News Tips
office of news & public affairs
Members of the Boston College faculty are available to offer comment on a wide variety of subjects, including the following topics currently in the news. To find a faculty member who can address another topic, feel free to search our on-line database.
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Political Science Associate Professor Dennis Hale
617-552-4165; dennis.hale@bc.edu
Prof. Dennis Hale's areas of research include local government, American political thought, public administration, and the modern experience of citizenship. His essays and reviews have appeared in the Political Science Quarterly, PS, Society, The Journal of Politics, APSR, State and Local Government Review, Polity, Administration and Society, The Political Science Reviewer, The Washington Post, and Newsday.
Political Science Professor Marc Landy
617-552-4172; marc.landy@bc.edu
Prof. Marc Landy is a leading authority on the subject of the U.S. presidency, from election to office. He is co-author of the book Presidential Greatness, an author of the Environmental Protection Agency From Nixon to Clinton: Asking the Wrong Questions. His latest textbook is American Government: Balancing Liberty and Democracy (co-authored with Sidney Milkis).
Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. Professor of American Politics R. Shep Melnick
617-552-1896; shep.melnick@bc.edu
R. Shep Melnick fields of expertise are American politics and the intersection of law and politics. His book, Regulation and the Courts, examined judicial influence on the development of environmental policy. His second book, Between the Lines, investigated the ways in which statutory interpretation has shaped a variety of entitlement programs.
J. Joseph Moakley Professor of Political Science Kay L. Schlozman
617-552-4174; kay.schlozman@bc.edu
Prof. Kay Lehman Schlozman teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in American politics - among them, Parties and Elections in America and Women and Politics. She is editor of Elections in America and co-author of Injury to Insult: Unemployment, Class and Political Response, Organized Interests and American Democracy, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics and, The Private Roots of Public Action: Gender, Equality, and Political Participation, which was co-winner of the APSA’s Schuck Prize. She has as chair of the American Political Science Association's section on Elections, Public Opinion and Voting Behavior.
Political Science Professor Alan Wolfe / Director, Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life
617-552-1862; wolfe@bc.edu
Prof. Alan Wolfe's research focuses on cultural and religious issues in American politics. Widely quoted and published, Wolfe also is director of Boston College's Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life. His books include One Nation, After All; The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Practice our Faith; Moral Freedom: The Search for Virtue in a World of Choice, and School Choice: The Moral Debate. Both One Nation and Moral Freedom were selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year.
History Professor Patrick Maney
617-552-2399; maneyp@bc.edu
Prof. Maney is a political and presidential historian, with a particular focus on American history from 1865 to the present. He is author of a biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt titled The Roosevelt Presence: The Life and Legacy of FDR. He is working on a book on Bill Clinton’s presidency.
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The Economy:
Peter Ireland
Murray and Monti Professor of Economics
(617) 552-3687
irelandp@bc.edu
He is an expert in monetary economics and has worked with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He teaches a course on "Money, Banking and the Financial Markets."
Faculty Web page: http://fmwww.bc.edu/ec/ireland.php
Philip Strahan
John L. Collins S.J. Chair in Finance
Carroll School of Management
617-552-6430
philip.strahan.1@bc.edu
His areas of expertise include the effects of deregulation on the structure and efficiency of the banking industry, the impact of consolidation on bank lending, the political economy of banking deregulation, and risk management practices in banking. He spent seven years in the Research and Market Analysis Group of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Faculty Web page: http://www.bc.edu/schools/csom/faculty/bios/strahan.html
Alicia H. Munnell
Drucker Professor of Management Sciences
Director, Center for Retirement Research
617-552-1934
alicia.munnell.1@bc.edu
Center for Retirement Research: 617-552-1762
Munnell, a former member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, is one of the nation's leading experts in retirement planning, savings, 401(k)s and Social Security issues. She is co-author of the book, Coming Up Short: The Challenge of 401(k) Plans.
Faculty Web page: http://crr.bc.edu/director/alicia_h._munnell_2.html
Robert Murphy
Associate Professor of Economics
(617) 552-3687
murphyro@bc.edu
He is an expert on domestic and international economic policy and a former member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.
Faculty Web page: http://fmwww.bc.edu/ec/murphy.php
Edward Kane
Carroll School of Management Professor of Finance
(617) 552-3986
edward.kane@bc.edu
His areas of expertise include financial crisis management; deposit insurance; financial services competition and regulation; banking; interest rates, and political economy.
Faculty Web page: http://www.bc.edu/schools/csom/faculty/bios/kane.html
Mary Ellen Carter
Associate Professor of Accounting
Carroll School of Management
617-552-2144
carterma@bc.edu
Carter is a CPA and has studied the effects of financial reporting and regulation on incentives and executive compensation. Her research has been published in leading academic journals and has been featured in Forbes and other business media. Prior to her teaching career, she was a senior associate on the audit staff at Coopers & Lybrand.
Brian JM Quinn
Law School Assistant Professor
(617) 552-2202
His areas of expertise include corporate law, the structuring of transactions, and private ordering. He teaches Corporations, Mergers & Acquisitions, and Deals. He has worked as a private practice attorney for public and private technology clients in merger and acquisitions transactions.
