It’s not all too different from his Fridays as an undergraduate at Georgetown, when he would hand out bagged lunches in Dupont Circle with the Community of Sant’Egidio, a lay Catholic organization that has helped form Bartoli’s spiritual journey and vocational life. 

Today, Bartoli heads a homeless outreach program in New York City called “The Solidarity Project.” The program, a collaboration between the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Community of Sant’Egidio, aims to complement existing state and nonprofit systems in the city through “personal bonds that overcome the anonymity of bureaucracy,” according to Bartoli.

“We want to encourage and enable all people of goodwill to serve others they would not otherwise engage with on a daily basis,” said Bartoli. “We want to build relationships that go beyond the usual expectations of our society and, in so doing, build a better world, little by little.”

The Community of Sant’Egidio

The Community of Sant’Egidio began in 1968, when high schooler Andrea Riccardi recognized the material and spiritual needs of the underserved neighborhoods on the periphery of native Rome. With a small group of friends, Riccardi began organizing acts of charity, from free classes for underserved schoolchildren to answering material needs for food and clothing. These like-minded friends were trying to live up to the gospel message by living it out every day. 

More than half a century later, that community has grown into a global community with a presence in more than 70 countries. The community centers its actions around a spiritual life rooted in fraternal bonds and service to others.

“Our theory of change at Sant’Egidio, if you can call it that, is that personal relationships are the foundation of any sort of society,” said Bartoli. If we want to change the world then we start with ourselves and the people we meet on any given day.”

The community encourages members to maintain what they call an “ear for suffering,” which consists of listening and engaging with people who have often been pushed to the peripheries of society. 

“All of the services that we do, whether it’s free meals on the streets or visiting the elderly in nursing homes, are conceived of in response to the communities in which we live,” said Bartoli. “Sant’Egidio is present all over the world and, depending on the context in which a local community finds itself, the individuals who make up that community try to respond to needs as a brother or a sister would.”

For members of the community, maintaining an ear for suffering entails more than just listening, it requires action. 

“We try our very best to make our lives available to the people we meet, to listen to what it is they ask us to do for them and to respond seriously to the invitations that they make on our lives,” said Bartoli.

“Many of the people walking down the street in New York are crying out for help. In all major cities, many people are in need of an invitation to lead a full and good life, a life that they were meant to live, a life that they were built for, a life that brings them into contact with other people, that isn’t just centered around themselves.”

Through the building of substantive relationships with one another, the Community creates systems of spiritual and material support. Just during the preparation of this story, Richard, a friend and member of the Community, entered permanent housing for the first time in over a decade of friendship. 

Bartoli on the Hilltop

Before his work with the Community of Sant’Egidio became a full-time job, Bartoli had spent years growing, professionally and spiritually, with the community. During his time on the Hilltop, Bartoli volunteered weekly with the Washington, DC chapter of the community, serving the unhoused and those in need.  

“The community revolves around the idea that every person of faith has a call and an invitation to serve the poor freely,” said Bartoli. “I have found that this not only speaks to the heart of the gospel message but is a solid foundation for a Christian life that is worth living.”

As an undergraduate at Georgetown, Bartoli not only had an impact on the city through the Community of Sant’Egidio, but on the Hilltop through his academic pursuits and lived faith, which those close to him witnessed. Eric Wu (SFS’17) remembers meeting Bartoli as first-year roommates in Darnall Hall. 

“I wasn’t close friends with very many religious people growing up and, of the religious people that I did know, I basically never spoke with them seriously about religion,” said Wu. “Regrettably, I didn’t exhibit much curiosity about their faith traditions or how they lived out their faith day to day.”

“Then, I became freshman year roommates with Pietro and he practiced his faith in a way that was so human and so in touch with the realities of his day-to-day life, his friendships, his family and his work — for me that completely flipped on its head the concept of religion and what it meant to be religious.”

