Peter Boghossian, Fellow
Dr. Boghossian’s main focus is bringing the tools of professional philosophers to people in a wide variety of contexts. He has a teaching pedigree spanning more than 20 years and 30 thousand students – in prisons, hospitals, public and private schools, seminaries, colleges and universities, Fortune 100 companies, and small businesses. His fundamental objective is to teach people how to think through what often seem to be intractable problems.
His primary research areas are critical thinking and moral reasoning. His doctoral research studies, funded by the State of Oregon and supported by the Oregon Department of Corrections, consisted of using the Socratic method to help prison inmates to increase their critical thinking and moral reasoning abilities and to increase their desistance to criminal behavior.
You can follow Dr. Boghossian on Twitter at @peterboghossian. His book, A Manual for Creating Atheists, is available on Amazon.com.
Michael Santos, Fellow
Michael Santos was arrested on August 11, 1987, when he was 23 years old. He served 26 years in federal prisons of every security level. While incarcerated, Michael followed a three-part plan to reconcile with society for the bad decisions of youth. He worked to educate himself, to contribute to society, and to build a strong support network. That commitment led to his earning a bachelor’s degree from Mercer University and a master’s degree from Hofstra University. He published extensively to help others understand prisons, the people they hold, and strategies to emerge from confinement as law-abiding, contributing citizens. Michael concluded his obligation to the Bureau of Prisons on August 12, 2013; three weeks later he became an adjunct professor at San Francisco State University, where he taught criminal justice students about America’s prison system. Through MichaelSantos.com, he builds a career working to improve the outcomes of our nation’s criminal justice system and to teach those who’ve experienced the system to prepare for success.