People

Katharine Young is Associate Dean for Faculty and Global Programs, Professor, and Dean’s Distinguished Scholar at Boston College Law School. She is chair of the working group on Climate Change and Migration in the Program on Global Ethics and Social Trust. Young’s research focuses on comparative constitutional law, international human rights law, economic and social rights, and law and gender. She is the author of Constituting Economic and Social Rights (2012) and thirty scholarly articles and book chapters, and editor or co-editor of three major volumes, including The Oxford Handbook of Economic and Social Rights (2023) and The Future of Economic and Social Rights (2019). After law school Young clerked for the Australian High Court, worked as a lawyer with Allens in Melbourne, with the United Nations in Bonn, Germany, with the Legal Resources Centre in Accra, Ghana, and with Paul, Weiss in New York. She completed fellowships with Harvard University’s Project on Justice, Welfare, and Economics, the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Young received her LL.M. and S.J.D. degrees from Harvard University, and her B.A. and LL.B. from the University of Melbourne 

Vidya Ann Jacob is Assistant Professor at the School of Law, Christ University, in Bangalore, India. She has participated in research projects funded by the Karnataka Government and the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. She was a member of the Legal Advisory Group to support the Karnataka Biodiversity board 2018-2019. Jacob was a Fulbright-Kalam Climate Doctoral Fellow between 2019 and 2020 at Lewis and Clark Law School, Portland Oregon (USA), where her research focused on how the USA has adopted different climate resilience mechanisms to address climate challenges. Jacob has published articles on areas including climate justice policy for India, climate litigation, marine biodiversity in India, and gender justice & climate change. Her research interests include Human Rights, Urban Development Law, Environmental Law and Climate Change Law and Policy. Jacob received her B.A. LL. B. from Bangalore University, her LL. M. from Christ University, and her PhD from the National School of India University, Bangalore.

Anne McDonald is Professor in the Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies and Director of the Island Sustainability Institute at Sophia University in Tokyo. With a mandate to link research to policy development and implementation, she works closely with researchers involved in ecosystem assessments, local and national policy makers and UN conventions related to the environment. She is the former Director of the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies -- Operating Unit Ishikawa/Kanazawa, and since the 1990s has worked on numerous government committees in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Ministry of the Environment and the Prime Minister's Office. Working with the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity on marine related issues, at COP10 Nagoya 2010 she co-established the Sustainable Ocean Initiative, an interface between science and policy to strengthen the marine biodiversity elements of the convention. She worked on the Japanese government review team for the IPCC 3rd and 4th Assessment Reports, and is a member of the first national strategy committee for biodiversity for the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). Raised in Canada and Sweden, she attended Kumamoto University in Japan and graduated from the University of British Columbia.

Oscar Melo is Associate Professor in Agricultural and Resource Economics in the School of Agronomy and Forest Engineering at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, in Santiago. His research focuses on environmental valuation, climate change, land use, agriculture. and the water-energy-land nexus. The author or co-author of more than 100 articles, he has served as associate editor of the International Journal of Agriculture and Natural Resources. He received a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Maryland, and completed his undergraduate work in agronomy at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Noah P. Snyder is Professor and Chair in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Boston College, where he also directed the interdisciplinary Environmental Studies Program from 2010-2018. His research focuses on river ecology and restoration using fluvial geomorphology, field-based measurements, and remote sensing to measure the short- and long-term responses of rivers to change. The author or co-author of more than forty refereed articles and reports, Snyder’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Harvard Forest. Snyder received his Ph.D. in geology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is a graduate of Bates College.

Hanqin Tian is Schiller Institute Professor of Global Sustainability, and Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, at Boston College. His research and teaching concentrate on the broad area of climate and sustainability sciences, following a data-driven systems approach to understanding, quantifying, and predicting drivers and effects of global-scale changes in the biosphere, climate, and human activity. His interdisciplinary work moves across the fields of ecology, biogeochemistry, hydrology, economics, earth system modeling and data science. This research has resulted in over 300 peer-reviewed journal papers, including 30 papers published in Nature/Science/PNAS and their sister journals. Dr. Tian is a coordinating lead author for the International Nitrogen Assessment and a contributing author for IPCC AR6. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and the Ecological Society of America. He received his Ph.D. in Environmental Biology (Systems Ecology) from State University of New York (SUNY-ESF) and Syracuse University, and holds an M.S. in Agricultural Science from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and a B.S. from Zhejiang University. 

