Dr. Sarah LaChance Adams has been awarded the Mary E. Woolley Alumnae Fellowship, an annual
keystone award given by the Alumnae Association of Mt Holyoke College, for completion of her book on
maternal ambivalence and filicide, The Ethics of Ambivalence: Mad Mothers, Bad Mothers and What a
Good Mother Would do.
LaChance Adams graduated magna cum laude with High Honors from Mt Holyoke in 1999 with a
bachelor’s degree in Critical Social Thought. Her thesis was entitled, The Convention on the Rights of the
Child: Turning Subjects into Citizens.
LaChance Adams’ fellowship-supported project poses the question, “What makes the difference between
mothers who kill and those who do not?”
LaChance Adams’ goal was to “bring a deeper and more productive understanding of the problems of
maternal ambivalence and filicide.” She writes in her application “...The appropriate response to the
problem of maternal filicide is not simply to blame the mother. Part of my goal is to help theorists and
practitioners realize that an ethical model that favors individual moral responsibility is counterproductive.
The problem of maternal filicide is a social problem that requires a collective solution.”
LaChance Adams holds a masters degree in psychology from Seattle University. She earned a second
masters degree and a PhD, both in philosophy, from the University of Oregon. Research grants and
fellowships earned while at the University of Oregon include the John L. and Naomi M. Luvaas
Fellowship, the Oregon Humanities Center Graduate Fellowship, the Betty Foster McCue Fellowship, the
Center for the Study of Women in Society Graduate Student Research Grant, and the Charles A. Reed
Fellowship. LaChance Adams received The Dan Kimble First Year Teaching Award in 2005 and the
Paideia Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 2007.
Coming to Life: Philosophies of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Mothering, an anthology LaChance Adams
co-edited with Caroline Lundquist and published by Fordham University Press, is available for pre-order.
Currently, LaChance Adams teaches philosophy and women’s studies courses at UW-Superior.