Staff
Cristiano Casalini, Ph.D., is the academic director of the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies, Professor and Endowed Chair in Jesuit Pedagogy and Educational History. He teaches History of Jesuit Pedagogy, Social Justice in Jesuit Contexts, and Philosophy of Education. Casalini’s field of research is mainly early modern education and especially Jesuit education. He has worked on critical texts and commentaries of 16th- and 17th-century classics of education, especially in and around the Jesuit order. He is currently working of editing educational writings and documents produced by Jesuits during the early modern period. He recently edited a collective volume on Jesuit Philosophy on the Eve of Modernity (Leiden-Boston, 2019). He also provided with Claude Pavur, S.J., the first volume of a series devoted to the history of Jesuit pedagogy, entitled Jesuit Pedagogy. A Reader (1540–1616) (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2016). He also wrote a book on the Cursus Conimbricensis and the education at the Jesuit college of Coimbra (Anicia, 2012; and, in Portuguese, Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2015; in English, Routledge, 2017), which was awarded with the Prémio Joaquím de Carvalho, 2016. Casalini serves as editor-in-chief of a series published by Brill on History of Early Modern Educational Thought.
A. Taiga Guterres is the associate director of the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies at Boston College. At the Institute, he oversees the graduate Certificate in Jesuit Studies, manages the production of the publishing house, and supports the Institute's outreach efforts and special projects that promote research of the Jesuits and their mission. Guterres's field of research is primarily in Jesuit educational history, narrative theory, aesthetics, and the psychological humanities. Along with Cristiano Casalini and Casey Beaumier, S.J., Guterres revived the Jesuit Educational Quarterly from its dormancy in 2025. His publications include "Genealogies of Cura Personalis and the Psychological Humanities in the Jesuit Tradition" (2026), "Aesthetics Articulations': Toward a Poetics of Formation" (2026), and "Le Indipetae dell'Antica Compagnia (1540–1773: Breve guida alle fonti e aspetti quantitativi" (2022). Guterres holds a M.A. in Theology & Ministry, M.S.W., and is a current Ph.D. candidate in Formative Education.
Anuška Lisec Gras is the associate director for finance, operations and grant administration at the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies. She grew up and spent the majority of her life in Slovenia, where she received her B.A. in Sociology and served nineteen years in the Slovenian military, primarily as a human resource officer. While in the military she obtained her graduate degree in Military Science from Air University in Alabama, participated in several crisis management operations and met her husband Sam. They married in 2008, lived for several years in Slovenia and Italy, and decided to move to the United States. Before moving to Boston and joining the Institute in 2023, Anuška worked five years in international admission at Oregon State University. She is excited to apply her diverse experience and interpersonal skills to support the mission, projects and staff of the Institute.
Elizabeth “Betsy” O’Brien is the assistant director of marketing and programming at the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies. Betsy received her undergraduate degree from John Carroll University. She also has a certificate in Marketing Strategy from Cornell University. While at John Carroll, Betsy was an Arrupe Scholar, studying the works of Pedro Arrupe and other Jesuit Scholars and leaders. This informative period in her life impacted her professional and personal life in profound ways. Betsy has worked in the private and nonprofit sectors with great organizations such as the Association of Independent Schools in New England (AISNE) and Boston Globe Media. Betsy also proudly served the Boston community through a year of service with AmeriCorps, working alongside City Year. She is eager to collaborate with others to strengthen the mission of the Institute through its marketing and programming efforts.
Siena Sefton is the managing editor of periodicals at the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies. She oversees the Jesuit Educational Quarterly, where she engages and facilitates collegiality between the Institute and the global network of Jesuit Studies scholars. She assists and supports the Institute’s outreach efforts and special projects that promote Jesuit educational research and its educational and spiritual mission. Siena holds a B.A. and an M.A. in History from Boston College.
Claude Pavur, S.J., an associate editor, specializes in the translation of Latin documents relating to the Society of Jesus. His graduate degrees are in scripture, philosophy, and classics. At the Institute he has produced English editions of the famous Jesuit plan of studies from 1599 (the Ratio Studiorum, 2005), Ribadeneira's life of Ignatius (2014), and the Latin texts in the first Jesuit pedagogy reader (2016). His recent overview of the historiography of Jesuit pedagogy is available at Brill's Jesuit Historiography Online. Other interests of his include Jesuit education and formation, classical humanism, and Latin pedagogy. He has been a member of the Society of Jesus since 1973.
