Instructor

Office: 318
Office Hours:

• Wednesdays and Thursdays 1:00 to 4:00 pm, by appointment.
  
• Fridays, 8:00 am to 12:00 noon, by appointment.

• BSFS, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington, DC
  MTS, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN
  Ph.D. Candidate, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN

Experience: Before attending Notre Dame and joining Oblate School of Theology, I worked with the Mexican Catholic Conference of Bishops and the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.  I also taught at the Jesuit University in Tijuana, Mexico.  In these and other settings I served the pastoral needs of immigrants, the health and education needs of communities marked by urban poverty, and the academic needs of US and Mexican students.  These experiences have influenced my approach to teaching, which is pastoral, practical and intellectually demanding.

Academic interests:
I am interested in three areas:  Christian immigration ethics, the fundamental relationship between love and practical reason, and the development of pedagogical resources for underserved student populations. 

My current research assesses the criteria U.S. immigration policy uses to distribute permanent residency visas.   I am grateful to the Hispanic Theological Initiative and the Louisville Institute for their generous support of my dissertation project, “Love and Conflict in Immigration Policy: Insights from Catholic Thought on U.S. Immigration Preferences.”  There, I argue that the Christian tradition offers a multifaceted understanding of love that suggests what kinds of immigration preferences are necessary to achieve a morally sound immigration reform.

In future research projects I intend to engage theological resources that address the relationship between love and practical reason.  My aim is to discern what insights they offer to Catholic institutions that face the challenge of providing services that further equal human dignity in a context marked by limited resources and growing socioeconomic inequality.