Michael C. Costas is a Ph.D. candidate in Systematic Theology at Boston College, where his research centers on contemplative spirituality, mystical theology, pneumatology, and the philosophy of love. His dissertation, "The Contemplative Pathway: Loving God Beyond Form," directed by Brian Robinette, draws on John of the Cross to develop a theological account of contemplation as receptivity to the Holy Spirit and as the transformation of human love into a love that reaches God beyond every image and concept.

Drawing on Bernard Lonergan's account of the dynamic state of being in love, his work brings the Christian mystical tradition into conversation with contemporary questions about selfhood, desire, and spiritual practice. His scholarship appears in Modern Theology, with further work forthcoming in Horizons, and he has presented at the Catholic Theological Society of America, Villanova's Patristic, Medieval, and Renaissance Conference, and Australian Catholic University in Rome. He is a Garanzini Fellow of the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage and a research assistant on the Templeton-funded PRISM Project on mysticism, and he expects to defend his dissertation in February 2027.

Michael is the instructor of the course "God, Self, and Society" in Boston College's theology core curriculum, and he has served as a teaching assistant for courses in Buddhist-Christian and Muslim-Christian dialogue. Before his doctoral studies, he taught honors English literature in South Korea and led formation programs and wilderness expeditions for high school students. His teaching is shaped by the Ignatian conviction that learning should engage the whole person, and he approaches the classroom as a place where students come to their own insights about the questions that matter most to them. He has completed Boston College's Foundations of Teaching Program and Harvard School of Education's Immunity to Change program in adult development, and he brings to the classroom a commitment to helping students see theological tradition as a living resource for their own lives.