A theology major and history and Jewish civilization minor, Bartoli completed a senior honors thesis that examined the contemporary relationship between Jewish and Catholic theologies. His thesis started with Nostra aetate, an official declaration from the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican that focuses on how Catholics should engage with, and live alongside, people of other faith traditions. 

“My senior thesis studied the Catholic Church’s actions beginning with and since Nostra aetate in light of the Orthodox Jewish document, “To Do the Will of Our Father in Heaven,” said Bartoli. “I argued that an intentional line of thinking could be found in those 50 years that demonstrated a willingness to engage in the other’s terms, signaling hope for a better future.”

After graduating in 2017, Bartoli earned his M.A. from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. His thesis, titled “Interpreting Faith and Religion: Lessons from Social Justice Catholics,” explored the lives of Catholics in the Bay Area who chose to live out their faith as a profession. 

“My interest is on the role of faith in an increasingly secularized world, particularly regarding how faith motivates people to contribute to the common good,” said Bartoli. “All throughout graduate school, it was very clear to me that Christianity and the life of a Christian disciple is a life of service to the poor. We are called to abide by a love for those on the peripheries of the society as if they are our brothers and sisters.”

Before undertaking full-time work on behalf of the Community of Sant’Egidio in 2021, Bartoli actively served with the group in various capacities for more than a decade. Whether as a mentor in the School of Peace in the Bronx or as a volunteer handing out food on the street, service has remained a constant in Bartoli’s life. 

“In a world that atomizes each person and drives us further apart, we have the option and responsibility to choose dialogue, friendship, and peace,” said Bartoli. “The world needs a revolution of tenderness, as Pope Francis likes to say, and we can only achieve this through a spiritual revolution that opens us to loving in ways we never thought possible before.”

Photography by Todd France.

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The volume, which offers a radical re-reading of both the Talmud and the Bible in light of lived disability experience, recently received the Myra H. Kraft Memorial Award in Contemporary Jewish Life from the Jewish Book Council. 

“People often ask me what religious texts say about disability,” said , a rabbi and a professor in the . “This book flips that question on its head and asks: ‘What does disability offer to Jewish tradition, to spiritual life and to the practice of building meaningful community?’”

Moses as Disabled Prophet

“Open the Bible and disability is everywhere,” Watts Belser says. 

One prominent example is the prophet Moses, who describes himself as “slow of speech and tongue”—and who fears that his speech disability will prevent him from carrying out God’s call. But God meets Moses’ access needs. Moses’ brother Aaron stands in as the first “reasonable accommodation” in the Torah, becoming an essential part of the prophet’s communication team. God grants Moses the gift of signs—an invitation to embrace visual language, rather than to rely on words.

God also promises to be with Moses as he speaks. For Watts Belser, this line is not about God fixing Moses’ tongue but relying on it. 

“I hear it as a claim that God’s presence is in the very particulars of Moses’ mouth, in the twists of his tongue, in the physical realities of the body God has formed for him,” wrote Watts Belser. “God has not undone Moses’s disability or erased it. God has promised presence, in and through the very tongue that Moses offers to the world.”

Throughout the book, Watts Belser not only dives into the life of Moses, but an array of foundational stories for Christian and Jewish thought, including the blindness of Isaac, Jacob’s struggle with an angel and the miracles of Jesus. 

The Lessons of Lived Disability Experience

Looking to disability studies and lived disability experience as a source of wisdom is a throughline for Watts Belser’s ongoing academic research. 

“This book aims to recognize disability wisdom as a generative, potent source of spiritual and political insight,” said Watts Belser. 

Watts-Belser recalls a moment in rabbinical school that shifted her perspective on how lived disability experience might inform, rather than be informed by, the religious texts to which she’d devoted her life to study. There is a famous debate in the Talmud about whether it is permissible to soften the truth to spare someone’s feelings.  When one ancient rabbi is asked how to praise a woman on her wedding day, he responds that it’s best to praise everyone in the same way—as “a beautiful and graceful bride.” Another rabbi contends that if the woman is blind or lame, those stock compliments will become lies. 