Robert Gerlich, S.J., an associate editor, obtained his B.A degree in Philosophy from St. Louis University (1972), M.A. in European History from Saint Louis University (1977); Bakkalaureat in Catholic Theology from Hochschule Sankt Georgen, Frankfurt am Main, Germany (1980) and Ph.D in Modern European History from Saint Louis University (1987). Prior to coming to the Institute in 2021, Fr. Gerlich was a member of the editorial and research staff of the Encyclopedia of Jesuit History project under the direction of the Jesuit Historical Institute in Rome, Italy (1987-1988) and for a semester and several summers thereafter. He was an associate professor of history at Loyola University New Orleans from 1989 until 2021, when he was granted emeritus status. His present project at the Institute involves translating and editing a new biography of St. Ignatius by Enrique García Hernán.
Alessandro Corsi is the digital scholarship editor at the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies. He obtained his Ph.D in Modern History and Church History from Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano and specialized in qualitative and quantitative historical analysis of Ancien Régime social structures, observed through the lens of digital tools. He joined the Institute as a fellow in 2022 and continued his postdoc project started in 2019 (Fondazione 1563 - Turin), a database created from Triennales and Breves registration catalogs of the Old Society. In his current position, he facilitates and promotes collegiality between the IAJS and the global network of scholars and research centers around the world, by overseeing all the Digital Projects sponsored by the Institute, including mobile phone applications.
Dan Balk is the program director for Ever to Excel at the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies. He received his B.A. in History from the University of Rochester and a M.A. in Educational Leadership from Boston College's Lynch School of Education. Dan has extensive experience in teaching, coaching, and program management at various K-12 institutions. Dan greatly enjoys working with students of various ages, and has coached both high school and college baseball.
Elizabeth Campbell is the assistant program director for Ever to Excel at the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies. After receiving her B.A. in English from Boston College, Elizabeth returned to BC in 2015 to lead the Church in the 21st Century Center’s marketing and expansion of the Agape Latte program to colleges, high schools, and parishes nationwide. As part of her work with the C21 Center, she collaborated on the development and promotion of the Ever to Excel program since its inaugural year in 2016. Elizabeth joined the Institute team in 2022 to focus her work on Ever to Excel and the formation of the college and high school students who journey through the program. She is excited to utilize her creative background and interest in digital media to support the mission of the Institute and inspire young people to learn about and share their stories of faith.
Will Healy is the program director for AMDG at the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies. Will earned a BBA in Finance from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an MEd in Educational Leadership & Policy from Boston College's Lynch School of Education. Before joining the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies, Will spent six years at Catholic Memorial School, where he served as the Director of Campus Ministry and a member of the Theology faculty. In addition to these primary responsibilities at CM, Will was heavily involved in extracurricular life including contributions to the drama and baseball programs.
Evan Mansour is the assistant program director for the AMDG program at the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies. She received her Bachelor's degree in Corporate Systems from Boston College. After six years of working at Boston College for the Woods College of Advancing Studies, she worked for CEHIT as an Information Technology Consultant and Assistant Director of Budgeting and Finance. At the Institute, she oversees and organizes assessment strategies for the program, executes retreats and pilgrimages, and manages the budget and financial operations. She has a deep regard for the Society of Jesus and Catholic education, and is passionate about furthering the work of the Society through the Institute's mission.
Casey Beaumier, S.J., is the Haub Vice President for University Mission and Ministry.
Matt Schweitzer is the Associate Vice President for University Mission and Ministry.
Research Scholars
Barton T. Geger, S.J., is a research scholar at the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies, Assistant Professor of the Practice at the Clough School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College. He holds an M.A. in philosophy from Saint Louis University, a M.Th. in Systematic Theology from Heythrop College, an STL in historical theology from (then) Weston Jesuit School of Theology, and a doctorate in sacred theology from Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid. He writes on Ignatian spirituality and early Jesuit history. His essays include "Ten Things That St. Ignatius Never Said or Did" and “What Magis Really Means and Why It Matters.” He currently edits new editions of the Jesuit Constitutions and of the "Autobiography" of St. Ignatius Loyola.
Emanuele Colombo Ph.D., is a Professor at the Boston College Lynch School of Education and Human Development and a Research Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies. His research focuses on early modern religious history, theology, politics, Jesuit missions, Christian-Muslim encounters, and global Catholicism. He is the editor of the Digital Indipetae Database, a digital humanities project engaging hundreds of international high school and college students. Additionally, he serves as the executive editor of the Journal of Jesuit Studies (Brill) and is a member of the Accademia Ambrosiana in Milan.