Faculty Web page: http://www.bc.edu/schools/law/fac-staff/deans-faculty/quinnb.html
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Casinos and Gambling:
Carroll School of Management Associate Professor Rev. Richard McGowan, SJ is a nationally recognized expert on legalized gaming. Prof. McGowan has published several books, including: State Lotteries and Legalized Gambling: Painless Revenue or Painful Mirage; Industry as a Player in the Social and Political Arenas, and Government and the Transformation of the Gaming Industry. His upcoming book is titled Dividing the Spoils: States and the Gambling Industry. He was the only academic appointee to a commission to study the potential expansion of legalized gaming in Massachusetts.
(617) 552-3474
mcgowan@bc.edu
http://www.bc.edu/schools/csom/faculty/bios/mcgowan.html
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Aging Workforce/Retirement Issues:
Alicia H. Munnell
Drucker Professor of Management Sciences
Director, Center for Retirement Research
617-552-1934
alicia.munnell@bc.edu
Center for Retirement Research: 617-552-1762
Munnell, a former member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, is one of the nation's leading experts in retirement planning, savings, 401(k)s and Social Security issues. She is co-author of the book, Coming Up Short: The Challenge of 401(k) Plans, which chronicles the evolution of 40(k) plans and examines mistakes that are made when risk and responsibility for retirement funding is shifted to employees. Munnell has been appointed by the Massachusetts Legislature to lead a Blue Ribbon Panel to analyze the state's public retirement system.
Joseph F. Quinn
James P. McIntyre Professor of Economics
617-552-2393
joseph.quinn@bc.edu
Quinn is a professor of economics and former co-chair of a panel for President Clinton's Social Security Advisory Committee and has been widely quoted regarding retirement patterns, the aging workforce and the economics of aging. His work has covered the economics of aging with emphasis on the economic status of the elderly, Social Security reform, the determinants of the individual retirement decision, and trends and pa tterns of labor force withdrawal among older Americans.
Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes
Director, Sloan Center on Aging & Work
617-552-4033
pittcats@bc.edu
Pitt-Catsouphes is director of the Center on Aging & Work at Boston College and an associate professor in BC's Graduate School of Social Work. Her areas of research and interest include: olderworkers/baby boomers, flexible work options, aging, and work and family. She has conducted studies about workplace culture, supervisor-employee relationships, and the adoption of innovative employee policies. She founded the Sloan Work and Family Research Network which provides resources about working families to business leaders and state legislators as well as to academics around the world. She is a Research Fellow of the Work & Family Roundtable, a corporate membership group organized by the Boston College Center for Work & Family.
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Stephen Pope
Professor of Theology
Prof. Pope's areas of expertise include Catholic ethics and social thought; forgiveness and reconciliation; evolution and ethics; science and theology; moral theology and social ethics; preferential option for the poor; marriage and family; social and economic justice; the Church and politics; human rights; war and peace.
617.552.3892
stephen.pope@bc.edu
Thomas Groome
Professor, School of Theology & Ministry
Prof. Groome's areas of expertise include general issues of the Catholic church; the papacy; sacraments; spiritual practices, and Catholic schools and religious education. Author of the books Will There be Faith?; What Makes Us Catholic, and Educating for Life: A Spiritual Vision for Every Teacher and Parent. Author of textbooks, including a series titled Coming to God, used in elementary and secondary religious education.
617.552.8449
thomas.groome@bc.edu
Rev. Robert Imbelli
Associate Professor of Theology
Fr. Imbelli's areas of expertise include the Catholic Church and spirituality. He studied in Rome during the years of the Second Vatican Council. He is a member of the Anglican-Roman Catholic Dialogue USA.
617.552.8298
robert.imbelli@bc.edu
Lisa Sowle Cahill
J. Donald Monan, SJ, Professor of Theology
Prof. Cahill's areas of expertise include the Catholic Church; Catholic Church and women; the papacy; bioethics; sex, gender and the family; marriage and divorce; "just war" theory. She is a past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the Society of Christian Ethics. Author of the books Sex, Gender and Christian Ethics; Love Your Enemies: Discipleship, Pacifism and Just War Theory; and Between the Sexes: Toward a Christian Ethics of Sexuality; co-author of the book Religion and Artificial Reproduction: Inquiry into the Vatican Instruction on Human Life.
617.552.3890
lisa.cahill@bc.edu
Rev. James Weiss
Associate Professor, Theology Department
Prof. Weiss specializes in the papacy, papal elections and the college of cardinals. His other areas of expertise include spirituality and church history. Fr. Weiss is an Episcopal priest.
617.552.3897
james.weiss@bc.edu
Rev. John Paris, SJ
Walsh Professor of Bioethics
Fr. Paris' areas of expertise include Catholic ethics; bioethics; issues related to medical treatment termination; patient rights. Frequently called as expert witness in legal cases involving termination of medical treatment; consultant and expert witness in many landmark biomedical cases. Served as consultant to the President's Commission for the Study of Ethics in Medicine, the United States Senate Committee on Aging, and the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. Author or co-author of more than 100 articles on the area of law, medicine and ethics.
