Faculty Fellows
The Beatrice Institute Faculty Fellows Program creates opportunities for Christian scholars across disciplines to collaborate, build community, and mentor undergraduates.
Dr. Thérèse Bonin
Thérèse Bonin is an associate professor of philosophy at Duquesne University. She specializes in medieval and Islamic philosophy, with special interests in Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas. She created and maintains an Aquinas bibliography and serves as a member of the Consortium for Christian–Muslim Dialogue.
DR. JOEL BRADY
Joel Brady teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Eastern Christianity and religions of the west, more broadly, in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pittsburgh and in the Department of Church History at Sts. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary, in Pittsburgh.
Stephen Calme
Stephen Calme is an assistant professor of theology at Carlow University.
Dr. Tanner Capps
Dr. Tanner Capps is director of the Miller Youth Institute at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, where he also teaches in the Doctor of Ministry Program. His research interests include contemporary Reformed theology, religion and the arts, and political theology.
DR. JONATHAN P. CAULKINS
Jonathan P. Caulkins is the H. Guyford Stever University Professor of Operations Research and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
DR. ELIZABETH COCHRAN
Elizabeth Agnew Cochran is Professor of Theology at Duquesne University and the author of two monographs on virtue ethics in historical Christian thought. Her current research explores the ways that attention to autism spectrum disorder enriches and complicates traditional understandings of the virtues and human flourishing in Christian theology and western philosophy.
DR. ALLYSON CREASMAN
Dr. Creasman is an associate professor and the associate head of History at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research focuses on religious reform and confessional relations, as well as issues of social discipline and criminality, in the early modern German cities.
DR. MICHAEL DEEM
Michael J. Deem is Associate Professor in the Department of Human Genetics in the School of Public Health, with primary teaching and service responsibilities in the Center for Bioethics & Health Law.
DR. ANDREW DIERKES
Andrew Dierkes is an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing whose research aims to leverage healthcare’s largest professional workforce—nurses—to improve quality, costs, and outcomes of care.
DR. JOHN DOLAN
John M. Dolan is a Professor in The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University whose research focuses on autonomous driving and multirobot systems.
KRISTIN GOTTRON
Kristin graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with Bachelor's degrees in Industrial Engineering and Classics (Latin Language track). She then went on to obtain a Master's Degree in Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. She has worked in industry at FedEx for the past eight years, first as an Industrial Engineer and later transitioning to the role of Data Architect in IT, which is still her current position. Her job duties include designing data systems for corporate initiatives that utilize modern software solutions to plan transportation and logistics for package shipments within the FedEx network. Her current scholarly interests involve the application of Catholic Social Teaching to the fields of logistics and Information Technology, especially the rights and responsibilities of management and IT towards developers and front-line workers.
DR. Jake Grefenstette
Jake Grefenstette is president and executive director of the International Poetry Forum. He is also a special faculty member in philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University and the poetry editor of CMU Press. Grefenstette holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, an M.A. from the University of Chicago, and an M.Phil. from Peking University in Beijing; he completed undergraduate studies at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Oxford.
THE REV. DANIEL HALL, MD, MDIV, MHSC
The Rev. Daniel E Hall, MD, MDiv, MHSc is an Episcopal priest, general surgeon, medical ethicist and health services researcher whose work focuses on helping physicians and patients choose treatment that is not only technically excellent, but normatively good.
DR. GRETCHEN HUIZINGA
Gretchen Huizinga is a research fellow and board member of AI and Faith, an organization that brings the fundamental values of the world’s major religions into the emerging debate on ethical artificial intelligence. She is also a podcast host and principal investigator for the Beatrice Institute’s initiative Being Human in an Age of AI. She is passionate about foregrounding the Christian origins of ethics in computer science education and is working on a book titled Righteous AI: The Christian Voice in the Ethical AI Conversation.
DR. ANTHONY ISACCO
Dr. Isacco is a professor and the directory of training of the PsyD program at Chatham University. His research and clinical interests include positive father involvement, religious and spiritual factors to men's health
Dr. Jessica L. D. Jones
Dr. Jessica L. D. Jones is an assistant professor of philosophy at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. She received her doctorate in philosophy from The Catholic University of America, where she wrote her dissertation on the relationship between recollection, memory, and the cultivation of virtue in three Platonic dialogues. She is presently writing an article on Plato’s Phaedrus drawing on themes from her dissertation. She also has plans to research the influence of Platonic and Neoplatonic thought regarding the relationship between memory and the discovery of our one, true homeland in early Christian writings, especially in the writings of St. Augustine.
Dr. Patrick Jones
Dr. Patrick Jones holds a Ph.D. in moral theology from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and currently teaches with his wife Jessica at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, PA. His dissertation research focused on the nation-state in Catholic social doctrine, and his interests include the relationship between Catholic social doctrine and political philosophy, the theological-political problem, and the history of Catholic political thought.
DR. CECILE LADOUCEUR
Dr. Ladouceur is Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a clinical child psychologist and Director of the Cognitive-Affective Neuroscience and Development (CAN-D) Laboratory. Her research program focuses on understanding how altered development of neural networks implicated in emotion processing and regulation contributes to the rise of anxiety or mood disorders during adolescence, with a particular focus on the role of pubertal maturation.
