2027 Art & Character Conference

Matthew Clemente is the Director of Research & Curriculum at Center for Psychological Humanities & Ethics and an Assistant Professor of the Practice in the Department of Formative Education at Boston College. He is the Coeditor in Chief of the Journal for Continental Philosophy of Religion and the Codirector of the Guestbook Project, a 501c3 non-profit. He is the Series Editor of two book series with Routledge/Taylor & Francis and has authored or edited over a dozen books.

Jeronimo Ayesta is a Ph.D candidate at the Boston College Philosophy Department. He double-majored in Philosophy and Journalism at the University of Navarra. In 2022, he obtained a First-Class Honours Master of Arts in Film Studies from King’s College London. His areas of interest include hermeneutics, the history of 20th-century philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Virtue Ethics, and Film Philosophy (with a focus on Éric Rohmer). He has published four book reviews, two book chapters, and one peer-reviewed article, and has presented papers in more than twenty academic conferences.

Dr. Chiara Palazzolo is a researcher at the Center for Education in Virtues and Values (CEV) at Universidad Francisco de Vitoria. She has completed advanced professional training in opera singing—a six year diploma—(equivalent to combined Bachelor’s and Master’s level), in addition to a Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Ph.D. in philosophy. Her research interests also include virtue ethics, the philosophy of forgiveness, and restorative justice, and she currently serves as an associate editor on the editorial team of the Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, a scientific journal published by the American Psychological Association.

Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro is Artistic Director of the Museo Universidad de Navarra in Spain. He was Director and Chief Curator of the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros from 2008–2018, and is currently Senior Advisor.  He was Curator of the 33rd São Paulo Bienal in 2018 and curator of the Brazilian pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. From 2002–2008 he was Curator of Latin American Art at the Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin. In 2007 he was Chief Curator of the 6th Mercosur Biennial in Porto Alegre, Brazil.  He holds a PhD in Art History and Theory from the University of Essex, and an MA in Art History and Latin American Studies from the University of Aberdeen.  From 2000-2002 he was Director of Visual Arts at The Americas Society in New York.  Prior to that he was Exhibitions and Programs Coordinator at the Casa de América in Madrid.  From 1993 to 1998 he was Founding Curator of the University of Essex Collection of Latin American Art.  He has published and lectured widely on modern and contemporary art from Latin America. He is a member of the collective ESTAR(SER), the Esthetic Society for Transcendental & Applied Realization.

Sofia Rietti is a Ph.D. student in Philosophy at Boston College. She holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Colgate University and an M.A. in Mental Health Counseling from Boston College. Her work sits at the intersection of philosophy and clinical practice, drawing on feminist philosophy, psychoanalysis, and phenomenological ethics to explore ethical and existential dimensions of mental health care. Through her research, she hopes to deepen philosophical understandings of suffering, embodiment, and relationality while bringing critical insights from therapeutic practice into conversation with contemporary philosophical thought.