Contributors

Gabrielle Oliveira’s research focuses on immigration and mobility — on how people move, adapt, and parent across borders. Her expertise includes gender, anthropology, transnationalism across the Americas. Merging the fields of anthropology and education through ethnographic work in multiple countries, Oliveira also studies the educational trajectories of immigrant children. She is the author of Motherhood Across Borders: Immigrants and their Children in Mexico and in New York City (NYU Press). The book has won the inaugural Erickson and Hornberger Book Award by the University of Pennsylvania's Ethnography Forum and the award for book of the year by the Council of Anthropology and Education. 

Originally from São Paulo, Brazil, Oliveira received her M.A. and Ph.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City. Oliveira has been engaged in studying Brazilian migration to Massachusetts and has extensively focused on how immigrant children and families navigate newfound educational systems amid a global pandemic. She has worked closely with teachers in dual language programs whose students are Brazilian working to understand what the constraints are in educational practices in and out of classrooms.

Usha Tummala-Narra, Ph.D. is a Professor of Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology and Director of Doctoral Training in Counseling Psychology at Boston College. She is also in Independent Practice in Cambridge, MA. Her research and scholarship focus on immigration, trauma, race, and cultural competence and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. She has served as the chair of the Multicultural Concerns Committee and Member-at-Large on the Board of Directors in American Psychological Association Division 39 (Psychoanalysis), and as a member of the APA Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs, the APA Presidential Task Force on Immigration, and the APA Task Force on Revising the Multicultural Guidelines. Dr. Tummala-Narra is an Associate Editor of the Asian American Journal of Psychology, Associate Editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues, and Senior Psychotherapy Editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and with APA Division 39 and Division 45. She is the author of Psychoanalytic Theory and Cultural Competence in Psychotherapy, published by APA (American Psychological Association) Books in 2016. Her edited book, Trauma and Racial Minority Immigrants: Turmoil, Uncertainty, and Resistance, was published by APA Books in January 2021. 

Thomas Groome is a senior Professor of Theology and Religious Education at Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry.  He is former Director of BC’s Church in the 21st Century Center, and for many years has directed the university’s PhD in Theology and Education. He holds an MA in Religious Education from Fordham University and a Doctorate in Theology and Education from Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary, New York. Prof. Groome is an award-winning author, having written or edited some ten books, over two hundred essays, two grade school religion curricula, and is the principle creator of the Credo Series, a high school Theology curriculum (from Veritas/Benziger). As a world renowned scholar of religious education and a dynamic teacher, he has received many awards, including “Master Teacher of the Year” from Boston College’s School of Arts and Sciences.  He describes his life-long work as encouraging people to “bring their lives to Faith, and their Faith to life.”

Ryan Patrick Hanley is Professor of Political Science at Boston College. Prior to joining the faculty at Boston College, he was the Mellon Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Marquette University, and held visiting appointments or fellowships at Yale, Harvard, and the University of Chicago. A specialist on the political philosophy of the Enlightenment period, he is the author of Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue (Cambridge, 2009) and Love's Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity (Cambridge, 2017), and Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life (Princeton, 2019).  His most recent projects include The Political Philosophy of Fénelon, and a companion translation volume, Fénelon: Moral and Political Writings, both of which will be published by Oxford in 2020.

René V. Arcilla is Professor of Philosophy of Education at New York University.  He is the author of numerous articles and of the books For the Love of Perfection: Richard Rorty and Liberal Education; Mediumism: A Philosophical Reconstruction of Modernism for Existential Learning; and Wim Wenders’s Road Movie Philosophy: Education without Learning.  His scholarly and teaching interests include existentialism, modernism, and liberal education.  He has served as President of the Philosophy of Education Society and is currently co-editor of a book series published by Bloomsbury Academic entitled Philosophies of Education in Art, Cinema, and Literature.

Rebecca Lowenhaupt is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. A former middle-school teacher and current parent of two middle-schoolers, she teaches aspiring school and district leaders about teacher supervision, organizational theory, and research methods. Drawing on multiple methods of empirical research, her research investigates educational leadership and policy in the context of immigration with a focus on new immigrant destinations. Her scholarship has appeared in several academic journals, including the American Education Research Journal, Leadership and Policy in Schools, and the Journal of Educational Administration.She has received funding for her research from the W.T. Grant Foundation, the Spencer Foundation and the National Science Foundation. She has co-authored several books including Navigating the Principalship: Key Insights for New and Aspiring School Leaders and the forthcoming edited volume, Parenting in the Pandemic: The collision of school, work, and life at home.