“The rabbi assumes that her disability makes her undesirable,” said Watts Belser. “It hit me so hard. Not just because that idea gets expressed in a sacred text, but because it remains such a ubiquitous assumption in contemporary culture. It’s a text that helped me realize that I would have to find a different way of reading these stories–one that would shake up those assumptions and showcase the powerful, subversive brilliance of disability culture.”

Lived disability experience is a wellspring of wisdom that not only enriches the realm of theology, but can improve all of our lives. “Ableism hurts all of us,” Watts Belser argues. She sees a powerful connection between the Jewish tradition of Shabbat and the disability community’s radical embrace of rest amidst modernity’s overpowering allegiance to productivity culture. 

“Immersing myself in the rhythms of disability culture, learning from folks with a whole host of disability experiences, including chronic illness, chronic pain and chronic fatigue, helped me recognize the radical edge of rest. So many disabled people experience significant limits to our energy and pace. For me, that has spurred an extraordinary invitation to detox from dominant culture’s claim that our worth is defined by our ability to work.”

“There’s a powerful synergy here with Jewish practice, with the way Shabbat honors and recognizes rest as sacred. It aligns so deeply with a principle that’s at the heart of the disability community — a commitment to honor people not for what we do, but for who we are. To recognize that regardless of whether or not we measure up to capitalism’s metrics, each of our lives have infinite value.” 

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Nami Bolat (C’25), who is double majoring in French and theology and religious studies and minoring in Japanese, spent the past few months researching the Nabis. Bolat spent the summer on a Davis Fellowship, digging through the lives, beliefs and paintings that the Nabis left behind, first in the United States, then in Japan and, finally, in France. 

For Bolat, who has been fascinated by artists of the period since high school, the flow of religious and philosophical ideas from East to West, drew her to the project. 

“I have always been abstractly interested in the interplay between the East and West, especially when it comes to spirituality and religion,” explained Bolat. “Time and time again, it seems like the West has looked to the East for inspiration that they can’t seem to find in their own religions.”

Uncovering the Nabis

The name that the group took, Nabis, comes from the Hebrew word Nebiim, meaning a prophet, enlightened one or seer. 

“The name was coined by the poet Henri Cazali,” said Bolat. “He noticed a similarity between the way the brotherhood of painters sought to revitalize painting and the way the ancient projects had restored Israel.”

The name, and the additional mystical and philosophical trappings of a secret society, stuck. For the Nabis, the ancient prophets of Israel were just one part of a vast network of holy men whose teachings they wanted to uncover and digest. 

“Many of the artists were fascinated by occultism, esotericism and Theosophy,” said Bolat. “Theosophy claimed to be a synthesis of all world religions, a movement that sought the ‘ultimate truth’ expressed by all religions and world views that was very popular in the period amidst a rapidly secularizing France and ever-increasing global communication and exchange.” 

According to Bolat, the Nabis, though secluded by choice, were emblematic of a larger cultural trend, wherein Western thinkers and artists dabbled broadly, sucking in philosophical and religious ideas from the East.  

In her research, Bolat documents how the Nabis were importing more than just a piecemeal assembly of religious ideology, but were also drawing on Japanese art, including ukiyo-e, a genre that flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries and which was popular in Paris at the time. 

“J���貹�Ա���� ukiyo-e woodblock prints had a profound and instantaneous impact on European artists,” said Bolat. “It rose in popularity as Western art of the mid-nineteenth century struck an impasse, ensnared by naturalism and sterile academicism.” 

The synthesis studied by Bolat traveled along ideological, religious and artistic avenues. By traveling to Paris and Tokyo, she was able to directly examine artwork from prominent members of the Nabis, including Paul-Élie Ranson, Paul Sérusier, and Maurice Denis. 

