Katharina Bauer is assistant professor of practical philosophy at Erasmus School of Philosophy. She obtained a doctorate in philosophy (*summa cum laude*) for a dissertation about the phenomenon of the gift: *Einander zu erkennen geben (Karl Alber Verlag 2012)*. In 2016 she has completed her habilitation thesis about theories of practical necessity at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum as a research scholar of the “Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)”. As Visiting Researcher at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and Goethe Universität Frankfurt a.M., she has investigated the topic of self-optimization from a Kantian perspective (Feodor-Lynen Fellowship for Experienced Researchers, sponsored by the Humboldt Foundation). Her areas of specilization are moral philosophy, self-optimization and enhancement, theories of practical necessity, theories of personal identity and character, theories of the gift and contemporary French philosophy. **Areas of PhD Supervision:** 1. Moral Philosophy 2. Theories of personal practical identity 3. Ethics of human enhancement 4. French phenomenology 5. Philosophy and literature