Our Staff
The Boisi Center is committed to fostering rigorous, civil, and constructive conversations about religion in American public life, in pursuit of the common good of a religiously diverse society.
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Mark Massa, S.J.
Director
Mark Massa, S.J., is the director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College, where he is also professor of Theology. Massa received his Ph.D. in American religion from Harvard University, and is the author of eight books. His most recent book,听Catholic Fundamentalism in America,听was published by Oxford University Press in 2025. His monograph published in 1999,听Catholics and American Culture: Fulton Sheen, Dorothy Day, and the Notre Dame Football Team,听received the Alpha Sigma Nu Award for Best Work in Theology for 1999-2000. His ongoing area of research is American Catholic faith and culture of the past century.听
As first holder of the Karl Rahner Chair in Theology at Fordham University, Massa also directed the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. From 2010 to 2016, he served as dean of the School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College. He also served as board chair for the Boston Theological Institute, a consortium of nine divinity schools, seminaries, and a rabbinical college in greater Boston. Massa has appeared on a number of programs in the "American Experience" series on PBS, including "Religion in America," and most recently, "An American Conscience: The Reinhold Niebuhr Story."
Susan Richard
Administrative Assistant
Since the Boisi Center's inception in 1999, Susan Richard has served as the Boisi Center's administrative assistant. With her degree from Johnson and Wales University, she has the educational training to plan and organize the many events the Boisi Center sponsors each semester. In addition to her administrative duties, Susan oversees the management of the Boisi Center website. Prior to coming to Boston College, Susan worked at Boston University for eight years in administrative capacities in the Dean's Office in the College of Arts and Sciences and Graduate School as well as the department administrator in the sociology department.听
At the end of summer 2022, Susan completed her Master鈥檚 degree program in Leadership and Administration through the Woods College at Boston College. She now looks forward to spending time with her family, especially her grandchildren, traveling with family and friends, crafting, and catching up on all the books she didn't have time to read while in school.
During the 2024/25 academic year, Susan celebrated 25 years working at Boston College.
Madeline Jarrett
Graduate Research Assistant
Madeline Jarrett is the graduate research assistant for the Boisi Center. In addition to her work at the center, she is a PhD student in systematic theology. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2014 with majors in Theology and Psychology. After her undergraduate studies, Maddie participated in a year-long AmeriCorps service program based in Chicago, where she served full-time as the ESL Tutor, art teacher, and creative writing teacher at a Catholic elementary school. After her time in Chicago, Maddie moved to Boston to pursue theological studies at Boston College鈥檚 School of Theology and Ministry, where she received her Master of Divinity in 2018. Prior to joining the theology department as a doctoral student, she taught theology and psychology and served as the Theology Department Chair at Mount Alvernia High School in Newton, MA. Maddie is a 2020 recipient of the Archdiocese of Boston鈥檚 Excellence in Education Award.听
Maddie鈥檚 research engages issues of theological anthropology, particularly as they relate to embodied experiences of grace and limitation. She is also interested in temporality, disability theology, and the theology of Karl Rahner. Maddie has been published in The Journal of Disability and Religion, Philosophy & Theology, Political Theology, and Commonweal Magazine.
Apart from her doctoral studies and work at the Boisi Center, Maddie enjoys taking art classes, hosting dinner parties, and frequenting the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum.
Liam Adamczyk will graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in History while minoring in Religion and Public Life, and Jewish Studies. Upon graduating, Liam will stay in Boston and take a gap year before law school. He will use that time to study for the LSAT and get hands-on legal sector experience. He will spend his free time with family and friends and looks forward to staying connected to the Boston College community.
After graduation, Joey will be playing golf everyday back home in Connecticut before spending the next three years nearby at Boston College Law School. He is hopeful that he can continue his relationship with the Center.
Boisi Center Board of Advisors
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Nancy T. Ammerman
Nancy T. Ammerman is professor emerita at Boston University School of Theology, where she served as professor of sociology of religion (2003-2019), after having previously taught at Emory University鈥檚 Candler School of Theology (1984-95), and at Hartford Seminary鈥檚 Hartford Institute for Religion Research (1995-2003).听 At Boston University, she also served the College of Arts and Sciences as associate dean of the faculty for the social sciences (2015-18), as chair of the department of sociology (2007-13), and director of the graduate division of religious studies (2014-15).听
Ammerman鈥檚 earliest work explored grassroots Fundamentalists and analyzed the organizational architecture of the 1980s conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. Her most recent research has focused on everyday lived religion across a wide religious and geographic spectrum, including working with Grace Davie (University of Exeter) to coordinate an international team of scholars to assess 鈥淩eligions and Social Progress鈥� for the International Panel on Social Progress.
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Randall Balmer
Randall Balmer is the John Phillips Professor in Religion, the oldest endowed chair at Dartmouth College. Before coming to Dartmouth in 2012, he was a professor of American religious history at Columbia University for twenty-seven years. In addition, Balmer has been a visiting professor at Princeton, Yale, Emory, and Northwestern universities and in the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. He was an adjunct professor of church history at Union Theological Seminary and, from 2004 to 2008, a visiting professor at Yale Divinity School.
An award-winning historian, Balmer is the author of more than a dozen books, including听Grant Us Courage: Travels along the Mainline of American Protestantism听and听Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter. His second book,听Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America, now in its fifth edition, was made into a three-part documentary for PBS. Balmer was nominated for an Emmy for writing and hosting that series. He has published several reviews in听Washington Post Book World听and the听New York Times Book Review, and his commentaries on religion in America have appeared in newspapers across the country, including the听Los Angeles Times,听Washington Post,听Des Moines Register,听Minneapolis Star Tribune, and the听New York Times. In 2024, Balmer was the recipient of the Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion from the American Academy of Religion.
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Ben Birnbaum
A Brooklyn, New York, native, Ben Birnbaum holds a B.S. in Talmudic Law from Ner Israel Rabbinical College; a B.A. in psychology from Queens College of the City of New York; and an M.Ed. in counseling from the University of Vermont.
From 1978 to 2018, he was variously employed by Boston College as a writer, editor, executive director of marketing communications, an