Andrea Vicini, SJ is Chair of the Theology Department and Michael P. Walsh Professor of Bioethics at Boston College. He serves as co-chair of Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church, and a Fellow of the Collegium Ramazzini. His research interests and publications include biotechnologies, bioethics, environmental issues, global public health, sustainability, and fundamental theological ethics. He is the author of Genetica umana e bene comune (Human Genetics and the Common Good) and dozens of scholarly articles, as well as the editor of six volumes. A member of the Society of Jesus since 1987, Fr. Vicini earned an M.D. (and fellowship in pediatrics) from the University of Bologna, an S.T.D. in Moral Theology from the Pontifical Faculty of Theology of Southern Italy, and a Ph.D in Theological Ethics from Boston College, with additional degrees from the Aloisianum Institute (Padova, Italy), Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome), Centre Sèvres (Paris), and Weston Jesuit School of Theology (Cambridge, Massachusetts). 

Maryanne Loughry is a Sister of Mercy who works with and for refugees worldwide. At Boston College she teaches in the School of Social Work and serves as a senior advisor to the Vice-Provost for Global Engagement. At Oxford University’s Refugee Studies Centre,  she served from 1996-2004 as the Pedro Arrupe Tutor and is currently a visiting researcher concerned with the psychosocial effects of refugee displacement, with special attention to climate-induced displacement in the Pacific. In Sydney, Australia, she serves as Associate Director of Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) Australia. Sr. Loughry has worked in detention centers and refugee camps, and conducted program evaluations and humanitarian training in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, the Balkans, the UK, and most recently in the United States with recent Afghan refugees. In 2010 she was made a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia in recognition of her service to refugees. Dr. Loughry serves on the Governing Committee of the International Catholic Migration Committee (ICMC) and is on the advisory committees of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, University of New South Wales, and the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, University of Melbourne. Her Ph.D is from Flinders University of South Australia.

Jonathan Laurence is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Clough Center for Constitutional Democracy at Boston College. He is chair of the working group on Democracy, Governance, and Education in the Program on Global Ethics and Social Trust. Laurence is an Affiliate of the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, Lifetime Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Director of Reset Dialogues (US). His primary areas of teaching and research are comparative politics and the intersection of religion and politics in Western Europe, Turkey, and North Africa. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and three award-winning manuscripts: Coping with Defeat: Sunni Islam, Roman Catholicism and the Modern State; The Emancipation of Europe's Muslims; and Integrating Islam: Religious and Political Challenges in Contemporary France. Laurence is a former fellow of the American Academy in Berlin, Wissenchaftszentrum Berlin, Transatlantic Academy at the German Marshall Fund, Fafo Institute/Norwegian Research Council (Oslo), LUISS University-Rome, Sciences Po (Paris) and the Brookings Institution (nonresident, 2003-2018). He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University, and his B.A. from Cornell University.

Angela Ards is Associate Professor of English and African & African Diaspora Studies, and Director of the Journalism Program, at Boston College. She teaches African American and contemporary American literature, focusing on cultural studies, literary journalism, and narratives of place. She is the author of Words of Witness: Black Women's Autobiography in the Post-Brown Era; her current book project uses oral histories to chronicle the lives of black Americans who bypassed the Great Migration to remain in the South. Ards has received fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. in English from Princeton University, an M.A. in Afro-American Studies from the University of California at Los Angeles, and her B.A. in English and Afro-American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Chris Higgins is Associate Professor and Chair of the Formative Education Department in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College, where he also leads the program in Transformative Educational Studies. A philosopher of education, he seeks to articulate the existential dimensions of teaching and learning, to defend the idea of education as a public good, and to recall education to its humane roots. He is the author of The Good Life of Teaching: An Ethics of Professional Practice, and is at work on a new book entitled Humane Learning: Formative Essays on Educational Integrity, an inquiry into the problems and possibilities of formative higher education. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy and Education from Columbia University and his B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University

Linda Hogan is Professor of Ecumenics in the School of Religion at Trinity College Dublin, where she also served as Vice-Provost, Chief Academic Officer, and Deputy President from 2011-2016. She has extensive experience in research and teaching in pluralist and multi-religious contexts. As an ethicist and ecumenist, her primary interests are in inter-religious ethics, social and political ethics, human rights, and gender. She is the author of three major monographs, including Keeping Faith with Human Rights (Georgetown, 2015), and the editor of twelve edited volumes and special issues of journals. She has worked on a consultancy basis for a number of national and international organizations focusing on developing ethical infrastructures. Hogan received her Ph.D. in Theology from Trinity College Dublin, and an M.A. and B.A. from Maynooth University

M. Cathleen Kaveny is the Darald and Juliet Libby Professor at Boston College, where she is the first faculty member to hold a joint appointment in both the Theology Department and the Law School. Her research and teaching focus on the relationship of law, religion, and morality, and she has published over 100 scholarly articles on law, ethics, and medical ethics, in addition to her regular column in Commonweal magazine and frequent media appearances. Kaveny’s most recent books are Ethics at the Edges of Law: Christian Moralists and American Legal Thought (Oxford, 2017) and Prophecy without Contempt: Religious Discourse in the Public Square (Harvard, 2018) andUniversity Press). A member of the Massachusetts Bar, Kaveny clerked for the Honorable John T. Noonan Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and worked as an associate at the Boston law firm of Ropes & Gray in its health law group. She received her J.D. and Ph.D. from Yale University, and an A.B. from Princeton University.

