Berkley Center

Vanessa Corcoran is director of the Catholic Studies Program and assistant teaching professor at Georgetown University. Her research focuses on medieval religious history, devotional practices in the Catholic Church, and the religious and cultural influence of the Virgin Mary. Her recent publications include "The Keys to Two Marys: Popes and the Women of Scripture," in The Cambridge History of the Papacy (2025). Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, America, Commonweal, and National Catholic Reporter. Corcoran holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Medieval History from Catholic University.

Laura DeNardis is Georgetown University’s Inaugural Endowed Chair in Technology, Ethics, and Society; director of the Center for Digital Ethics; and Professor of Communication, Culture and Technology. Her research examines the relationship between technology, society, governance, and power, with a focus on internet infrastructure, digital security, and the politics of technical standards. She is the author of eight books, including The Internet in Everything: Freedom and Security in a World with No Off Switch (Yale University Press, 2020) and The Global War for Internet Governance (Yale University Press). DeNardis holds degrees from Dartmouth College, Cornell University, and Virginia Tech, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale Law School.

Nicoletta Pireddu is director of the Georgetown Humanities Initiative and professor of Italian at Georgetown University. A specialist in comparative literature, her research focuses on European literary and cultural relations, national and transnational identities, borders, cosmopolitanism, and translation studies. Her publications include Migrating Minds: Theories and Practices of Cultural Cosmopolitanism (2021, 2023 René Wellek Prize); Reframing Critical, Literary, and Cultural Theories (2018); The Works of Claudio Magris: Temporary Homes, Mobile Identities, European Borders (2015); and Antropologi alla corte della bellezza (2002, 2002 American Association for Italian Studies Book Award).

Andrew Prevot is the Joseph and Winifred Amaturo Chair in Catholic Studies; senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs; and professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Georgetown University. He studies the vital roles that Christian spirituality plays in contemporary theology, philosophy, culture, and politics, with a particular focus on Roman Catholic and Black/African American traditions. He is the author of The Mysticism of Ordinary Life: Theology, Philosophy, and Feminism (Oxford University Press, 2023); Theology and Race: Black and Womanist Traditions in the United States (Brill, 2018); and Thinking Prayer: Theology and Spirituality amid the Crises of Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015). He co-edited Anti-Blackness and Christian Ethics (Orbis Books, 2017) and has published more than 30 articles and essays. Before coming to Georgetown, he was on the faculty at Boston College. He holds a Ph.D. and M.T.S. in systematic theology from the University of Notre Dame and a B.A. in philosophy from Colorado College.

Adam Rothman is an associate professor of History in Georgetown University History Department, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Atlantic history, nineteenth century US history, and the history of slavery. Rothman's book Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South was published by Harvard University Press early in 2005. In 2007, he co-authored Major Problems in Atlantic History with his colleague Alison Games. Rothman is an expert in the history of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War, and in the history of slavery and abolition in the Atlantic world. He is currently researching the history of emancipation in the United States and the history of New Orleans as a cosmopolitan city in the nineteenth century. He holds a B.A. from Yale University and a Ph.D. from Columbia University.