Sonya Ringer, PhD, is a philosopher whose research interests are primarily in pregnancy, motherhood, and reproductive ethics. She earned her PhD in Philosophy from the William H. Miller III Department of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University in 2025 under the supervision of Professor Hanna Pickard. She earned her A.B. from the University of Chicago in Fundamentals: Issues and Texts, as well as a minor in Classics.
At a high level, her work asks what we learn when we treat pregnancy as a central case for theorizing. Thus far, she has taken up metaphysical questions concerning the nature of the relationship between mothers and fetuses during pregnancy and ethical questions about the moral and existential value of reproductive work.
She is currently working on a project which considers the moral significance of the sacrifices—paradigmatically physical—women make during pregnancy and examines the ways in which the abortion debate has shaped attitudes about the moral value of pregnancy and the moral agency of pregnant women.
She has wide teaching interests, with particular experience in bioethics, ethics, and personal identity.