Senior Affiliated Scholars
Andrew Barrette (Ph.D. Southern Illinois University Carbondale) is an Assistant Professor of the Practice in the Philosophy Department at Boston College. His research with the Institute focuses upon philosophy and theology in the Post-Restoration Society. He is also the General Editor of the Collected Works of Joseph Maréchal, S.J. with Jesuit Sources.
Simon Ditchfield is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of York, UK. He is an elected fellow of the Royal Historical Society; a member of the Accademia Ambrosiana, Milan and honorary member of the Italian Hagiography Society (AISSCA). He has published extensively on the history of early modern Catholicism, with a particular interest in hagiography, history-writing and the Society of Jesus. In 2022 he gave the He is currently bringing to completion a substantial survey volume from the Oxford History of the Christian Church series to be published by Oxford University Press: Papacy & Peoples in the making of Roman Catholicism as a world religion (c.1500-c.1700). In September 2022 he gave the Distinguished lecture series at the Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe (Johns Hopkins University): Discovering how to describe the world: Daniello Bartoli SJ (1608-85) and the writing of global history, which are being revised for publication by Johns Hopkins University Press.
Claudio Ferlan (Ph.D. University of Trieste) is a full-time researcher at the Fondazione Bruno Kessler in Trento, Italy, where he is also working as editor-in-chief of FBK Magazine. Ferlan was a fellow at the Institute for a semester in 2019 to conduct research on the food history of the Society of Jesus in the early modern Atlantic world. He is the author of a number of works, including The Jesuits: A Thematic History (2023).
Fr. Michael Knox, S.J. is a Senior Affiliated Scholar of the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies and serves as the general editor of Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits. He is a Roman Catholic priest in the Society of Jesus serving as Vice-Rector and Prefect of Studies of the Regis Jesuit Community whilst lecturing at Regis College, University of Toronto. After entering the Jesuit order in 1997, he completed an honours BA degree in history at St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto, followed by a diploma in philosophical studies. In 2006, he completed a MA thesis in history at Memorial University, Newfoundland, and Campion Hall, Oxford. Subsequently, in 2009, he completed a Baccalaureate in Sacred Theology and a Master of Divinity at Regis College, University of Toronto, followed by a Licentiate in Sacred Theology and an MA in Theology at the same school. In 2015, he completed a DPhil in history at Oxford University, entitled, “The Rhetoric of Martyrdom in the Jesuit Relations of New France, 1632-1650”. He continues to engage on topics in Jesuit Mission History and spirituality, Early Modern Canadian History, and the theology of the Spiritual Exercises.
Sabina Pavone is Full Professor of History of Christianity at the University of Naples L’Orientale, where she teaches History of Christianity, Evangelization and Globalization in the early modern age and Digital Public History. Her research sits at the intersection of several disciplines, including institutional history, religious history and cultural history. During these years, her research has focused on the relationship between the Roman Inquisition and the religious orders, first and foremost the Jesuits, with particular attention to the complex interactions between the Church of Rome and Eastern cultures, especially the controversy over the Malabar Rites between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. More recently, she has worked on the theme of conversion in extra-European Catholic missions and, within the same analytical framework of conversion, on Mediterranean slavery between Naples and Malta. She is also conducting two different digital projects on Jesuit history in early modern age, developed in collaboration with the IAJS, focusing on the catalogues related to the Jesuit mission in Ethiopia and on Jesuit martyrs in India. Among her publications: The Wily Jesuits and the Monita Secreta, St. Louis, Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2005 (Ist Italian Edition: 2000); with V. Lavenia, S. Pastore, C. Petrolini (ed. by), “Compelle intrare”. On Violence and Conversion in the non-European Catholic World, Roma, Viella Historical Research, 2018; I gesuiti. Dalle origini alla soppressione 1540–1773, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 2021 (Ist Italian Edition: 2004); with G. Capriotti, P.-A. Fabre (ed. by), Eloquent Images. Evangelization, Conversions and Propaganda in the Global World of the Early Modern Period, Leuven University Press, Leuven, 2022; with C. Petrolini and V. Lavenia, Sacre metamorfosi. Racconti di conversione tra Roma e il mondo in età moderna (Roma, 2022); with F. Motta, Lessico della storia moderna (Roma, 2024), coed. with C. Facchini, G. Imbruglia, V. Lavenia, Sacrifice and Sacred Violence. History, Comparaisons, and the Early Modern World (2025).
