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Our People

 

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Junior Fellows 2024-2025

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Senior Fellows 2024-2025

 
 
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David Albertson

David Albertson (PhD, University of Chicago) is Associate Professor of Religion at USC. He is the author of Cusanus Today: Thinking Between Philosophy and Theology with Nicholas of Cusa (CUA, 2024), Mathematical Theologies: Nicholas of Cusa and the Legacy of Thierry of Chartres (Oxford, 2014), and Without Nature? A New Condition for Theology, with Cabell King (Fordham, 2009), as well as several articles on medieval and Renaissance Christian mysticism, theology, and philosophy. Albertson’s research has been supported by a Fulbright Fellowship, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He contributes to Commonweal and America Magazine.

Faculty Website

 
 
 
 
 

Jason Blakely

Jason Blakely (PhD, UC Berkeley) specializes in political philosophy, the history of political thought, and the human sciences. His most recent book is Lost in Ideology: Interpreting Modern Political Life (Agenda, 2024). Other books include We Built Reality (Oxford, 2020), which received accolades from Charles Taylor and David Bentley Hart; and Interpretive Social Science, with Mark Bevir (Oxford, 2018), which provides a comprehensive guide for social scientists for avoiding scientism and affirming human agency. Blakely is a leading scholar of contemporary “communitarian” and post-liberal thought, especially the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor, the subject of his first book, Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor and the Demise of Naturalism (Notre Dame, 2016). In addition to academic writing, he also publishes in Harper’s MagazineThe Atlantic, CommonwealAmerica MagazineThe Chronicle of Higher Education, and The Washington Post

Faculty Website

 
 
 
 

Fr. Luke Dysinger, O.S.B.

Father Luke Dysinger, O.S.B. (PhD, Oxford University; MD, USC) is Professor of Church History and Moral Theology at St. John’s Seminary. After studying medicine at USC, he joined the Benedictine community of Saint Andrew’s Abbey. A patristics scholar, Fr. Dysinger is the author of Psalmody and Prayer in the Writings of Evagrius Ponticus (Oxford, 2005), and a co-translator of Evagrius of Pontus: The Gnostic Trilogy (Oxford, 2023) and also teaches on moral theology and biomedical ethics in different venues. He is a fellow of the Loyola Marymount Bioethics Institute and chairman of the Bioethics Committee at the Antelope Valley Hospital Medical Center, where he serves on the medical staff.

Faculty Website

 
 
 
 

Mary Ortiz

Mary Ortiz (PhD, New York University) is an independent consultant based in Los Angeles with over three decades of experience in Catholic secondary and higher education. After degrees in English and German at Bowdoin College, Dr. Ortiz obtained her doctorate at NYU in eighteenth-century English literature, where she also taught undergraduate writing. For many years she directed programs for high school and college women at the Rosemoor Foundation in New York, and most recently served for eleven years as Head of School at Oakcrest School in Virginia. Dr. Ortiz is an avid reader and is passionate about the power of literature in the formation of young adults.

 
 
 
 

Stefano Rebeggiani

Stefano Rebeggiani (PhD, La Sapienza, Rome) is Associate Professor of Classics at USC. After studies in Rome, Pisa, and Cambridge University he held a position at NYU before arriving at USC. Rebeggiani studies Roman literature and culture, particularly epic poetry in imperial Rome, as well as Roman art and archaeology. In addition to articles on Statius, Virgil, and Lucretius, he is the author of The Fragility of Power: Statius, Domitian and the Politics of the Thebaid (Oxford, 2018). His next project will study Virgil’s Aeneid and its interaction with the history of the Roman Republic.

Faculty Website

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Leigh Plunkett Tost

Leigh Plunkett Tost (PhD, Duke University) is Associate Professor in the Management and Organization Department at USC Marshall School of Business, where she also serves as Vice Dean of MBA Programs. Tost teaches courses on leadership, teams, and negotiations. Her research on the psychological and sociological dynamics of leadership, diversity, and legitimacy in organizations has been published in Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Psychological Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decisions Processes, Reasearch in Organizational Behavior, and Personality and Social Psychology Review. Tost’s research has been discussed in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Forbes, and Harvard Business Review. She previously held appointments at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business.

 

FACULTY ASSOCIATES 2024-2025

 
 

LEADERSHIP

David Albertson

Executive Director

Mary Ortiz

Program Director

 
 
 

Manika Tolentino

Communications DIRECTOR

 

Madelyn Sequeira

Program Assistant

 

ADVISORY COUNCIL

Fr. Luke Dysinger, OSB

St. John’s Seminary

Fr. Matthew Wheeler

Administrator, Our Savior Parish

Jamie Cappetta

President, USC Caruso Catholic Center

David Albertson

ex officio