The Board
President
Kathleen Duffy, SSJ, PhD, President of the American Teilhard Association, is Professor Emerita of Physics at Chestnut Hill College where she directs the Institute for Religion and Science. She is former editor of Teilhard Studies and serves on the Advisory Board of Cosmos and Creation. She has published Teilhard’s Mysticism: Seeing the Inner Face of Evolution (Orbis, 2014), Teilhard’s Struggle: Embracing the Work of Evolution (Orbis, 2019), an edited volume of essays entitled Rediscovering Teilhard’s Fire (St. Joseph’s University Press, 2010), as well as several book chapters and articles that deal with connections between Teilhard’s religious essays and modern science. Kathleen also guides evening, weekend, and week-long retreats on topics related to Teilhard’s life and work.
Vice President
Jennifer Morgan is an award-winning author, storyteller, and educator inspired by the work of Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Berry, and Brian Swimme. Her Universe Story Trilogy — Born With a Bang, From Lava to Live, and Mammals Who Morph are used in classrooms around the world, particularly in Montessori schools as part of the Cosmic Education Curriculum, and have received the Teachers Choice Award, Nautilus Semi Finalist, highest ratings from AAAS and endorsements from Jane Goodall, Neil de Grasse Tyson, astronaut Edgar Mitchell, Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme and others. She’s founder and president of the Deeptime Network (dtnetwork.org), a global educational network that offers professional development, courses and study groups in the New Cosmology. Members can blog and add resources and events, and promote their work through DTNetwork social media.
Secretary
Tracy Higgins has been a member of the American Teilhard Association and active in the French Amis de Teilhard de Chardin for over 20 years. Providentially, she had been introduced to Teilhard by an Irish priest assigned to an historic Spanish mission church in Texas where she was living at the time, just prior to moving back to France where she became intimately familiar with Teilhard’s life and work. During her career in the Defense Department, Tracy also served in Italy, Rwanda, Korea, Burundi, Israel, Egypt and India. Upon retirement in NY, she earned a PhD from Columbia University and became a practicing RN specializing in neurological disorders and pediatric psychiatry. She is studying Jungian psychoanalytic theory which she incorporates clinically into expressive arts and Sandplay therapy.
TreasurerPaula Guarnaccia, MEd is the current Treasurer of the American Teilhard Association. She has been an active member of ATA since 2012. Paula’s primary work is in partnership with her husband, the composer, Sam Guarnaccia. Together they created the Emergent Universe Oratorio Project which is a choral orchestral musical rendering of the story of our evolving Universe to the present day. It was inspired both by the work of Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry. Paula’s background is in administration in both higher education and healthcare. At the time of her retirement from the University of Vermont, College of Arts and Sciences, she was the Assistant Dean of Administration and Finance. Prior to that position for almost twenty years she had been an Administrative Director for the University of Vermont College of Medicine Health Network.
Chair of Publications
Laura Eloe, PhD works in the office of the Fr. William J. Ferree, S.M. Chair of Social Justice and is an adjunct instructor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Dayton in Ohio. She has been a member of the American Teilhard Association since 2016 and is the editor of Teilhard Studies. Her 2019 dissertation at the University of Dayton, titled Loosing the Bound: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's Analogical Imagination in the Post-Euclidean Tradition explores the impact of Teilhard's baccalaureate studies in mathematics and his long-time relationship with mathematician and philosopher Édouard Le Roy on his writing. In 2019 she published "From Newman through Teilhard and Beyond" in the Newman Studies Journal, an expanded version of a talk given at the 2018 "Newman and 20th Century Thinkers" conference of the Newman Association of America.
Chair of Communications
Angela Manno is an internationally exhibited artist and iconographer whose work has been deeply influenced by Teilhard, Thomas Berry and her years long practice in Byzantine-Russian iconography under Master iconographer, Vladislav Andreyev. Her award-winning art resides private collections around the world and in the NASA and Smithsonian fine art collections. She studied Earth Literacy at Genesis Farm in its three month long Earth Literacy program and holds a Bachelor’s degree in French from Bard College. Her most recent project, “Sacred Icons of Endangered Species,” depicts non-human species in a traditionally religious form - the icon, originating in the monasteries of 14th-16th century Russia, in order to awaken a sense of the Sacred for all living beings and ecosystems. Each time she sells one of her icons, she donates 50% to the Center for Biological Diversity, a highly successful organization protecting critical habitat for all creatures great and small on the brink of extinction. Visit her website.
Santiago Aranda has been a member of the Board of the American Teilhard Association since 2008. He has a BS in Environmental Sciences and a BA in Philosophy from the Loyola University Chicago. Sant has postgraduate studies in Sustainable Design of Human Settlements, Sustainable Construction and in Conflict Resolution including courses on The Earth Story. Hs professional career revolves around sustainability and shaping our future in the spirit of Teilhard by designing and building several sustainable human settlements as well as energy projects. He has advised new businesses and companies to make their production processes more efficient and incorporate elements of sustainability in them. Between 2006 and 2007, Santiago guided eco-spirituality programs which focused on caring for the environment and environmental education. He has taught classes and conferences on sustainability, infrastructure design and construction. In 2016 he helped produced El Corazon de la Materia, a play about the life of Teilhard intertwined with current-day events.
Bede Benjamin Bidlack is Associate Professor of Theology at Saint Anselm College. He teaches and publishes in the areas of creation theology (anthropology and sacramental theology), comparative theology, interreligious dialogue, Daoist Studies, and philosophy. He is the author of, among other things, In Good Company: Body and Divinization in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Daoist Xiao Yingsou (Brill 2015).