Stefania Tutino is Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is an intellectual and cultural historian of post-Reformation Catholicism; her work focuses on the history of the Society of Jesus, Jesuit political thought, Catholic moral theology, and the history of the Roman Inquisition. In addition, she is interested in the methodological premises of historiography and in the philosophical and theoretical nature of history as simultaneously an inquiry into the truth of the past and an essentially narrative enterprise. Her research has been supported by several grants and awards, including, most recently, an individual faculty fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship.
2026 – 2027 Research Fellows
Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J., is Associate Professor of History at Saint Louis University. He is the author of Alfonso Salmerón (1515–1585) on the Scriptures: Theological Reflections from a Founding Jesuit (Durham, 2024) and Ecclesiastical Knights: The Military Orders in Castile, 1150–1300 (Fordham, 2015), as well as numerous articles and chapters on Spain, the Jesuits, and the thought of Joseph Ratzinger. He is currently researching the life of Pedro de Ribadeneyra, S.J.
Graduate Assistants
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Hector Aponte is a graduate assistant with the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies while he pursues a Master of Theological Studies (M.T.S.) at the Clough School of Theology and Ministry. Hector received a B.A. in Political Science from Norwich University in Vermont, with a concentration in U.S. Constitutional Studies and minors in Philosophy, Pre-Law, and Transnational Crime. His academic interests include the intersection of politics and religion as they relate to ethics and morality. A native of Massachusetts, Hector has previously interned with the Massachusetts State 911 Department and looks forward to continuing to serve his local communities following his studies. Hector looks forward to supporting the institute and learning about the rich history of the Society of Jesus.
Andrew Colliton is a graduate research associate with the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies while he pursues a Master of Divinity (MDiv) at the Boston College’s Clough School of Theology and Ministry. Andrew received a B.S. in International Political Economy at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, with a minor in History and a concentration in Spanish. During his undergraduate studies, Andrew completed internships at the Knights of Columbus in New Haven, CT and the Institute for Faith and Public Life at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington, DC. Through his undergraduate experience at Georgetown, Andrew was introduced to the Society of Jesus, including participating in liturgical, music, and campus outreach ministries. Now, Andrew lives in Boston, MA where he enjoys studying the rich religious history of the Society of Jesus and the mission continuing today at Boston College.
Nina DuBose is a graduate assistant at the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies while pursuing a Master of Social Work and Master of Theology and Ministry at Boston College. She received a B.A. in Psychology from Loyola Marymount University (LMU) and most recently was working for the LMU Office for International Students and Scholars. Nina developed a passion for Jesuit education and social justice through her study abroad experience in Argentina with the Casa de la Mateada program and service involvements as an LMU student. This led her to pursue a year of post-graduate service with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, which affirmed her vocation for the intersections of social work and theology.
Matthew Lyon is a graduate assistant with the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies while he pursues a Master of Theological Studies at the Clough School of Theology and Ministry. Matthew received a B.S. in Global Supply Chain Management from Brigham Young University's Marriott School of Business with a minor in Latin American Studies and Spanish. He spent two years serving as a Latter-day Saint missionary in Argentina and three years working on a global medical device supply team. These experiences sparked his love for strengthening dialogue across difference and engaging other faith traditions. Currently, his research relates to Jewish-Latter-day Saint relations. He loves the Society of Jesus and its rich history and spiritual tradition and is thrilled to be at the Institute.
Undergraduate Assistants
Stephen Eckelkamp is a senior and undergraduate assistant at the Institute. He is studying Political Science and Finance on the pre-law track.
Ellen Gallagher is a junior and undergraduate assistant at the Institute in a work-study program with Ever to Excel. Apart from her work at the Institute, she is very involved in the Appa Volunteers service immersion program on campus. Ellen studies Communication and Economics in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences as well as Leadership in Higher Education and Community Settings in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development. Ellen is looking forward to pursuing a career in higher education.
Jessica Orrell is an undergraduate assistant editor and research fellow at the Institute. She is a senior in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences studying Political Science and Sociology with a minor in Philosophy. Jessica is the Editor-in-Chief of The Colloquium: The Undergraduate Political Science Journal of Boston College and the Managing Editor of The Bellarmine Law Society Review. After graduation, she plans to work in politics or publishing in New York City before ultimately pursuing a PhD in Political Philosophy. She is particularly interested in the tension between classical and modern political thought, the question of the possibility of mingling the philosophical and political life, and the political philosophy of Nietzsche.