Dissertations & Placements

Drew (Andrew) Gertner Belfield – Foundations of Scholastic Christology in the Summa Halensis – Prof. Boyd Coolman, dissertation director 

Jonathan Cahill – Emotions, Moral Formation, and Christian Politics: Rereading Karl Barth – Prof. Lisa Sowle Cahill, dissertation director

Eduardo Gonzales – Neighboring the Invisible: Liberation Theologies, the Exodus Narrative, and the Specter of Canaan – Prof. Roberto Goizueta, dissertation director 

Brian Himes – Max Scheler on Love and Human Dignity: The Wertkern as Resolving the Aporia of Dialogical and Metaphysical Personalism on the Knowledge of Persons – Prof. Frederick Lawrence, dissertation director 

Spencer (Kyle) Johnson – Discernment at the Periphery: Race, Coloniality, And the Demonic – Prof. Andrew Prevot, dissertation director 

Jennifer Lamson-Scribner – Disorder and Distortion: A Theological Approach to Addiction – Prof. Stephen Pope, dissertation director 

Christopher McLaughlin – The Pneumatology of Marius Victorinus: a Rhetorical, Philosophical, and Theological Commentary On Adversus Arium III – Prof. Brian Dunkle, dissertation director

Xavier Montecel – Communion in Hope: Liturgy and Ethics in The Key of Virtue – Prof. Jim Keenan, dissertation director 

Michael VanZandt Collins – Climate Change, Virtue, and Moral Agency: An Essay in Muslim-Christian Comparative Theological Ethics – Prof. Catherine Cornille and Prof. Jim Keenan, co-directors

Andrew T. Vink – Ellacuría's Tripartite Salvation: A Historical-Soteriological Response to The Crisis of Neoliberalism – Prof. Andrew Prevot, dissertation director 

Nathan Wood-House – Toward an Anti-Racist Political Theology: Reading Johann Baptist Metz and James H. Cone against American Anti-Black Necropolitics – Prof. Andrew Prevot, dissertation director

Derek Brown – Decisions: Political Theology and the Challenges of Postmodernity – Prof. Andrew Prevot, dissertation director

Aimee Hein – History and Responsibility: An Ecumenical Response to Migration in the United States – Prof. Kristin Heyer, dissertation director 

Benjamin Hohman – Grace and Emergence: Towards an Ecological and Evolutionary Foundation for Theology  – Prof. Frederick Lawrence, dissertation director 

Elyse Raby – Towards an Intercorporeal Body of Christ: A Study in Ecclesial Body Images – Prof. Richard Gaillardetz, dissertation director

Jonathan Bailes - Becoming Like God in Christ: Nicene Theology and Christian Virtue in Gregory of Nyssa – Prof. Khaled Anatolios, dissertation director

Kimberly Bauser McBrien - “…remembering what the Savior had said”: Social Memory and the Sayings of Jesus Tradition – Prof. Pheme Perkins, dissertation director

Jinyong Choi - Analogy, Spirituality and the Beatific Enjoyment of God: Bonaventure and the Doctrine of Likeness – Prof. Emeritus Stephen Brown, dissertation director

Peter Folan, SJ - Matters of Interpretation: Biblical Methodology in the Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue on the Doctrine of Justification – Prof. Richard Gaillardetz, dissertation director

Hans Harmakaputra - The Community of Friends of God: Comparative Theology and the Construction of an Inclusive Theology of Saints – Prof. James Morris, dissertation director

Won-Jae Hur - Corporeality in Contemplation:  A Comparative Study of Edith Stein and Tibetan Buddhist Lojong – Prof. John Makransky, dissertation director

Jaisy A. Joseph - Reimagining Catholicity: An Interstitial Perspective – Prof. Richard Gaillardetz, dissertation director

Léocadie Lushombo, it. - Imagining an Ethics of Political Participation For Women In Sub-Saharan Africa: A Sophialogical Hermeneutic – Prof. Lisa Sowle Cahill, dissertation director

Andrew Massena - Torah for Its own Sake: The Decalogue in Rabbinic and Patristic Exegesis – Prof. Ruth Langer, dissertation director

Ligita Ryliškytė, SJE - Cur Deus Cruciatus?: Lonergan’s Law of  the Cross and the Transpositions of “Justice over Power” – Prof. Jeremy Wilkins, dissertation director

Annie Selak - Toward an Ecclesial Vision in the Shadow of Wounds – Prof. Nancy Pineda Madrid, dissertation director

