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The Rev Dr Luigi Gioia is the Theologian in Residence at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue in New York City and a Visiting Scholar at the Von Hügel Institute at the University of Cambridge (UK).

A scholar of systematic theology, he focuses particularly on the Trinity, ecclesiology, and the relationship between theology and spirituality. Working at the crossroads of academy and church, he speaks and writes for both academic and general audiences, seeking to make rigorous theological reflection accessible and pastorally grounded. He is the author of The Theological Epistemology of Augustine’s De Trinitate (OUP, 2016, with a foreword by Rowan Williams), Say It to God: In Search of Prayer, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book 2018 (Bloomsbury, 2017), and Saint Benedict's Wisdom: Monastic Spirituality and the Life of the Church (Liturgical Press, 2020). His award-winning books have been translated into six languages.

Academic Profile

Publications 

• Luigi Gioia, The Theological Epistemology of Augustine’s De Trinitate, 2016, OUP: Oxford. Paperback edition with a foreword by Rowan Williams.
• Luigi Gioia, “The Threat of Death As a Test for Theological Authenticity”, 2017, in The Practice of the Presence of God: Theology As a Way of Life, Ed. Martin Laird and Sheelah Treflé Hidden, Routledge: New York, 120-9.
• Luigi Gioia, St Benedict’s Wisdom. Monastic Spirituality and the Life of the Church, 2020, Liturgical Press: Collegeville (MN, USA), and Canterbury Press (UK)
• Luigi Gioia, “St Benedict’s Rule as the Antidote to Regulatory Inflation”, 2021, Reviews in Religion & Theology, 28:1, 4-9.
• Luigi Gioia, “Prayer in the Secular City”, 2024, Concilium 4, 41-50

Awards and recognitions 

• The book Say It To God. In Search of Prayer (Bloomsbury, 2017) was chosen as the Archbishop of Canterbury Lent Book 2018.
• The book St Benedict’s Wisdom. Monastic Spirituality and the Life of the Church (Liturgical Press, 2020) received the First Place in the category of Spirituality Award by the CMA (Catholic Media Association) in 2021.

My research interests focus on the science-faith interface of natural hazards and disasters and theodicies. I also have research interest in the field of trauma studies, theologies of trauma and pastoral care of trauma.

The Rev. Dr. Abbott has an passionate academic and practical interest in the causation natural hazard related disasters, in the human responses to them, recovery from them and mitigation of them from the perspective of the science-faith intersection. From 2012-2021 he has carried out projects in Haiti following the devastating 2010 earthquake, exploring how survivors’ religious beliefs influenced their response to and recovery from that catastrophic event. From 2015 to 2019 he worked on projects in New Orleans, the Philippines, and in Somerset, exploring the influence of faith beliefs on survivors’ relationships with God, with their communities, and with the natural environment. Since 2020 to date he has been conducting a project around the impacts of fear, anger, trust and hope on Christians during the pandemic. He is also currently researching faith a resilience in a joint project between The Faraday Institute and the National Preparedness Commission. Following over thirty years of church pastoral ministry, Roger gained his Ph.D. in a practical theology of disaster response, from the University of Wales, Trinity & St. David. He has taught Master’s modules on the pastoral response to trauma, has run a consultancy on pastoral care of trauma, and has been an active responder to traumatic incidents in the UK since 1989. He is a member of the British and Irish Association for Practical Theologians, The Society for the Study of Theology, and The Society for the Study of Christian Ethics.

Publications

• Abbott Roger et al What Good is God? Crises, faith, and resilience. 2020 Oxford: Monarch
• Abbott, Roger Philip et al Narratives of Faith from the Haitian Earthquake. 2019 Abingdon: Routledge
• Abbott, Roger Philip “‘I Will Show You My Faith by My Works’ 2019 Religions 10, 213
• Abbott, Roger Philip. Sit On Our Hands, or Stand On Our Feet? 2013 . Eugene: Or.: Wipf & Stock
• Abbott, Roger Philip. 2012. “Trauma, Compassion, and Community.” Practical Theology. 5.1: 31-46

University of Notre Dame President Rev John I Jenkins, C.S.C. is an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund’s College.

He was elected in recognition of his significant contributions to higher education, as well as for his role in developing the partnership between St Edmund’s and Notre Dame.