“My research has uncovered that Theosophy seems to have been the most prominent religious influence on the group while the Japanese influence was mostly an aesthetic one,” said Bolat. “Theosophy’s attempts to amalgamate or find commonalities between all religions and world views are fascinating, a bit frightening and another example of how the West interacted and continues to interact with the East, both positively and negatively, on the spiritual and religious plane. 

The World as a Classroom

Bolat’s travels and research were funded through a Royden B. Davis Fellowship. Every year, the ������̳ of Arts & Sciences awards undergraduate students fellowships between $1,000 and $5,000 to explore “transformative educational experiences.” 

Given in honor of Fr. Davis, Dean of the ������̳ of Arts & Sciences from 1966 to 1989, the fellowship empowers students to pursue avenues of interest that extend beyond the boundaries of the classroom, encouraging the curiosity that is at the heart of a liberal arts education. 

“In any situation, one should always leave room for the unexpected and the unseen,” Fr. Davis said in a 1985 commencement address. “In order to do this, we must employ the imagination… One gains through the imagination a freedom of action, and ability to be ready for fresh choices.”

For Bolat, her summer experience not only expanded her horizons, but allowed her to connect her personal identity, interests and area of study. Bolat, who has relatives in France and Japan, was able to reconnect with family while studying the Nabis. 

“I began my travels afraid I was about to face a tremendously lonely journey, worried that my subpar Japanese wouldn’t be enough to feel close to the family I’ve left behind there, worried to be all alone wandering around Paris,” said Bolat. “I was proven completely and utterly wrong.”

, an associate professor in the , sponsored Bolat’s research and mentored her throughout the process. 

“Nami’s project is an exciting and interdisciplinary one that has allowed her to combine all of her academic areas of interest in important and wide-ranging ways,” said O’Neil-Henry. “Using her Japanese and French language skills, Nami was able to access different international archives and museums and in the process discover connections among history, art history, culture and religion.”

Throughout her travels and archival research at home, Bolat was able to better understand the Nabis and herself.  

“Every single day brought something new and exciting,” said Bolat. “Even during the month before I left, I was immersed in research and there were so many times when my jaw was on the floor at what I was reading.”

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Organized by the ������̳ Academic Council, the colloquium is open to student researchers from all of the university’s schools. This year’s colloquium featured research from 22 students, including 18 from Georgetown’s ������̳ of Arts and Sciences. 

The breadth of research on display was vast, touching on topics as disparate as how Confucian martyrs functioned in the Joseon kingdom of Korea and how access to cell phones empowers women in rural India. 

Reclaiming a Confucian Martyr 

Gene Kim (C’23) presented her paper Jeon Bulgwan: Confucian Martyr, Confucian Victim, which came out of a class taught by , a lecturer in the . 

Bulgwan, an enslaved Korean courtesan who lived during the 16th and 17th centuries, was elevated as a martyr after her suicide. Kim’s research situates the phenomenon of Bulgwan’s martyrdom within the social, political and religious structures of Joseon, the dynastic kingdom of Korea in which she lived.  

“There was very little existing research,” Kim says. “I felt as though I was bringing a new idea to life rather than merely reorganizing old ideas.” 

Kim describes the Joseon Dynasty as highly regulated. Women, in particular, had a difficult time modulating their behavior to fit expectations. After being ordered by a different official to serve him, Bulgwan chose to end her own life rather than be unfaithful to her previous partner. The story of Bulgwan was told, in several variations, to uphold the ideals of Confucianism. 

Kim’s research extracts Bulgwan from the confinement of her martyrdom, giving her agency and seeking to understand how a woman can both be crushed by a system and exalted by it. 

“I am particularly proud of this research because it was a unique opportunity to combine my Theology major with my Korean minor,” says Kim “And I am grateful to Professors Morici and Choi for their guidance.”

A Call for Household Agency

Solveig Baylor (C’22), a double major in economics and philosophy with a minor in math, wrote her senior thesis on how access to cell phones empowers women in rural India. 