Marcel Uwineza, S.J. – Reconciling Memories: A Theology from a Place of Wounds: No Authentic Theology with my Back Turned to Nyamata – Prof Emerita M. Shawn Copeland, dissertation director

Daniel Vos – Some of the Other Works of the Torah: Boundaries and Inheritance as Legal Metaphors in the Hebrew Bible and Hellenistic Jewish Literature – Prof. David Vanderhooft, dissertation director

Robert J. Brodrick – Charismatic and Pastoral Power: A Foucauldian Analysis of the CDF Investigation of Leonardo Boff – Richard Gaillardetz

David Clint Burnett – Psalm 110:1 In Confessional Material In Corpus Paulinum: Cultural and Religious Context – Pheme Perkins

Ryan Duns – Spiritual Exercises for a Secular Age? William Desmond’s Theological Achievement – Brian Robinette

Charles Thomas Fraatz – Blessed Is the One Who Reads and Those Who Hear the Words of Prophecy: Rome and Revelation’s Use of Scripture – Pheme Perkins

David Kwon – A Study of the Role of Jus Post Bellum in the 21st Century: Human Security and Political Reconciliation – Kenneth Himes, O.F.M.

Katherine Jackson-Meyer – Tragic Dilemmas and Virtue A Christian Feminist View – Lisa Cahill

Samuel Keyes – Here for Medicine, There for Delight: The Ecclesial Mysteries of the Victorine Speculum – Boyd Taylor Coolman

Joseph Mben – Empowering Disempowered Working Women: A Gendered African Perspective on Christian Social Ethics – Lisa Sowle Cahill

Megan McCabe – Sex, Power, and Violence on the College Campus: Rape Culture and Complicity in Evil – James Keenan, SJ

Ty Monroe – The Development of Augustine's Early Soteriology – Boyd Taylor Coolman

Kate Mroz – No Salvation Apart from Religious Others: Edward Schillebeeckx's Soteriology as a Resource for Understanding Christian Identity and Discipleship in a Religiously Pluralist World – Mary Ann Hinsdale

Teva Regule – Identity, Formation, Transformation: The Liturgical Movement of the 20th Century and the Liturgical Reform Efforts of New Skete Monastery – John Baldovin, SJ

Jennifer Sanders – The Trinitarian Telos of the Summa theologiae: Thomas’s Application of the Aristotelian Ordo Disciplinae to Sacra Doctrina in light of his Augustinian Heritage – Dominic Doyle

Clifton Stringer – Becoming One in the Paschal Mystery: Christ, Spirituality, and Theology in Hugh of St. Victor – Boyd Taylor Coolman

Veronica Tierney – For Us and For Our Salvation: Revelation and Imitation in Cyril of Alexandria – Douglass Finn

Katherine Wrisley Shelby – The Vir Hierarchicus: St. Bonaventure's Theology of Grace – Stephen Brown

Michael Cagney – “The Problem of Big Food and the Response of an Integrated Catholic Ecological Ethic”

Timothy J. Carey – “Remove the Harm, Lord of Men, and Give Healing”: Muslim and Catholic Responses to HIV and AIDS in Kenya”

Jessica Coblentz – “Depression’s Challenge to Theologies of Suffering and Salvation”

Nicholas P. DiSalvatore – “The Notion of Faith in the Early Latin Theology of Bernard Lonergan”

James Daryn Henry – “The Freedom of God: A Study in the Pneumatology of Robert Jenson”

Daniel P. Horan, OFM. – “Imagining Planetarity: Toward a Postcolonial Franciscan Theology of Creation”

Joel B. Kemp – “A Case for Identity: The Book of Ezekiel, Juridical Diction, and Judahite Identity”

Nathaniel N. L. Peters – “The Trinitarian Dimensions of Cistercian Eucharistic Theology”

John R. Barker, OFM – Disputed Temple: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Book of Haggai

Stephanie Corigliano – Towards a Hermeneutic of Yoga in Modern Times: A Comparative Study of Practice and Detachment in Hinduism and Christianity

Maria Angela Socorro S. Cruz – Prophets Likewise: An Exploration of the Prophetic Office of the Laity as an Expression of the Sensus Fidelium

Marianne Tierney Fitzgerald – Theology and Activism in Latin America: A Reflection on Jon Sobrino’s Christology of the Resurrection and Grassroots Organizations Protesting Gender-Based Violence

Nichole Flores – Guadalupe in the Public Square: Religious Aesthetics and the Pursuit of Justice

Christopher D. Jones – “The Midday Demon': A Moral, Theological, and Biopsychosocial Analysis of Acedia”