David Luy
David Luy is an associate professor of systematic theology at the North American Lutheran Seminary which is centered at Trinity Anglican Seminary in Ambridge, PA. He is the author of a monograph on the Christology of Martin Luther, and is currently working on a book project for Oxford University Press entitled The Fate of Christocentrism in Modern Theology.
Christy Martsolf
Christy Martsolf is a CRNP, AGNP-C, and BI Faculty-of-the-Practice Fellow. She works as a Nurse Practitioner at East Liberty Family Health Care Center.
DR. GRANT MARTSOLF
Grant Martsolf is a Research Fellow at Beatrice Institute and a Professor and UPMC Health Systems Chair in Nursing Science at the University of Pittsburgh. His research interests include policy and practice related to advance practice nursing, class and health, and health policy and human flourishing.
DR. CALUM MATHESON
Calum Matheson is an Associate Professor of Public Deliberation and Civic Life in Pitt’s Department of Communication whose research focuses on rhetoric, media, and psychoanalysis in extremist groups, conspiracy theories, and American subcultures.
DR. IRENE MENA
Irene Mena is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science department, and the Director of the First-Year Engineering Program, at the University of Pittsburgh. She currently teaches first-year engineering courses, as well as an elective course focusing on the topics of social entrepreneurship and sustainability. She loves to read, especially with one of her two cats curled up next to her. Her favorite places in Oakland are the Carnegie Library and the Pittsburgh Oratory.
DR. KEVIN MONGRAIN
Kevin Mongrain is a professor of Theology with a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Yale. He is a scholar of the Catholic intellectual, Hans Urs von Balthasar.
DR. MARTA PECIÑA
Marta Peciña is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and Director of the Translational Neuropsychopharmacology and Neuroimaging Lab. Her research aims to examine individual differences in mechanisms of antidepressant treatment response in order to identify new targets for therapeutic interventions.
Dr. Brent Robbins
Brent Dean Robbins, Ph.D., is a Licensed Psychologist in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Professor and Program Director of the PsyD Program in Clinical Psychology at Point Park University. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and has served as President of the Society for Humanistic Psychology and the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. His areas of expertise include the psychology of religion and spirituality, phenomenological and existential psychology, hermeneutics, psychology of affect and cognition, psychopathology, clinical psychology (humanistic, existential and psychodynamic psychotherapies), happiness and the joyful disposition, eudaimonia, human dignity, death and dying, and the history and philosophy of psychology. He is author of The Medicalized Body and Anesthetic Culture: The Cadaver, the Memorial Body and the Recovery of Lived Experience (2018, Palgrave Macmillan).
DR. DAVID SANCHEZ
Dr. Sanchez is an Assistant Professor and the Associate Director of the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation at the University of Pittsburgh. His research is focused on identifying sustainable designs that address the Water and Energy grand challenges in the natural and built environment on a local/regional scale
DR. WILLIAM SCOTT
William Scott’s research and teaching focus on American Literature, African American Literature, poetry/poetics, and linguistics (generative syntax and phonology; minimalist program; biolinguistics).
DR. LUKE SHEAHAN
Luke C. Sheahan is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Duquesne University and author of Why Associations Matter: The Case for First Amendment Pluralism.
Dr. David Snoke
David Snoke is Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Pittsburgh and Co-director of the Pittsburgh Quantum Institute. He is also the president of the national Christian Scientific Society. He directs an experimental optics laboratory and also has interests in the theory of non-equilibrium quantum mechanics and philosophy of quantum mechanics.
Dr. Joe Stujenske
Joe Stujenske is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist studying the neural circuits of emotional regulation. Dr. Stujenske completed his MD and PhD at Columbia and psychiatry residency training at Weill Cornell, where he was subsequently an Instructor and Assistant Attending for two years. He started as an Assistant Professor in the University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychiatry in 2023.
Dr. Theresa Stujenske
Theresa Stujenske is a tenure track assistant professor in the Duquesne University School of Nursing in Pittsburgh, PA. Dr. Stujenske holds a bachelor's degree in Theology from Ave Maria University and a bachelor's degree in Nursing from Marymount University. In 2018, Dr. Stujenske completed her doctoral degree in Nursing from Marquette University. The overarching goal of Dr. Stujenske's research is to explore novel biomarkers of reproductive health and fertility to expand access, education and early detection and treatment of common female reproductive disorders.
DR. ANTHONY M. WACHS
Anthony M. Wachs, Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Communication Ethics & the Catholic Intellectual Tradition in Duquesne University’s Department of Communication & Rhetorical Studies, is interested in the intersection of rhetoric, religion and society.
DR. KURT WEISS
Kurt R. Weiss is a native Pittsburgher who has been involved with research since 1994, and is now an Associate Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Division of Musculoskeletal Oncology.
DR. KENNETH WOO
Kenneth J. Woo is Associate Professor of Church History at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. His research interests include John Calvin, global Reformed traditions, and the intersection of biblical interpretation and religious violence during the sixteenth-century European reformations.
Dr. Shixiang (Woody) Zhu
Woody Zhu is an Assistant Professor of Data Analytics and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. His research spans machine learning, statistics, and operations research, with a focus on spatio-temporal modeling and decision-making under uncertainty. His work primarily addresses challenges in sustainability, energy, transportation, and healthcare.