617.552.8434
john.paris@bc.edu
Richard Gaillardetz
McCarthy Professor of Catholic Systematic Theology
Prof. Gaillardetz is an ecclesiologist with an expertise in ecumenical councils, including Vatican II. He is the author or co-author of several books, including Keys to the Council: Unlocking the Teaching of Vatican II. He is vice president of the Catholic Theological Society of America.
617.552.6501
richard.gaillardetz@bc.edu
Rev. Harvey Egan, SJ
Professor Emeritus, Theology Department
Fr. Egan's areas of expertise include Christian mysteries and apparitions and their relationship to Christian faith; saints and miracles. Author of the books Ignatius Loyola the Mystic and Christian Mysticism: The Future of a Tradition.
617.552.8109
harvey.egan@bc.edu
Rev. Daniel J. Harrington, SJ
Professor, School of Theology & Ministry
Fr. Harrington's areas of expertise include the Old Testament; New Testament; biblical interpretation in antiquity, modern biblical interpretation, and the relation between exegesis and preaching. Author or coauthor of many publications, including How do Catholics Read the Bible?; Jesus and Virtue Ethics, and Why Do We Suffer? A Scriptural Approach to the Human Condition. Editor of New Testament Abstract. His courses have included: "The Gospel of Matthew" and "New Testament and Ethics."
617.552.6501
daniel.harrington@bc.edu
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Immigration:
Rev. David Hollenbach, SJ
University Chair in Human Rights and International Justice
Director, Center for Human Rights and International Justice
617-552-8855
david.hollenbach.1@bc.edu
Fr. Hollenbach is a Jesuit priest whose research interests are in the foundation of Christian social ethics, particularly in the areas of the human rights, theory of justice and the role of religion in social and political life. He teaches periodically at Hekima College of the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, in Nairobi, Kenya. Fr. Hollenbach was the principal consultant for the US Catholic Bishops' 1986 report "Economic Justice for All." He has served as president of the Society of Christian Ethics. Fr. Hollenbach's publications include The Global Face of Public Faith: Politics, Human Rights, and Christian Ethics;The Common Good and Christian Ethics; and Justice, Peace, and Human Rights: American Catholic Social Ethics in a Pluralistic World. Fr. Hollenbach has received the John Courtney Murray Award for outstanding contributions to theology from the Catholic Theological Society of America. He is director of Boston College's Center for Human Rights and International Justice.
Daniel Kanstroom
Clinical Professor, Law School
Associate Director, Center for Human Rights and International Justice
617-552-0880
daniel.kanstroom.1@bc.edu
A clinical professor in the Boston College Law School, Kanstroom is an immigration and deportation law scholar and practitioner. He is founder and current director of the Law School's Immigration and Asylum Project in which students represent indigent non-citizens and asylum-seekers. Together with his students, Kanstroom has won several high-profile immigration and asylum cases and has provided counsel for hundreds of clients over more than a decade. He and his students have also written amicus briefs for the U.S. Supreme Court. Kanstroom has published on topics such as U.S. immigration law, criminal law, and European citizenship and asylum law. Kanstroom has co-chaired a national immigration committee of the American Bar Association. He is an associate director of Boston College's Center for Human Rights and International Justice.
Political Science Professor Peter Skerry
617-552-3112
peter.skerry@bc.edu
Skerry's research focuses on social policy, racial and ethnic politics, and immigration. He is a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and has been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington as well as a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. His writings on politics, racial and ethnic issues, immigration and social policy have appeared in publications such as The New Republic; Slate; National Review; The New York Times; The Los Angeles Times; The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, among others. His book Mexican Americans: The Ambivalent Minority, was awarded the 1993 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He also is author of Counting on the Census? Race, Group Identity, and the Evasion of Politics. His courses have included: "Urban Politics in 21st-Century America," "Immigration: Processes, Politics, and Policies," and "Race and Ethnicity in the Administrative State."
Westy Egmont
Research Professor
Graduate School of Social Work
617-552-0324
westy.egmont@bc.edu
Egmont is a leading expert in the area of immigrant integration. His areas of expertise include immigration, refugee resettlement, migration and human trafficking. He heads the Immigrant Integration Lab at Boston College, an applied research center exploring the intersection of social work and social policy to determine the most appropriate services and delivery systems that lead to full social, civic, and economic integration of the foreign born in the United States. Prior to coming to BC, he served as president of the International Institute of Boston, a leader in New England in providing services to immigrants and refugees. He also co-chaired the National Immigrant Integration Conference and founded “Dreams of Freedom,” a multimedia exhibition covering the immigration experience in Boston from the Puritans to present day.
Political Science Professor Alan Wolfe
617-552-1862
wolfe.bc.edu
http://www.bc.edu/centers/boisi/about/meet_the_staff/alan_wolfe_bio.html
Wolfe is director of the University's Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life. His work focuses on cultural and religious issues in American politics. His publications include: One Nation, After All; The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Practice our Faith and Moral Freedom: The Search for Virtue in a World of Choice. He has written on the topic of immigration for The New Republic.