Baylor’s analysis used an existing data set to measure how access to a cell phone affected household consumption. Cell phone access in India cleaves along gender lines, reducing a woman’s ability to inform household decisions, arrange safe travel and engage with news media. Baylor’s research builds on the existing literature that establishes why, for a variety of economic and cultural reasons, women face barriers to access cell phones in rural India. Household consumption, and the decisions that influence it, records far more than a simple ledger of transactions. 

“The household is the base unit of a community,” Baylor explains. “Understanding the forces that affect its consumption outcomes can have far-reaching implications for different types of policy.”

Baylor found that households in which a woman accessed a mobile phone spent their resources differently, decreasing overall household consumption while increasing money spent on food and household finances. 

“The savings behavior and increased nutritional concern of households point to greater development in rural India,” Baylor reflects. “Mobile phones can change the horizon on many fronts: human development, poverty eradication and gender equality.”

“The Dean’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching are an incredibly important part of our tradition,” says the Dean of Georgetown’s ������̳ of Arts and Sciences Rosie Ceballo. “Previous awardees are recognized and honored with a plaque that hangs in the Dean’s office so from my very first days I knew that this was an important and special honor.”

Julia Watts Belser

Belser occupies several roles within the Georgetown community. From teaching Jewish studies in the to helping establish the minor in Disability Studies, Belser is a dynamic, interdisciplinary force on campus. She is also a senior research fellow at the . 

“Dr. Julia Watts Belser represents the best of Georgetown ������̳ faculty in the classroom,” said , Vice Dean of Faculty and a professor in the . “Challenging students to consider the confluence of Judaism, gender studies and disability studies – two strands run through her teaching critical analysis and engaged reflection.”

Belser innovates with her lesson plans and assignments, bringing the outside world into the classroom.

“Her creativity and teaching might best be seen in a semester-long project she developed in collaboration with Georgetown’s ethics lab,” Edelstein recounted. “At the same time that students read disability studies theory and ethnographies of religious communities in the classroom, they also become ethnographers, making three different site visits to examine how access and inaccessibility are produced through tangible environments.”

For Belser, the dynamic back-and-forth with students is essential the process of learning.

“One of the things I love about Georgetown is the invitation to be so creative in the classroom,” Belser says. “My students are hungry for opportunities to grapple with big questions, to wrestle with the complexities of power and privilege and to integrate their learning more deeply with their own lived experiences.”

Yulia Chentsova Dutton 

Chentsova Dutton, an associate professor in the , is known for her methodologically rigorous approach to studying culture. Paired with that analytic commitment is an understanding and appreciation of the complexity of human culture. 

“Professor Chentsova Dutton is a dedicated and innovative teacher who cares deeply about our students, their sense of belonging and their relationship with the world,” said , Vice Dean of Faculty and a professor in the . “Her attention to connecting the academic with the experiential, her commitment to culturally informed teaching and her care for the whole student underpin her role as both example and exemplar of Georgetown’s commitment to teaching undergraduates.” 

Chentsova Dutton joined Georgetown’s faculty in 2007 and her courses over the past 15 years have left a mark on her students and the academic community as a whole. 

“Getting this award is a tremendous honor,” says Chentsova Dutton. “There is a long tradition of deep caring and engagement that this award represents.”

For Chentsova Dutton, the award doesn’t represent a culmination, but a recognition of how far she’s come in her academic career.

“I am also a first-generation immigrant,” Chentsova Dutton says. “I came to the United States as a high school exchange student from the then-USSR and ended up staying here for college and beyond. I was a low-income scholarship student that was able to achieve in large part because of caring and brilliant teachers I encountered along the way. This award is a reminder of the impact we can have.” 

Janeth Presores

Presores, an assistant teaching professor in the , has a direct impact on hundreds of undergraduate students every year who she teaches in demanding general chemistry labs. 