Fr Jenkins, a priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross, was elected the 17th president of the University of Notre Dame in 2005. As president of Notre Dame, Fr Jenkins has contributed significantly to wider debates in higher education and society, especially in civil discourse. His achievements are characterised by a strong commitment to building common ground against increasingly widespread polarisation.

My research is in theology, intellectual disability and Christian community. My current work uses a participative approach, investigating belonging to a Christian community of differing intellectual abilities with members of the community.

Carole received her PhD from the University of Durham, where she worked on Rowan Williams’ concept of difficulty as a tool for negotiating difference between religious and secular life and commitment in the public square. She was a member of the academic staff of Wesley House in the Cambridge Theological Federation from 2015 to 2021, and Director of Studies from 2017, teaching political theology and leading the MA programme on Pastoral Care and Chaplaincy. Carole is currently project leader for Growing in Friendship, a participative theological action research project of the University of Aberdeen’s Centre for Spirituality, Health and Disability and Lyn’s House Cambridge. Lyn’s House is a Christian community of friendship for people with and without intellectual disabilities. The Growing in Friendship project is the first instance of participative research using a theological action research approach with a community of differing intellectual abilities. She is also a member of the Von Hügel Institute’s research project Disability and Knowledge in collaboration with the University of Notre Dame’s Rome Global Gateway and L’Arche Italy. She is ordained in the British Methodist Church, has served on its Faith and Order Committee, and is currently a member of the British Methodist-Roman Catholic Dialogue Commission. She studied in Cambridge (King’s College) for her first degree in Modern Languages (French and Italian).

Academic Profile

Revd Dr Kevin Grove is an Associate Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.

Born and raised in Montana, USA, Kevin Grove was ordained a Holy Cross priest at Notre Dame in 2010. After doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge (Trinity College) and before joining the faculty at Notre Dame, Grove was a post-doctoral researcher at L’Institut Catholique in Paris, France and a fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. In addition to his research and teaching, Grove serves at Notre Dame as an assistant faculty chaplain, Director of the Master of Divinity program, and as a pastoral resident for undergraduates in Dunne Hall.

My interests lie in the relationship between science and theology. Topics include: (i) the fine-tunings of natural law necessary for the universe to evolve life; (ii) Karl Barth’s rejection of natural theology; and (iii) ‘ramified natural theology’, i.e. the defence of specifically Christian claims.

The Revd Dr Rodney Holder read mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge (MA, MMath), and spent two years teaching mathematics at The Manchester Grammar School. In 1974 he returned to academia to research for a D.Phil. in astrophysics at Christ Church, Oxford, following this with a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Astrophysics in Oxford. His research was on accretion of intergalactic gas by the galaxy. Dr Holder then spent fourteen years with EDS (formerly Scicon) as an operational research consultant to UK Ministry of Defence clients. This involved mathematical modelling and decision analysis applied to defence procurement, and led to several published papers. His first book on science and religion (Nothing But Atoms and Molecules? Probing the Limits of Science) was published in 1993. In 1994 Dr Holder returned to Oxford, taking a first class degree in theology, and a Diploma in Ministry. Following ordination in the Church of England, Dr Holder served in parish ministry in South Warwickshire, Heidelberg, and Buckinghamshire. During this time he published several papers and his second book, God, the Multiverse, and Everything: Modern Cosmology and the Argument from Design.

Dr Holder was Course Director of The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, Cambridge, from its inception in January 2006 until 31 January 2013. He has remained active academically since then. His research focus has largely been in three areas: (i) utilizing Bayesian confirmation theory to assess the metaphysical significance of the fine-tunings of natural law necessary for the universe to be capable of evolving life; (ii) challenging Karl Barth’s rejection of natural theology through dialogue with major theologians who have succeeded him; and (iii) describing and utilizing ‘ramified natural theology’, which adopts the same Bayesian approach used to argue for the existence of God in natural theology, to defend specifically Christian claims about God’s acting in history in the person of Jesus Christ. Dr Holder has supervised undergraduates and postgraduate diploma students for ten colleges, including St Edmund’s, for the ‘Theology and Science’ paper in Part IIB of the Cambridge Theological and Religious Studies Tripos, 2007-2016. He has (2019 – 2025) taught overseas students on a Faraday Institute enrichment course and has given many lectures at Faraday Institute courses and more widely, here and overseas. Dr Holder’s further books include The Heavens Declare: Natural Theology and the Legacy of Karl Barth; Ramified Natural Theology in Science and Religion; and, co-edited with Simon Mitton, Georges Lemaître: Life, Science and Legacy. He was Reviews Editor of Science and Christian Belief and on the national committee of Christians in Science from 2006-2017. He is a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion, a member of the Society of Ordained Scientists and of the Science and Religion Forum, and a trustee of The Faraday Institute.