Nelson Ribeiro is Associate Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Human Sciences at the Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, where he also coordinates the doctoral program in Communication Studies. He is a scholar of media history, propaganda and disinformation, media and colonialism, and journalism studies. Ribiero is a member of the Board of the Research Center for Communication and Culture (CECC), a member of Academia Europaea, affiliated with the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE), and is the Chair of the Communication History section at the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). He received his Ph.D in Communication and Culture Studies from the University of Lincoln (UK).

Francisco de Roux, SJ is a Jesuit priest, economist, and philosopher widely recognized for his work towards peace building, reconciliation, and dignifying the victims of the fifty-year Colombian armed conflict. From 2016-2022 he chaired the Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence and Non-Repetition, whose 11 commissioners worked with a staff of 3,000 to investigate major human rights violations and shed light on the causes and origins of the conflict. Their final report, presented in June 2022, received worldwide coverage. Fr. de Roux has been honored with Sakharov Prize and other human rights awards and honorary doctorates for his work. He is the author of several books in multiple languages on issues of public ethics, social conflict and development, most notably The Price of Peace (Los Precios de la Paz) and The Audacity of Imperfect Peace (La audacia de la paz imperfecta). He received his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, an M.A from the London School of Economics, and his B.A. in philosophy and theology at the Universidad Javeriana and the Universidad de los Andes, both in Bogota, Colombia.

Elias Omondi Opongo, SJ is a Senior Lecturer at the Hekima University Institute of Peace Studies and International Relations, in Nairobi, Kenya. He is a peace practitioner with a focus on conflict resolution, reconciliation, community peacebuilding, humanitarian assistance, transitional justice, post-conflict reconstruction, and state-building. Most recently he is the co-editor of Elections, Violence, and Transitional Justice in Africa (2023) and has published many books, chapters, and articles on the complex causes of conflict today, especially in Africa. He received a Ph.D. in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Bradford (UK).

Martin Summers is Professor of History and former director of the African and African Diaspora Studies Program at Boston College. A faculty affiliate of BC’s Medical Humanities, Health, and Culture Program, and the Women's and Gender Studies Program, Summers is a cultural historian of the 19th and 20th century United States, focusing on race, gender, sexuality, and medicine. He is the author of the award-winning book Madness in the City of Magnificent Intentions: A History of Race and Mental Illness in the Nation's Capital (Oxford, 2019), and is at work on a project entitled Inner City Blues: African American Mental Health and Social Policy in Twentieth Century Urban America, which examines how social scientists, psychiatrists, government officials, and community organizers understood the relationship between urbanization and mental illness, and sought to address the mental health care needs of African Americans in so-called ghettos. He received his Ph.D. in U.S. History from Rutgers University, B. A. in History-Social Sciences Education, Hampton University, Hampton, Virginia, May 1990.

Theresa S. Betancourt is the Salem Professor in Global Practice at the School of Social Work at Boston College, and Director of the Research Program on Children and Adversity (RPCA). Her central research interests include the developmental and psychosocial consequences of concentrated adversity on children, youth and families; resilience and protective processes in child and adolescent mental health and child development; refugee families; and applied cross-cultural mental health research. She is Principal Investigator of an intergenerational study of war-affected youth in Sierra Leone (LSWAY) and the Youth Readiness Intervention (YRI), in collaboration with the World Bank and Government of Sierra Leone; and she leads RPCA’s implementation research in Rwanda. Bettancourt has written extensively on mental health and resilience in children facing adversity, and her work has been profiled in the New Yorker, National Geographic, NPR, and CNN. She received her Sc.D. in Maternal and Child Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, her M.A. from the University of Louisville, and her B.A. from Linfield College.

Maria Luwalhati (Alu) Dorotan Tiuseco is the Undersecretary of Finance and Head of Climate Finance Policy in the Philippine Department of Finance, and Professor  in the School of Law at the Ateneo de Manila, where she teaches courses in comparative environmental law, constitutional law, and political law. Previous government positions have included service as Chief Legal Counsel and Policy Head for the Senate President and several other Senators; as permanent representative to the Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Presidential Cabinet Cluster; and as Board Secretary of the Metro Manila Council, comprising the 17 mayors of metropolitan Manila. She served as convenor in a number of solid waste, urban renewal, traffic, and international relations programs. She holds an L.L.M. in Energy and Environment from Tulane University Law School, a J.D. from the Ateneo School of Law, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of the Philippines, Manila.