Lane Center Staff

Erin Brigham

DIRECTOR

Erin Brigham is the director of the Joan and Ralph Lane Center for Catholic Social Thought and the Ignatian Tradition and teaches in the department of theology and religious studies. Passionate about theological research, her most recent books include Church as Field Hospital: Toward an Ecclesiology of Sanctuary (2022) and Women Engaging the Catholic Social Tradition: Solidarity Toward the Common Good (2022), co-edited with Mary Johnson. She is currently studying the impact of the pandemic on faith and religious practices. She grew up near the beautiful Rocky Mountains of Western Montana and now lives in San Francisco with her family.

 

Mark Miller

Mark Miller is associate professor of systematic (philosophical) theology.  His mother came from the Philippines, his father from Maine, and they met in the middle as students at USF in the 1960s.  His specialty is human development and redemption, particularly our ongoing, communal conversion to greater knowledge, love, and service of God and all things.  His PhD dissertation is entitled, "Why the Passion?: Bernard Lonergan on the Cross as Communication." His undergraduate degree concentrated on Humanities in International Affairs.

Professor Miller has taught at Ateneo de Zamboanga, University of Asia and the Pacific, Boston College, Georgetown University, Santa Clara, and Seton Hall (as inaugural Toth/Lonergan Endowed Visiting Chair), as well as at Mt. Calvary Elementary School in Forestville, MD and Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, NV. At USF he teaches in Catholic Studies, Philippine Studies, and the St. Ignatius Institute. He helps coach the USF Taekwondo Club/Team.

 

Evelyn Rodriguez

Evelyn I. Rodriguez is a second-generation Pinay, who was born in Honolulu, raised in San Diego, and is now an Associate Professor for the University of San Francisco's Department of Sociology. She also is a faculty member in Critical Diversity Studies, Asian American Studies, and the Maria Elena Yuchengco Philippine Studies Program. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from UC San Diego as a Sociology major/Ethnic Studies minor; and received her MA and PhD from UC Berkeley's Sociology program. She has taught Asian and Pacific Islanders in U.S. Society, People of Mixed Descent, U.S. Immigration and Settlement, and Community Organizing, as well as Research Methods, Thesis Workshop, and for the USF Honors College.

Professor Rodriguez studies race, ethnicity, immigration, gender, culture, families, and identity in the United States, the Philippines, and Latin America. Her first book, Celebrating Debutantes and Quinceañeras: Coming of Age in American Ethnic Communities (Temple University Press 2013), used female coming-of-age rituals as windows into the lives of second-generation daughters and their immigrant Mexican and Filipino families. Her forthcoming book explores how American young adults of AIAN, Asian, Latinx, NHPI, and or multiracial ancestry experience race and approach civic engagement, especially to better comprehend if and how "the racialized middle" might transform how we understand race and politics in US society.

 

Joseph Nguyen, S.J.

LO SCHIAVO FACULTY IN RESIDENCE

Father Joseph is a Jesuit Priest of the U.S. West Province of the Society of Jesus. Prior to coming to the University of San Francisco, he was a lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at Gonzaga University for five years where he taught courses in Catholic Christian foundations and Christian and Ignatian spirituality and served as the Associate Director for the Catholic Studies program. He earned a Doctorate in Sacred Theology (S.T.D.) from the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University in 2015 with a dissertation on the theology of divine union in Maximus the Confessor and Ignatius of Loyola. Father Joseph's area of specialty is systematic theology and Christian Spirituality with an emphasis on early Christian spiritual theology and Ignatian spirituality. He published a book: Apatheia in the Christian Tradition: An Ancient Spirituality and Its Contemporary Relevance (Cascade Books, 2018), and is currently writing a second book: Christian Contemplation: Theological Foundations and Contemporary Practice (forthcoming). The Jesuit theologian, Karl Rahner, S.J., once said, “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all.” His saying guides Father Joseph's approach to theology and spirituality. He joined the Department of Theology and Religious Studies as an assistant professor in the fall of 2020. 

 

FALA Valery Ngong Ekem, S.J. 

JESUIT GRADUATE FELLOW 

Fala Valery is from Bamenda, in the North West Region of Cameroon. Prior to coming to USF, he worked in the Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat in the General Curia of the Society of Jesus in Rome from 2020 to July 2022. He was drawn to USF because of its unique interdisciplinary Environmental Management program in the College of Arts and Sciences. While doing my MS in Environmental Management, he will be involved in the Lane Center’s activities, especially those linked to the care of our common home.

 

 

Talia Knowles

Talia Knowles is the Program Assistant for the Lane Center. She earned her MA in English Literature and Culture from King's College London and is passionate about applying this knowledge to furthering the Lane Center's mission. In her free time, Talia enjoys reading, cooking, and walking her poodle through Golden Gate Park.