Academic Profile

Publications 

• Rodney D. Holder, Ramified Natural Theology in Science and Religion: Moving on from Natural Theology, 2021, Abingdon, Oxon, and New York, NY: Routledge.
• Rodney D. Holder, God, the Multiverse, and Everything: Modern Cosmology and the Argument from Design, 2016 [2004], Abingdon, Oxon, and New York, NY: Routledge.
• R. D. Holder, The Heavens Declare: Natural Theology and the Legacy of Karl Barth, 2012, West Conshohocken: Templeton Press.
• Rodney Holder, ‘Georges Lemaître and Fred Hoyle: Contrasting Characters in Science and Religion’, in Rodney Holder and Simon Mitton (eds), Georges Lemaître: Life, Science and Legacy, 2012, Heidelberg: Royal Astronomical Society-Springer, 39-53.
• R. D. Holder, ‘Hume on Miracles’, 1998, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 49, 49-65.

Awards & Recognitions

• Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and Its Applications
• Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion
• Templeton Foundation Prize for Exemplary Papers in Humility Theology (1998)

Sarah Irving-Stonebraker is Associate Professor of History at Australian Catholic University.

She is an intellectual historian of early modern Britain with a particular interest in the intersections of theology, natural philosophy, and historical writing. She was awarded her BA with First Class Honours and the University Medal from the University of Sydney, and her PhD in History from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Commonwealth Scholar at King’s College. She then held a Junior Research Fellowship in History at Wolfson College, Oxford University. Her first book, Natural Science and the Origins of the British Empire (London: 2008) won the Royal Society of Literature and Jerwood Foundation Award for Non-fiction. Her most recent book is Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistoric Age (Zondervan/HarperCollins, 2024), which was awarded The Gospel Coalition’s 2024 Book of the Year (Culture Category) and shortlisted for Australian Christian Book of the Year.

Dr. Maria Cimperman is a member of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (RSCJ). Her Master of Divinity is from the University of Notre Dame, Licentiate in Sacred Theology from Weston Jesuit School of Theology and PhD in Theological Ethics from Boston College. A faculty member at Catholic Theological Union (Chicago, USA), she recently received promotion to full Professor of Theological Ethics and Consecrated Life.

Dr Cimperman is the author of three books: When God’s People Have HIV/AIDS: An Approach to Ethics;  Social Analysis for the 21^st Century: How Faith Becomes Action;  and Religious Life For Our World: Creating Communities of Hope. She also co-edited Engaging Our Diversity: Interculturality and Consecrated Life Today. She presents nationally and internationally.

In addition to theological ethics, Maria’s passion is theology of consecrated life. Dr. Cimperman served for 8 years as the founding Director of the Center for the Study of Consecrated Life at CTU. During 2021-2022, Maria was one of two women religious theologians [with Dr Gemma Simmonds, CJ] and two men religious theologians serving on the UISG-USG [International Union of Superiors General and Union of Superiors General] Synod Synthesis Commission which read and together prepared a synthesis of the responses from religious around the globe for the two Unions.   She serves on the Editorial Board of Review for Religious and the Board of Directors of CARA (Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate).  This Fall she will continue at CTU while beginning a position at UISG in Rome coordinating their global Synodality Initiative.

Gemma Simmonds is a sister of the Congregation of Jesus.  She is a senior research fellow at the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology in Cambridge, UK, where she is director of the Religious Life Institute, teaching Christian spirituality and pastoral theology. An international speaker and lecturer, she is an honorary fellow of Durham University, past president of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain and chair of trustees of the ecumenical Community of St. Anselm based at Lambeth Palace, London.  Gemma is an ecumenical canon of the Church in Wales and lectured in theology at Heythrop College, University of London from 2005 until its closure in 2018, specialising in Christian spirituality.  She has trained candidates for religious life and ordination in the Catholic and Anglican churches and been a spiritual director and retreat giver for over 30 years.