Scott Seider's research focuses on the role that educators can play in fostering young people's civic development and critical consciousness of race and racism. He is the author of three books and numerous articles that report on the promising practices of educators committed to supporting their students' positive development in these areas. He also frequently presents key findings from his research to K-12 educators through book talks, podcasts, and professional development. At Boston College, Dr. Seider teaches undergraduate and graduate courses focused on adolescent development and social oppression and transformation. He previously worked as an English teacher in the Boston Public Schools and Westwood (MA) Public Schools and as a teacher educator at Boston University. Dr. Seider also currently serves on advisory boards for a number of different youth-serving organizations including Expeditionary Learning (EL) Education, the Journal of Adolescent Research, Character.org, and the Center for Parent & Teen Communication.

Gregory Fried is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. He has taught at the University of Chicago, Boston University, and California State University LA, and Suffolk University. His research focuses on defending the liberal-democratic tradition against its critics, most particularly Martin Heidegger. Fried is also Director of The Mirror of Race Project (mirrorofrace.org) exploring the meaning of race in America’s history, and he served as an executive producer for the documentary film Before the Trees Was Strange, directed by Derek Burrows. He is the author of Heidegger’s Polemos: From Being to Politics. Together with his father, Charles Fried, he is the author of Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror. His most recent book, Towards a Polemical Ethics: between Plato and Heidegger, will appear in 2021.

Richard Kearney holds the Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy at Boston College and has served as a Visiting Professor at University College Dublin, the University of Paris (Sorbonne), the Australian Catholic University and the University of Nice. He is the author of over 24 books on European philosophy and literature (including two novels and a volume of poetry) and has edited or co-edited 21 more. He was formerly a member of the Arts Council of Ireland, the Higher Education Authority of Ireland and chairman of the Irish School of Film at University College Dublin. As a public intellectual in Ireland, he was involved in drafting a number of proposals for a Northern Irish peace agreement (1983, 1993, 1995). He has presented five series on culture and philosophy for Irish and British television and broadcast extensively on the European media. He is currently the international director of the Guestbook Project--Hosting the Stranger: Between Hostility and Hospitality.

Beth Barsotti is a doctoral student at the School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in Theology and Education. Her research is poised at the intersections of Academic and Student Affairs in higher education and centrally concerned with fostering holistic formation. Her research interests include Catholic higher education, synodality, formative education, the identity and role of the educator, and college student development. Her interest in formation is rooted in her experiences living and working in a L’Arche community and further informed by her work within Catholic higher education and Catholic parishes.

Marina McCoy is a professor of philosophy at Boston College. She is the author of the books Plato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and Sophists (Cambridge University Press, 2007) , Wounded Heroes: Vulnerability as a Virtue in Ancient Greek Literature and Philosophy (Oxford U Press, 2013), and Image and Argument in Plato’s Republic (SUNY, 2020). Her interests range from rhetorical and literary aspects of ancient philosophy to ethics and the philosophy of mass incarceration. She is interested in the figure of Socrates, Socratic self-knowledge, and human limits. 

Dr. R. Keith Sawyer, a professor of education at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, studies creativity, learning, and collaboration. After receiving his computer science degree from MIT in 1982, he began his career with a two-year stint designing videogames for Atari. His titles included Food Fight, Neon, and Magician. From 1984 to 1990, he was a principal at Kenan Systems Corporation, where he worked as a management consultant on innovation technologies. His clients included Citicorp, AT&T, and U.S. West. In 1990, Dr. Sawyer began his doctoral studies in psychology, where he studied creativity with Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (author of best selling books such as Flow and Creativity). Since receiving his Ph.D. in 1994, he has dedicated his career to research on creativity, collaboration, and learning. He has been a jazz pianist for over 40 years, and spent several years playing piano with Chicago improv theater groups.

Dr. Sawyer has published 17 books and over 120 scientific articles. His research has been featured on CNN, Fox News, TIME, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR and other media. A popular speaker, he lectures to corporations, associations, and universities around the world on creativity and innovation.

Andrea Vicini, S.J. is Michael P. Walsh Professor of Bioethics and Professor of Moral Theology in the Boston College Theology Department. Alumnus of Boston College (S.T.L. and Ph.D.), M.D. and pediatrician (University of Bologna), he also holds an S.T.D. (Pontifical Faculty of Theology of Southern Italy, Naples). He taught in Italy, Albania, Mexico, Chad, and France. He is co-chair of the international network Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church, lecturer, and member of associations of moral theologians and bioethicists in Italy, Europe, and the U.S. His research interests include theological bioethics, genetics, global public health, biotechnologies, environmental issues, and fundamental theological ethics. He authored Genetica umana e bene comune (2008) and co-edited: Ethics of Global Public Health: Climate Change, Pollution, and the Health of the Poor (2021); Reimagining the Moral Life: On Lisa Sowle Cahill’s Contributions to Christian Ethics (2020); Building Bridges in Sarajevo: The Plenary Papers of CTEWC 2018 (2019); Just Sustainability: Technology, Ecology, and Resource Extraction (2015).