“Remarkable, invaluable, supremely-organized and full-hearted. These are just some of the terms that have been used to describe Professor Janeth Presores,” said , Vice Dean of Faculty and Professor of French and Francophone Studies. “Professor Presores has served on our faculty for the past decade, and in that time she has done, simply, outstanding work with both undergraduate and graduate students.”

Presores, who earned her PhD at Georgetown, has contributed in innumerable ways to the Hilltop. 

“It is a great honor to receive the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching,” says Presores. “Thank you to my colleagues in the Department of Chemistry for the nomination. This award means a lot to me as it recognizes my work and the enormous contributions of the graduate teaching assistants in these large multi-section general chemistry lab courses. I am grateful for the teaching assistants’ hard work, cooperation and suggestions to achieve the goal of delivering quality instructions and chemistry lab experience (whether virtually or hands-on) to undergraduate students.” 

Presores emphasis on teaching assistants recognizes that instruction is not done in a vacuum, but as part of a community

“I would also like to express my appreciation to our brilliant undergraduates at Georgetown,” Presores says. “Their enthusiasm to learn, resilience to meet our high academic standards and ability to quickly adapt to changes in the mode of instructions is nothing short of inspiring.”

“Instead of carving off our edges to fit a cookie-cutter pedagogy, she meets each student as already having their own situated knowledge and wealth of experience,” shares Lin Henke (C’23), who took Cline’s Ignatius Seminar as a first year. “As the Daoists might say, she meets us each as a piece of unhewn wood, rather than putting us on a carving block that academia can sometimes become.”

Cline’s students cite personal and academic transformations thanks to their coursework with the philosopher. 

“When you ask students to describe Professor Cline, they use words like inspiring, intelligent, genuine and someone who fosters true collaboration, community and closeness,” Dean Rosario Ceballo says. 

In the spring of 2021, a group of ������̳ seniors who had taken her course Human Flourishing: East and West as freshmen asked if they could revisit the course in their final year. Cline obliged, creating a first-of-its-kind Ignatius Seminar for seniors, which brought  together the original group of students to leverage their cumulative college experience for shared learning and reflection. 

For Katie Ho (C’22), who took Chinese Philosophy with Cline in her first semester as a student, the experience has informed the remainder of her time at Georgetown. 

“Even though we were all little boxes on screens, I could feel her warm, compassionate, intelligent and strong presence radiating outwards from her little box as soon as she turned her camera on, smiled, and asked how we were doing that day,” Ho reflects. “She is, without a doubt, one of the most special individuals I have ever had the privilege of learning from, and I am beyond grateful to have taken four courses with her during my time here at Georgetown. 

Cline is the Tagliabue Distinguished Professor in Interfaith Studies and Dialogue and a Senior Research Fellow in the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. She is the author of five books. Her two most recent books are Little Sprouts and the Dao of Parenting and The Analects: A Guide, which were published in 2020 and 2021. 

Students Lauded for Interdisciplinary Paths

Also recognized by the CAC were Katie Woodhouse (C’22) and Arjun Ravi (C’22), the recipients of the 2022 Chester Gillis Award. Established in 2016 by the ������̳ Academic Council (CAC), the award recognizes students who embody the values of a liberal arts education in the Jesuit tradition, which championed during his time as Dean. 

“The award carries on Dean Gillis’s legacy by recognizing students whose work engages with Jesuit values in innovative and constructive ways,” says Lucy Doyle (C’22), president of the CAC. “Arjun and Katie have cultivated diverse intellectual commitments that span different departments and disciplines. Both embody the interdisciplinary approach esteemed by the awards.”

Woodhouse, a psychology major and music history minor, has pursued a pre-med pathway through her undergraduate studies. Bringing together these disparate disciplines has enabled Woodhouse to fully explore her academic interests and internal motivations. 

Instead of directly matriculating to medical school, Woodhouse plans to put a capstone on her Jesuit education through a year of service. After graduating in the spring, she will join the Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest in Missoula, Montana, where Woodhouse will work as a Child Nutrition and Health Community Advocate at the Missoula Food Bank and Community Center. 