Monica Jalandoni Nalupta – Filipino Fortitude

James O’Sullivan – Development as Human Rights: An Examination of Catholic Social Teaching and the Right to Development

Cristina Richie – Moving Environmental Bioethics into the 21st Century: Green Bioethics and the Common Good

Kate Ward – Wealth, Poverty and Economic Inequality: A Christian Virtue Response

Stanislaus Subba Reddy Alla, “Care and Access: Catholic and Hindu Approaches to Ethics in Healthcare”

Anthony P. Coleman, “Lactantius and the Doctrine of Providence”

Christopher R. Conway, “Liberative Service: A Comparative Theological Reflection on Dalit Theology's Service and Swami Vivekananda's Seva”

Jeremy V. Cruz, “Social Equality in Recent Catholic Social Thought: Toward an Ethic of Global Social Equality”

John P. Edwards, “Developing a ″Theology in the Order of Discovery″: The Method and Contribution of James Alison”

Conor M. Kelly, “Service And Justice, Peace and Solidarity: Theology And Ethics For Work And Leisure”

Nicole L. Reibe, “Preaching Participation: The Theology Of Achard Of St. Victor”

Robert J. Rivera, “A Christology of Liberation in an Age of Globalization and Exclusion: The Contributions of Jon Sobrino and Edward Schillebeeckx”

Andrew B. Salzmann, “The Holy Spirit And The Life Of The Christian According To Hugh Of St. Victor: Dator Et Donum, Cordis Omne Bonum”

Brian Traska, “Philosophy as Faith Seeking Understanding An Interpretation of Bernard Lonergan’s 1972 Lectures on Philosophy of God and Systematic Theology”

Jennifer S. Wade, “Resisting Violence through the Meditative Body: A Theological Anthropology of Transformational Anger in Judith Butler and The Revelations of Divine Love”

Glenn Willis, “Drive All Blames into One: Rhetorics of 'Self-Blame' and Refuge in Tibetan Buddhist Lojong, Nietzsche, and the Desert Fathers”

Thomas F. Burke, “Self –Emptying Love: Kenosis, Sacraments and the Church,” directed by Frederick Lawrence

Benjamin Durheim, “Christ’s Gift, Our Response: Martin Luther and Louis-Marie Chauvet on the Connection between Sacraments and Ethics,” directed by John Baldovin, S.J.

Katie Grimes, “Christ Divided: White Supremacy as a Corporate Vice in the Body of Christ,” directed by James Keenan, S.J.

Michael Jaycox, “Righteous Anger and Virtue Ethics: A Contemporary Reconstruction of Anger in Service to Justice,” directed by James Keenan, S.J.

Matthew Kruger, “The Freedom of the Mind for God: Reflexivity and Spiritual Exercises in Thomas Aquinas,” directed by Stephen Brown

Emma O’Donnell, “The Liturgical Transformation of Time: Memory and Eschatological Anticipation in Christian and Jewish Liturgy,” directed by John Baldovin, S.J.

Erik John Ranstrom, “The Unknown Body of Christ: Towards a Retrieval of the Early Panikkar’s Christology of Religions,” directed by Catherine Cornille

Katherine Richman, "Salvation in "Catholic Boston":  Father Leonard Feeney and Saint Benedict Center, 1941- 1949" directed by Thomas Wangler

Autumn Alcott Ridenour, “Union With Christ for the Aging: A consideration of Aging and Death in the Theology of St. Augustine and Karl Barth,” directed by Lisa Sowle Cahill

Raymond Ward, “Collectives in Christian Ethics: A Study of Reinhold Niebuhr and Jacques Maritain,” directed by Lisa Sowle Cahill

Kevin Ahern, "Structures of Grace: Catholic Nongovernmental Organizations and the Mission of the Church," directed by David Hollenbach

Hoa Trung Dinh, SJ, "Theological Medical Ethics: A Virtue-base Approach," directed by Lisa Sowle Cahill

Walter Hannam, "The Ineutabile of Honorius Augustodunensis: A Study in the textures of early Twelfth-Century Augustinianisms," directed by Stephen Brown

Jill O'Brien, "Images of God, Roles of Humanity, and Ecological Ramifications: Hope and Realism in the Renewal of Creation," directed by Lisa Sowle Cahill

Steve Okey, "The Plural and Ambiguous Self: The Theological Anthropology of David Tracy," directed by Mary Ann Hinsdale, IHM

Jeremy Sabella, "The Politics of Original Sin: Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian Realism and its Cold War Realist," directed by Michael Himes

Rene Sanchez, "Agapic Solidarity: Practicing the Love Command in a Globalized Reality," directed by Roberto Goizueta

