Ryan Preston-Roedder (Ph.D. 2007, NYU) is the Obama Scholars Program faculty advisor and a professor of philosophy. Before joining the Oxy Philosophy Department in 2017, he taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was a Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Scholar at MIT, and held a Faculty Fellowship at the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard. Ryan specializes in moral and political philosophy, moral psychology, and philosophy of religion. His recent publications consider ways in which faith, trust, and other attitudes draw us into valuable forms of community with other people. His current research explores meaning in life and the problem of the absurd, the nature and significance of the religious outlook, and the moral and political significance of love.