“The robust and manifold education I have received from Georgetown ������̳ is integral to my future goals in the medical field,” Woodhouse says. “I plan to practice integrative medicine, relying on cultural, social and individual status, varied therapies and a symbiotic doctor-patient relationship rather than conventional primary care.”

At every step of the way, a varied and diverse spate of study defined Woodhouse’s academic career. To fulfill her language requirement, Woodhouse pursued a unique path taking courses in American Sign Language, which led her to classes at Gallaudet University through the ������̳ Consortium of Washington, DC. 

“Social science, natural science, the humanities, language, the performing arts – they all play a critical role in my undergraduate education,” Woodhouse reflects. “I want to carry that interdisciplinary approach forward. I want to treat and understand patients with the dual skills of a trained psychologist and medical expert, delivering care led by empathy, respect and the pursuit of a greater good.”

Tech Reform, Justice in Policing

Ravi’s time at Georgetown has led him to examine the myriad ways in which evolving technology shapes and changes people’s lives through policing, criminal justice and law enforcement. 

“Over the last decade, we have witnessed a boom in automated decision-making to circumvent human bias,” Ravi posits. “Algorithms, however, are not necessarily better than humans: they inherit bias from training data and model-building. And, despite their faults, they are making life-changing decisions on everything from healthcare, hiring and education to housing, credit and welfare.”

To obtain a firsthand perspective on policing, Ravi interned with the Metropolitan Police Department, where he investigated police officer applicants, interviewed residents and reviewed body camera footage. Ravi even accompanied officers in their squad cars during nightly patrols as part of the Summer Crime Initiative – the MPD’s push to combat rising crime in the 6th and 7th police districts. 

“I visited the sites of robberies, shootings and domestic violence calls, and I learned about policing in our community,” says Ravi. “Today, some of those police officers are dear friends and mentors, but the system of policing I saw was broken.” 

In his own life, Ravi has confronted racial bias firsthand, and is cognizant of the ways seemingly impartial technologies could further entrench racial disparities. By taking on a wide array of courses in economics and mathematics, and pursuing undergraduate research opportunities, Ravi combined the academic with the personal. He studied algorithmic risk assessment in the criminal justice system with Megan Stevenson, an economist and criminal justice researcher at the University of Virginia School of Law, and congressional elections as the Fritz Fellow in Tech & Society at the . 

“At Georgetown, I have dedicated my course of study to empirically analyzing technology that affects people’s lives,” Ravi says. “Next year, I will be an Empirical Research Fellow at Stanford Law School, working on the economics of crime and fairness in machine learning. With these academic experiences, I hope to translate research into actual policy, fighting for better tech policy at every level.”

“Colleen’s work studies how the road to reconciliation is complicated by the Catholic Church’s compromised position,” says , director of the Global Irish Studies program. “Given the Catholic Church’s message of forgiveness and reconciliation, especially under the current Pope, the Church should be a vital partner in building the future in a country that was riven by strife that tended to play out along sectarian lines. But the Church’s moral authority is damaged, perhaps irreparably, in the wake of the child sex abuse scandal and the scandals of institutional abuse of single mothers.” 

Research and Religion

Prior to joining the Figge Fellows Program, Baer wanted to learn more about Irish culture to prepare for her to study abroad in Dublin during the Spring 2021 semester, so began to take courses focused on Ireland at Georgetown. 

Though the study abroad trip was ultimately canceled due to COVID-19, Baer’s interest in Irish studies intensified after taking a course called the Vatican and Ireland. In addition to her coursework for this class, Baer read Say Nothing, a memoir that chronicles the Troubles. 

“After reading that book, I became deeply interested in that time period and decided to write my research paper on it,” Baer says. “My motivating question was ‘why is peace in Ireland fragile?’ because I noticed that phrase was often repeated by government officials and I was curious as to why.”