James Arinello, "Simplified by the Highest Simplicity: Mystical Account According to Thomas Gallus," directed by Stephen Brown

Karen Bautista Enriquez, "Interrupting the Conversation on Kenosis and Sunyata: Buddhist and Christian Women in Search of the Relational Self," directed by John Makransky

Albertus Bagus Laksana, "Journeying to God in Communion with the Other: A Comparative Theological Study of the Muslim and Catholic Pilgrimage Traditions in South Central Java and their contributions to the Catholic Theology of Communio Sanctorum," directed by James Morris

Matthew Jon Sherman, "'Become what you receive.' A Transformative Eucharistic Vision of the Family, Engaging the History and Theology of U.S. Catholicism in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries," directed by Lisa Sowle Cahill

John T. Slotemaker, "Pierre D'Ailly and the Development of the Late Medieval Trinitarian Theology: (with an edition ofQuaestiones Super Primum Sententiarum,QQ. 4-8, 10)," directed by Stephen Brown

Kevin Vander Schel, "Whose Kingdom Shall Have No End: Christ and History in Friedrich Schleiermacher's Glaubenslehre and Christliche Sittenlehre," directed by Frederick Lawrence

Melissa Loya, "'I will utterly sweep everything away from the Fare of the Earth.' Decreation in Israel’s Prophetic Literature," directed by David Vanderhooft

Bienvenu Mayemba, "Christian Liberation and Postcolonial Consciousness: Jean-Marc Ela’s Reappropriation of African Subjectivity Perspectives," directed by M. Shawn Copeland

Elisee Rutagambwa, "Reclaiming the Actual Humanness of the Subject of Rights. Learned lessons from Rwanda and Ethical Perspectives," directed by David Hollenbach, S.J.

Lucas Chan (Yiu Sing Luke), "Why Scripture Scholars and Theological Ethicists need one another: Exegeting and Interpreting the Beatitudes as a Scripted Script for Ethical Living," directed by James Keenan, S.J.

Joseph Mudd, "Eucharist and Chauvet’s Symbol and Sacrament drawing on the works of Bernard Lonergan," directed by Frederick Lawrence

Bethany Kiernan Haile, "A Good Appetite: A Thomistic Approach to the Study of Eating Disorder and Body Dissatisfaction in American Women," directed by Stephen Pope

Maria McDowell, "The Joy of Enacted Virtue: Toward the Ordination of Women to the Eastern Orthodox Priesthood," directed by Francine Cardman

Sean Paul, “'By their fruits you shall know them': Ecclesial Fruitfulness as a standard of Protestant and Angelican Ecclesiality, drawing on the works of Joseph Ratzinger and Walter Kasper," directed by Mary Ann Hinsdale, IHM

Elizabeth Keck, "The Glory of Yahweh, Name Theology, and Ezekiel’s Understanding of Divine Presence," directed by David Vanderhooft

Sarah Marie Moses, "Agency and the Elderly: A Christian Ethic of Care," directed by Lisa Sowle Cahill

Yeonge Seon Kim, "The Chronicler’s Description of the Temple Administration and the Incorporation of Non-Priestly Cultic Personnel among the Levities," directed by David Vanderhooft

Nicholas Cohen, "Patristic Analogues in Anselm of Canterbury’s Cur Deus Homo," directed by Stephen Brown

Demetrios Tonias, "Abraham in the Works of John Chrysostom," directed by Ruth LangerBede Bidlack, "In Good Company: The Body and Divinization in Pierre Teilhard De Chardin, SJ and Daoist Xiao Yingsou," directed by Catherine Cornille

Bede Bidlack, "In Good Company: The Body and Divinization in Pierre Teilhard De Chardin, SJ and Daoist Xiao Yingsou," directed by Catherine Cornille

Nicholas Owen Austin, “Thomas Aquinas on the Four Causes of Temperance,” directed by James Keenan, S.J.

Matthew J. Bagot, “The Future of Global Governance: Towards a Catholic Contribution Regarding the Idea of State Sovereignty,” directed by David Hollenbach, S.J.

Steven Douglas Cone, “Transforming Desire: The Relation of Religious Conversion and Moral Conversion in the Later Writing of Bernard Lonergan,” directed by Frederick Lawrence

Thomas Joseph Maximilian Curry, III, “On the Promise of Film as a Locus Mystagogicus: An Appraisal from the Perspectives of Roman Catholic Teaching on Cinema and Karl Rahner’s Fundamental Theology,” directed by Robert Imbelli

Jason Michael Donnelly, “Ecclesiology in Motion: Ecumenical Vocation and the Developing Ecclesial Identity and Self-Understanding of the United Church of Christ (USA),” directed by Mark Burrows

Kathryn A. Getek, “Just Punishment? A virtue ethics approach to prison reform in the United States,” directed by James Keenan, S.J.

