Menu
Born and raised in Oregon, Michael moved to Chicago after a year of teaching in a high school in Nantes, France and a year of independent research on the topic of inculturation theology in various countries across Africa on a Watson Fellowship. He received a B.A. in Religious Studies and French from Willamette University. He came to the University of Chicago in 2008 for his a M.Div. and first became acquainted with the Lumen Christi Institute through its non-credit course. In 2011 he started a Ph.D. in Theological Ethics from the University of Chicago Divinity School, graduating in 2019, having written a dissertation entitled “The Stain of Association and the Burden of Membership: Institutional Ethics in Paul Ricoeur and Catholic Social Thought.”
Michael has co-edited a volume on former Lumen Christi Board Member, public scholar, and professor of ethics, Jean Bethke Elshtain, entitled Jean Bethke Elshtain: Politics, Ethics, and Society (Notre Dame, 2018), and has a chapter on Ricoeur’s institutional Ethics and Higher Education in Paul Ricoeur and the Hope of Higher Education: The Just University (Lexington, 2021). Michael has also taught courses in the humanities and in Christian Ethics at the University of Chicago, DePaul University, and Loyola University of Chicago. In 2017, he was awarded a competitive prize for Excellence in Teaching from the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Michael first started working at the Lumen Christi Institute in 2012 as a program coordinator for our Catholic Social Thought Programming, planning annual conferences in Economics and Catholic Social Thought and coordinating lectures, symposia, and summer seminars. He has taught courses in Business, Ethics, and Society at DePaul University and in Catholic Social Thought at Loyola University Chicago. He became Assistant Director in 2017, and was co-project leader of the John F. Templeton Foundation funded Lumen Christi Institute project “Science and Religion, the Dialogue of Cultures.”
In 2019, Michael became Associate Director, collaborating with Executive Director Thomas Levergood to develop and implement programs (including conferences, symposia, lectures, masterclasses, summer seminars, and webinars) in topics across the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. He has spearheaded programs in Hispanic Theology, Black Catholic programming, and Science and Religion. He has helped to oversee operations, communications, marketing, and day-to-day supervision of staff to ensure successful execution of programs and events. He has developed, facilitated, and maintained strategic relationships with peer institutes, campus departments and centers, regional partners, and national institutions. Most recently, he has helped lead our pivot to online programming.
Between May of 2021 and August of 2022, Michael was elected by the Board of Directors as Acting Executive Director of the Lumen Christi Institute.
Michael is passionate about the mission of the Lumen Christi Institute to make the Catholic intellectual tradition, in its depth and breadth, a living dialogue partner at the university, in the city, and across the nation. He is married and has two young kids.