Ellen Winner is Professor Emerita of Psychology at Boston College and Senior Research Associate at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has written over 200 articles and is author of four books and coauthor of three: Invented Worlds: The Psychology of the Arts (1982); The Point of Words: Children's Understanding of Metaphor and Irony (1988); Gifted Children: Myths and Realities (1996); How Art Works: A Psychological Exploration (2018); and co-author of Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education  (2007), Studio Thinking 2: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education (2013); Studio Thinking from the Start: The K-8 Art Educator's Handbook. Her forthcoming book, An Uneasy Guest in the Schoolhouse: Art Education From Colonial Times to a Promising Future, will be published by Oxford University Press in December, 2021.

She has served as President of APA's Division 10, Psychology and the Arts in 1995-1996, and received the Rudolf Arnheim Award for Outstanding Research by a Senior Scholar in Psychology and the Arts from Division 10 in 2000. She is a fellow of APA Division 10 and of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics. ​

Dr. Alexandra Michel is a professor, author, and consultant with ivy-league academic training (Wharton Ph.D.) and practical experience in leading organizations in the US and abroad. Her research has advanced scholarship and practice. It is published in the organizational discipline’s leading outlets and is taught to other scholars in top Ph.D. programs. She serves on the editorial boards of Administrative Science Quarterly and Organization Science. Her ideas have informed the practice of important business leaders and organizations. For example, she has worked with the Chief of Staff of Goldman Sachs to help the firm devise a new approach to executive education. Her clients include senior executives and organizations across such industries as banking, consulting, technology, business services, manufacturing, entertainment, healthcare, and education. The practical significance of Professor Michel’s work is further evident from the international press coverage. She has been featured in many international TV, radio, and press interviews, including CNBC, Fox News, Bloomberg TV, and NPR. In addition, over 40 other outlets have reported on her research including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, MSNBC, TIME Magazine, New York Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Forbes and other press in the US, China, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Romania, Argentina and Brazil.

David Sellers is a human services professional, musician and writer.  One of six children, he was born in the small town of Beacon, New York, and he had his first encounter with the criminal justice system at the age of 15.  Through decades of experience with police and prisons since then he has seen first-hand some of the systemic problems with the US criminal justice system.  These experiences also sparked his life-long study of human development and psychology, which have led him to better understand his own behavior and others.  David has also consulted as a legal researcher and advocate, and he was previously assistant director of the spiritual recovery programs, Strong Tower and Resurrection House. David aims to use his personal experiences with the criminal justice system to help others advance educational, psychosocial and humanistic interventions.

Matthew DelSesto is a Founder, Coordinator and Instructor of the Inside-Out Program and doctoral candidate in Sociology at Boston College. He has worked in prison and jail based educational programs for the last twelve years. Matthew holds an MA in Theories of Urban Practice from Parsons School of Design and an MA in Sociology from Boston College. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, The Hearst Foundations, and the Center for Human Rights and International Justice.  He received the 2021 Robert Dentler Award for Outstanding Achievement in Public Sociology and Sociological Practice from the American Sociological Association. 

Constantine V. Nakassis is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and of the Social Sciences and Associate Faculty of Cinema & Media Studies and Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. He is a linguistic anthropologist with interests in semiotics; film theory; mass media; brands; and youth culture. His regional focus is Tamil Nadu, India. He is currently working on a book about Tamil cinema, entitled Onscreen/Offscreen. He organizes the annual Chicago Tamil Forum workshop and is Chair of the Committee on Southern Asian Studies (2020-2023).

Kenneth J. Gergen is a Senior Research Professor in Psychology at Swarthmore College, and the President of the Taos Institute. He is internationally known for his contributions to social constructionist theory, technology and cultural change, the self, and relational practices. His major writings in-clude, Realities and Relationships: Soundings in Social Construction, The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life, and Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community. Gergen lectures throughout the world, and has received numerous awards for his work, including honorary de-grees in both the U.S. and Europe.

Megan Jane Laverty Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She teaches graduate courses on ethics, aesthetics, and philosophy of education. Her primary research interests are moral philosophy in its relation to education and philosophy for/with children and adolescents. Laverty has published numerous articles and is the author of Iris Murdoch’s Ethics: A Consideration of her Romantic Vision (Bloomsbury, 2007). She co-edits the Philosophy for Children Founders Series (Routledge) with Maughn Rollins Gregory, which includes, Gareth B. Matthews, The Child’s Philosopher (2022). She is also co-editor of a book series published by Bloomsbury Academic entitled, Philosophies of Education in Art, Cinema, and Literature.

Allison Pyo is an undergraduate senior in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College studying Applied Psychology and Human Development as well as Economics. She has co authored a report on Boston College's Inside-Out program titled "Advancing Transformative Learning Partnerships" with sociology Ph.D. student Matthew DelSesto, and worked as a research assistant at the MML Lab with Dr. Miele at BC. She is currently researching attitudes on education reform during industrialization in the U.S. for her senior thesis.