Carolyn Weir Herman, “Living as a Sacrament of God’s Reign: Toward a Renewed Ethics in the Catholic Church,” directed by Lisa Sowle Cahill

Suzanne Judith Hevelone, “Preaching the Saints: The Legenda Aurea and Sermones De Sanctis of Jacobus De Voragine,” directed by Stephen Brown

Christian S. Krokus, “Faith Seeking Understanding: Louis Massignon’s (1883-1962) Catholic Conversation with Islam,” directed by Frederick Lawrence

Catherine Lane Muldoon, “Jonah, Nineveh, and the Problem of Divine Justice,” directed by David Vanderhooft

Amanda Osheim, “The Bishop’s Discernment of the Sensus Fidelium: Insights from the Jesuit Tradition,” directed by Michael Himes

Mark Potter, “Solidarity as Spiritual Exercise: A Contribution to the Development of Solidarity in the Catholic Social Tradition,” directed by David Hollenbach, S.J.

Tisha M. Rajendra, “The Rights of the Stranger: Justice, Responsibility and the Ethics of Migration,” directed by David Hollenbach, S.J.

Anna Floerke Scheid, “Resistance and Reconciliation: Lessons from South Africa on a Twofold Approach to Conflict Resolution,” directed by David Hollenbach, S.J.

Elizabeth Beshear Toft, “Christ’s Role in Sanctification according to St. Thomas Aquinas,” directed by Frederick Lawrence 

Meghan Julia Clark, “Participation and the Human Person: Integrating Solidarity and Human Rights in Catholic Social Teaching,” directed by David Hollenbach, S.J.

Hiutung Chan, “In Search of Transcendent Order in the Violent World: A Theological Meditation on Laozi’s Daode Jing and Augustine’s De Trinitate,” directed by S. Mark Heim

Laurie Johnston, “Signposts for an Ethic of Peacemaking: Reading Guadium et Spes In the List of Yves Congar and the Community of Sant’Egidio,” directed by David Hollenbach, S.J.

Michon Marie Matthiesen, “Sacrifice, Grace and Contemplative Prayer in Maurice de la Taille, S.J.,” directed by John Baldovin, S.J.

Mark T. Miller, “Why the Passion? Bernard Lonergan, S.J., on the Cross as Communication,” directed by Fred Lawrence

Michael Patrick Moreland, “Subsidiarity and the Safeguards of Federalism,” directed by David Hollenbach, S.J.

Pyong-Gwan Pak, S.J., “The Vernacular, Mystical Theology of Jan Van Ruusbroec: Exploring Sources, Contexts, and Theological Practices,” directed by Fred Lawrence

L. Matthew Petillo, “The ‘Experience of Grace’ in the Theologies of Bernard Lonergan and Karl Rahner,” directed by Fred Lawrence

Daniel Patrick Scheid, “'Let All Creatures Praise the Lord': God, Creation and Promoting the Cosmic Common Good,” directed by Stephen Pope

Jacquineau Azetsop, “Preferential Option for the Poor and Health Equity in Africa: A Theological Approach to Population-level Bioethics,” directed by James Keenan, S.J.

Daniel Daly, “From nature to Second Nature; The Relations of Natural Law, Acquired Virtue, and Moral Precepts in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae," directed by James Keenan, S.J.

Brian Flanagan, “Communion, Diversity, and Salvation; The Contribution of Jean-Marie Tillard, O.P., to Systematic Theology,” directed by Mary Ann Hinsdale, IHM

Walter Kasinskas, “Saint Jerome’s Adversus Helvidium: A Manuscript, Historical, Theological, and Rhetorical Study," directed by Margaret Schatkin

Randall Rosenberg, “Theory and Drama in Balthasar’s and Lonergan’s Theology of Christ’s Consciousness and Knowledge: An Essay in Dialectics,” directed by Frederick Lawrence

Jonathan Paul Sydnor, “Ramanuja and Schleiermacher: Toward a Constructive Comparative Theology,” directed by Francis Clooney, S.J.

Karen Teel, “The Role of the Body in the Image of God: Resources in Womanist Theology,” directed by M. Shawn Copeland

Jaime Vidaurrazaga, “Lifelong Neophytes: Towards a Baptismal Understanding of Christian Morality,” directed by James Keenan, S.J.