As she dug for answers, Baer discovered that the Catholic Church did not occupy the same authoritative position that it used to. 

“I became interested in this relationship after reading about how some priests attempted to facilitate peace in their communities only to see their work impeded by people’s negative perceptions of the Church as an institution,” Baer explains. “There were a variety of reasons that the authority of the Catholic Church started to decline, but one of the things that really struck me was the crisis of faith that people in Ireland went through due to the sex abuse crises in both the U.S. and Ireland.”

Though she only touched on this shift in her initial course paper, Baer says the dynamic stuck with her and ultimately led her to apply and be accepted to the to continue her work. 

While the paper is still in the early stages, Baer’s research will closely examine whether the deterioration in the public’s perception of the Church since the 1990s has had any impact on the peace process, such as if the public opinion of the Church changed among various populations in Northern Ireland. 

Parsons, who teaches an Irish literature course that Baer is enrolled in this semester, explains that the timing of the sex crisis was significant, as it came to light right as peace agreements were beginning to be made, which has had lasting implications for healing in Ireland. 

“The child sex abuse scandal in Ireland first came to public notice in Northern Ireland, with a case that brought down a government and tarnished the very top levels of the Church hierarchy, and it emerged at exactly the time of some of the most delicate negotiations for peace,” Parsons explains. “Those negotiations were successful, but the work of reconciliation is even now barely beginning, and the Church’s ability to guide that is hampered.”

Parsons’ research focuses on the impact of Irish authors on society. He notes that work by scholars like Joe Valente and Margot Backus, along with journalists and activists like Caitriona Palmer and Caelainn Hogan “have uncovered the extent to which clerical sex abuse, its concealment and its revelation have been part of the imaginative life of Ireland, North and South, over the last century and more.” 

“These are difficult and traumatic events, and literature is one of the ways that we process and make sense of such events,” Parsons continues. “They can often only be broached from an angle, and it is the work of literature and the creative arts to explore those depths of trauma and recovery, and to offer models of storytelling and healing.”

Baer says that this research is deeply personal because of her familial ties to the country. Her great-aunt lived in Ireland during the Troubles and her grandfather, though he lived in Manhattan, attended Irish Catholic school until he was in eighth grade. However, Baer says she has never seen him go to mass due to the scandal.

“This crisis is both global and extremely localized – it happened in individual communities, but it also happened on an international scale,” Baer says. “When I think of my grandfather, I am reminded how something like this can have such profound impacts that reshape how someone relates to something as personal as faith. It reminds of the significance of the Church as an institution and how it needs to be included in the examinations of history, politics and culture.” 

Academics, Activities and After Graduation

When she first came to Georgetown, Baer was interested in politics, but did not have a clear focus area. Now, Baer has declared a double major in government and English and minored in theology. She says that her study areas in various aspects of Irish culture have been a perfect mesh of her newfound interests. 

Once she graduates, Baer hopes to attend law school to work in the realm of human rights. 

“After completing all of the work that I have in my various classes and programs around the Irish Catholic Church and research on Bosnia in the 1990s and early 2000s, I have a clearer view of what I want my career path to be,” says Baer. 

In addition to her work for the Figge Fellows Program, Baer also was a member in the ������̳ Democrats club and served on the Sexual Assault and Student Safety Team for GUSA. 

This fall, she completed an internship for the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy. In the spring 2021 semester, Baer won the Bernard M. Wagner Medal, an English department prize, for an essay about the martyrology of Northern Irish hunger strikers in the 1980s that she completed as part of her Martyrdom and Meaning Theology class.

“I am impressed with Colleen’s ability to write about questions of theology and Church history using a set of skills honed in English classes—close reading, critical analysis and fluid, exacting prose,” says Parsons. “Colleen is a formidable scholar, who has been doing independent research on Irish topics for some time, and I am delighted to see that her work is being recognized with one of the prestigious Figge Fellowships.”