Samuel Johnson

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“I have a habit of tackling way too much at once sometimes, though I hope I've learned my lesson now. This year, I wrote an interdisciplinary honors thesis in Philosophy and Cognitive Science, made a feature-length film, and applied to graduate school, nine of which I visited for interviews over a six-week period. My biggest achievement this year was keeping my sanity!”

  • Program: 2011 Graduate Scholarship Recipient
  • Resides: Evanston, IL
  • Hometown: Burlington, WI
  • Age: 22

Biography

 

Profile: Sam Johnson hails from a small city in Wisconsin south of Milwaukee. As he embarks on graduate school he is no stranger to the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation since he was one of the original Young Scholars, chosen before he began high school.  In 2007, Sam was named a College Scholar, “allowing me to attend Northwestern, which has done a great deal for my intellectual life, and I can't thank the Foundation enough for that.”  Sam takes on a lot, but he never has trouble finishing what he’s started.  Take, for instance, his undergraduate course load. Sam had a triple major (Philosophy, Cognitive Science, Film) and still managed to graduate with honors. 

Inspiration:  Sam’s chief mentor at Northwestern was noted academic Lance Rips, Professor of Cognitive Psychology, who rapidly became his role model.  Dr. Rips, Sam said, “embodies all the best qualities an academic could have-- obviously he’s brilliant, but he also has the far rarer qualities of intellectual honesty and modesty, and a perpetual curiosity that leads him to tirelessly question his own theories.”

Aspiration:  Sam’s goal is to follow in the footsteps of his mentor, Dr. Rips, and teach on the university level.  His research interests concern “a constellation of issues at the nexus of philosophy and cognitive psychology, such as how we understand causality, how we reason about others’ agency, and what principles of psychological metaphysics guide our everyday interactions with reality.”

Making a Difference: Although one of his majors at Northwestern was Film, Sam said that is not his career choice.  He is proud though of the feature-length film, Seminar, that he directed during his senior year.  In his hypothetical spare time, Sam likes to write plays and opera libretti.

Accolades:  To name just a few of his honors, Sam received the distinguished thesis award in 2011 and the Brentano Prize (for best undergraduate paper) in 2010 from Northwestern’s Department of Philosophy.  He also won the Sterling Prize Fellowship from the Yale University Graduate School and the Dentler Award for Best Poem, from Northwestern.

Interesting Fact: Sam lived in a retirement home during his final year of college, making him the butt of more ‘senior’ jokes than I can enumerate.

 

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