Gemma has been a missionary in Brazil, a chaplain in the Universities of Cambridge and London and a chaplaincy volunteer in Holloway Prison for 25 years.  She is a regular broadcaster on religious matters on the BBC, Radio Maria England and other radio and television networks.

Recent publications include:

Conspiracy Theories and Ignatian Discernment’ in Martin Dojčár ed., How Do We Discern Conspiracy Theories? (Trnava University Press, 2023)

Contributions on ‘What it Means to be Human’ and ‘Living a Religious Life’ in Peter Vardy ed., The Philosophers’ Daughters, (London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 2023)

‘Religieus Leven: de Toekomst Onderscheiden’ in Henk Witte and Arnold Smeets eds., Religieus leven met toekomst, (Berne Media, Tilburg University, 2023)

Dancing at the Still Point: Retreat Practices for Busy Lives (London, SPCK, July 2021)

Religious Life: Discerning the Future (with María Calderón-Muñoz), Joint Project Report for the Religious Life Institute and Centre for Catholic Studies, Durham University, 2020

‘Reflections on Mary and Mission’ in Susan Lucas ed., God’s Church in the World: the Gift of Catholic Mission, (London, Canterbury Press, 2020)

‘Mystical Ecclesiology’ in Mark McIntosh and Edward Howells, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology, (Oxford, OUP, 2020)

‘Perfectae Caritatis’ in Richard Gaillardetz, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Second Vatican Council, (Cambridge, CUP, 2020)

‘Mary Ward: a Hidden Life in Painting’ in Kathryn Kerby-Fulton and Kate Bugyis eds., Women Leaders and Intellectuals of the Medieval World, (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020)

‘Women at the Grassroots’ Level of Church Leadership’, in Gunter Prüller-Jagenteufel et al., (eds.), Towards Just Gender Relations: Rethinking the Role of Women in Church and Society, Religion and Transformation in Contemporary European Society, vol. 13, (Vienna University Press, 2019), 29-36

‘Hearing the Call: a Theology of Vocation’ in Kevin J. Alban, ed., A Festschrift for Wilfrid McGreal, (Rome, Edizioni Carmelitane, 2019)

The Way of Ignatius: a Prayer Journey through Lent, (London, SPCK, 2018)

Sr Gill Goulding CJ is Professor Ordinaria of Systematic Theology at Regis College, the Jesuit Graduate School of Theology at the University of Toronto. She is currently a Bye-Fellow at St Edmund’s College and was appointed in 2021 as a member of the Theological Commission of the Secretariat of the Synod in Rome.

In Canada she was appointed by the Canadian Conference of Bishops to the Faith and Witness (Theological Commission) Commission of the Canadian Council of Churches. She is also the first theologian to have been appointed by the Bishops' Conference to the standing committee on Responsible Ministry.

Academic Profile

The Most Revd Archbishop Eamon Martin, Primate of all Ireland is an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund's College.

Isidoros (né Charalampos) Katsos is Assistant Professor of Theological Epistemology and Philosophy at the Divinity Faculty, National University of Athens. He holds a PhD in Human Rights, Ecology, and Cultural Heritage Law (Freie Universität Berlin, 2009); and a PhD in Philosophy and Theology (University of Cambridge, 2019), under the supervision of Rowan Williams. He has studied law in Athens, Paris and Berlin; and philosophy and theology in Athens and Cambridge. Previous appointments include a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Oxford; a Junior Research Fellowship at Campion Hall, Oxford; and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Center for the Study of Christianity, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Αuthor of The Metaphysics of Light in the Hexaemeral Literature: From Philo of Alexandria to Gregory of Nyssa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023); and – as Charalampos Katsos – of Nachhaltiger Schutz des kulturellen Erbes: Zur ökologischen Dimension des Kulturgüterschutzes (Baden-Baden: Nomos ; Zürich: Dike ; Wien: Facultas, 2011). His teaching and research interests focus on ‘Christian Philosophy’, largely defined, and the intersection of theology, ecology, and human rights in the age of A.I.