's Studies and Rhetoric at UC Berkeley. In those classes I came to love Philosophy and moved to New York City to pursue an MA in Philosophy at Columbia University. As a California native, I owe New York for preparing me to face the winters in Toronto, where I received a PhD in Philosophy at the University of Toronto (in Oct 2022). Happily, I returned to New York in the Fall of 2023 to begin an exciting career here at Siena College.

My Siena Experience

What I Love About Siena

 I love the campus community! And of course, I absolutely love our mascot.

My Professional Experience

Current Research

 My areas of specialization are Bioethics, Philosophy of Medicine, and Feminist Philosophy (especially, Sexual Ethics).

My interests in applied ethics are unified by three complementary notions: autonomy, personhood, and consent. Our personhood and autonomy are influenced by our social environment. But, of course, we are not passively embedded in the social world. We can transform settings that are hostile to us into ones that are helpful to us. Importantly, goals of self-management can be promoted by looking outward. In my research, I am guided by the idea that sometimes the best way to affect a change in ourselves, is to re-structure the world around us. 

Articles & Book Reviews

• Patient Autonomy and Withholding Information
  Bioethics
  2023
• Sexual Agency and Sexual Wrongs: A Dilemma for Consent Theory
  Philosophers' Imprint
  2023
• Disability, Health, Law and Bioethics
  The Journal of Philosophy of Disability
  2021