Joshua Canzona earned a PhD in Theological and Religious Studies from Georgetown University in 2018 with a dissertation comparing the thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Muhammad Iqbal, the intellectual father of Pakistan. Dr. Canzona is currently serving as the Associate Ombudsman at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, where he acts as a confidential and alternative dispute resolution resource for over 40,000 students, faculty, and staff. He also teaches graduate courses on comparative mysticism, Muslim-Christian dialogue, and religion and art at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity.
Kathleen Noone Deignan, CND, PhD, is a sister of the Congregation of Notre Dame, a teaching theologian and founding director of the Deignan Institute for Earth and Spirit at Iona College. A student of Thomas Berry while studying at Fordham University, she is a founding convener of the Thomas Berry Forum for Ecological Dialogue and a GreenFaith Fellow engaged in interfaith environmental leadership. President Emerita of the International Thomas Merton Society, Sister Kathleen's books include When the Trees Say Nothing: Thomas Merton's Writings on Nature and Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours, and ChristSpirit: The Theology of Shaker Christianity. She is composer in residence with Schola Ministries that has produced more than a dozen collections of her original music in service to the liturgical and contemplative arts.
Andrew Del Rossi, ThD has served as a theology teacher, service-learning educator, campus minister, non-profit operator, and palliative care consultant for alternative and holistic therapies. He is currently the Director of the Spirituality Center at Daylesford Abbey in Paoli, PA and is publishing and presenting on Teilhard, spirituality, and psychology. He was recently nominated to the board of the American Teilhard Association and is the editor of Teilhard Perspective. Andrew resides in New Jersey with his wife and their two children.
Frank and Mary Frost are independent documentary filmmakers with more than 35 years of experience. Frank earned his PhD in Cinema from the University of Southern California. Mary is a journalism graduate of the University of Toledo and was a syndicated reporter on Capitol Hill before joining Frank Frost Productions. The Frosts are producing a film on the life of Teilhard de Chardin for public television. The 2-hour television biography relies heavily on Teilhard’s own words and those of his correspondents as found in his prolific writings. Interviews with noted Teilhard scholars provide context and interpretation. Filming is complete at major locations where Teilhard lived and worked in France, England, and China. Post-production is underway. “Rediscovering Fire: The Evolution of Teilhard de Chardin,” will be the first ever television documentary on Teilhard for American television.
Douglas Hertler, aka Doug Lory, is a professional actor, playwright, retreat leader, and NYC tour guide. He also works at Fordham University School of Law as an actor/educator. His one-man play Merton and Me, A Living Trinity, debuted in the fall of 2018 for the Corpus Christi Chapter of the International Thomas Merton Society (ITMS) in NYC, where Doug is a member. Doug holds a BA in Speech/Communication/Theatre from Monmouth University and is currently researching a book with the working title, “God’s Manhattan Project, the Ultimate Human Experiment,” exploring the dynamism and diversity of NYC through Teilhard’s hopeful and inspiring vision that “Union Differentiates,” and that humanity will someday “harness the energies of love.” Visit his website.
Kusumita P. Pedersen is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at St. Francis College and Chair of the Interfaith Center of New York. She is also a member of the Climate Action Task Force (CATF) of the Parliament of the World's Religions and of the Climate Working Group of the Committee of Religious NGOs at the United Nations. She is co-author of Global Ethics in Practice: Historical Backgrounds, Current Issues and Future Prospects (Edinburgh University Press, 2016) and co-author of Faith for Earth: A Call to Action (UN Environment Programme and Parliament of the World’s Religions, 2020). She has been a student of Sri Chinmoy (1931-2007) since 1971 and her book Love and Transformation: The Philosophy of Sri Chinmoy is forthcoming from Lexington Books.
Louis M. Savary, PhD, STD, holds two doctorates, one in mathematical statistics and another in theology. He was a Jesuit for thirty years, and for the past forty years has been explaining Teilhard's ideas in ordinary language. He has published over eight books on Teilhard, including "The Divine Milieu" Explained and "The Phenomenon of Man" Explained. He has written The New Spiritual Exercises: In the Spirit of Teilhard de Chardin, bringing Teilhard's evolutionary perspective to the classic Ignatian Exercises. He has also written essays for Teilhard Studies. He lives with his wife and, often, co-author, Patricia H. Berne, a clinical psychologist, in Tampa, Florida.
Daniel P. Scheid, PhD, is Associate Professor of Theology at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. in Theological Ethics from Boston College (2008), his M.A. in Theology from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and his A.B. in History from Princeton University. His theological work focuses on interreligious ecological ethics, drawing on Catholic social thought and comparative theology, with particular attention to Catholic-Hindu and Catholic-Buddhist dialogue. In addition to multiple journal articles and book chapters, he is the author of The Cosmic Common Good: Religious Grounds for Ecological Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2016), which reorients ecologically key principles of Catholic social thought and places these in dialogue with Hindu, Buddhist, and American Indian religious traditions. Dan and his wife, Anna, live in Pittsburgh with their three children.
The Rev. Dr. Nancy Wright, board member of the American Teilhard Association, is the Pastor of Ascension Lutheran Church, S. Burlington, VT and the Environmental Liaison for the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Dr. Wright coauthored (with Fr. Donald Kill) Ecological Healing: A Christian Vision (Orbis, 1993); “Christianity and Environmental Justice” (Crosscurrents, June 2011); and the chapter “Living Water,” in Living Cosmology: Christian Responses to Journey of the Universe (Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, eds., Orbis 2016). Previous ministries included Congregational Coordinator at Earth Ministry, Settle, and staff member at CODEL (Coordination in Development, Inc.), which funded international small-scale development projects. In addition to two advanced theological degrees, she holds an M.A. in Environmental Conservation Education. She and her congregation created the Congregational Watershed Discipleship Manual (Christian and interreligious versions) available for free PDF download or bound copy order here.
