Fellowship for Educational Innovation
at the Abigail Adams Institute
The Abigail Adams Institute is pleased to announce Dr. Samantha Matherne as the 2025–2026 Faculty Fellow for Educational Innovation.
The Fellowship for Educational Innovation (FEEDIN) is the newest partnership between AAI and Harvard University. Building on successful efforts to develop intellectual community, foster good pedagogy, and promote supplemental advising and mentoring, the Fellowship aims to support the pursuit of big and basic questions in the Harvard curriculum through the creation and execution of comprehensive survey courses.
The purpose of FEEDIN is to enable a Harvard faculty member to dedicate a full academic year to developing innovative, student-focused courses and teaching materials. Each year’s Faculty Fellow, selected by both AAI and Harvard’s Arts and Humanities division, demonstrates a proven track record of teaching excellence and a commitment to the humanities.
Through our Course Guide for the Harvard Humanist, faculty conversations and events, and demonstrated success with the Harvard History of Philosophy Workshop, AAI has historically promoted big picture survey courses that capture undergraduate students’ imaginations, stimulate lifelong learning, and help students cultivate a balanced, flourishing life. By fostering course innovation, the AAI Fellowship aims to catalyze the appreciation of the humanities at Harvard and beyond, complementing AAI’s supplementary student programming.
Like faculty at many institutions, Harvard professors are eligible for sabbatical leaves. Nearly all such fellowships prioritize research, meaning that faculty generally concentrate their most intensive efforts on research rather than teaching. Our proposed fellowship seeks to rebalance that structure by offering faculty — especially senior faculty — the support needed to invest concentrated time and energy in pedagogical innovation.
Our faculty sabbatical fellowship provides resources for a yearlong period during which each faculty fellow is expected to contribute to the various intellectual offerings at the Institute and help AAI build relationships with similarly inclined faculty, especially in the Arts and Humanities. During the fellowship year, the Faculty Fellow will experiment with survey course creation by offering seminars and conversations for AAI students at our community space in Harvard Square.
This year’s FEEDIN Faculty Fellow is Dr. Samantha Matherne, who will be preparing an interdisciplinary survey course focusing on intersections of philosophy and literature.
Faculty Partners
Dr. Samantha Matherne - 2025 -2026 FEEDIN Fellow
Professor of Philosophy
Samantha Matherne is a Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. Samantha Matherne’s primary research interests lie in exploring the reciprocal relationship between perception and aesthetics. She approaches these issues largely through a historical lens, as they are taken up by Kant and developed in Post-Kantian traditions in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially Phenomenology and Neo-Kantianism. She previously taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Matherne is known for her works on aesthetics and Kantian philosophy.
Dr. Jeffrey McDonough - Advisor
Department Chair
Professor of Philosophy
Director of the Harvard History of Philosophy Workshop
Jeffrey McDonough joined the Harvard Philosophy department in 2005 after receiving his Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine. His primary areas of research lie in early modern philosophy, the philosophy of science and especially their intersection. He also has strong interests, however, in medieval philosophy as well as contemporary metaphysics and epistemology. Jeff has collaborated closely with the Institute for over a decade.
