Doctoral Students

There are currently 30 students in the Practical Theology Ph.D. program at Boston University School of Theology in various stages of the program. Below is a sampling of some of our students with a brief statement of their research interests.

Danielle Tumminio

Danielle Elizabeth Tumminio is a second-year doctoral student in practical theology with a concentration in church and society.  Her work focuses on theological understandings of trauma and reconciliation, specifically as these topics relate to theological understandings of memory, language, and personal identity.  She has delivered talks on this material at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, the Family Violence and Sexual Assault Institute, and Peace and Safety in the Christian Home.  She is also in the process of finishing up a book on theology in the Harry Potter  series mentioned below.

Before coming to Boston University, Danielle completed three degrees at Yale University: an undergraduate degree in English and an Master of Divinity and Master of Sacred Theology from the Divinity School.  She holds a certificates from Berkeley Divinity School at Yale and Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music and has also studied at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and the Rothberg International School at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  She has been the recipient of the Dwight-Hooker Prize for doctoral studies in theology from Yale University, as well as the Two Brothers Fellowship to study Biblical Hebrew, and the Mercer Scholarship for Episcopal students in the ordination process.

During the spring of 2008, Danielle gained notoriety as the instructor of the “Christian Theology and Harry Potter” seminar at Yale University, which was profiled on CNN.com.  She has delivered talks on the theology of Harry Potter at the Portus Symposium and will be serving as the chair of the Harry Potter and Religion panel at the American Academy of Religion’s 2008 Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Danielle is a postulant for ordination in the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut.  She is also a certified Spinning instructor, a former professional choral singer, an avid yogi, and a first-prize winner on the PBS hit game show, “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.”

Gerone Lockhart

A.B. Princeton University; M.Div. Columbia Theological Seminary; Advanced Studies New York University.

My concentration is pastoral theology.  My research focuses on antebellum Mennonites and Quakers, their reception of Christian tradition, and their responses to U.S. slavery.  I highlight 3 themes: 1) political economic practice as moral and spiritual practice, 2) moral reasoning, and 3) the means of nurturing a way of life.

Holly Reed

Dissertation title: The Ecclesiological Challenge of Computer-Mediated Communication

My research focuses on the ecclesiology of online churches: is an online church really a church? What are the ecclesiological implications of this phenomenon and what are the ecclesiological issues at stake? What sort of impact will the response to these questions have on the future of the church and on the discipline of ecclesiology?  My intent is to suggest a variety of lenses through which to view contemporary developments around CMC and to assess the nature of the Internet church with particular emphasis on the themes of authority, physicality and embodiment, community, and mediation.  Additional research interests include the impact of computer technologies on congregational life, worship, education, pastoral care, evangelism, and administration, as well as the relationship of technology to Christian identity formation in a post-christendom context.

In addition to my role as student I am also a UCC pastor engaged in supply work, a mother of three almost-independent children and three very-dependent dogs, and an abiding fan of the Ariolimax Columbianus.

Jean Halligan Vandergrift

My doctoral research interests are in the ministry of congregational transformation (sometimes referred to as church renewal or revitalization). In my 26 years of pastoral ministry, I have had to lead congregations challenged by declining membership, diminished spiritual vitality, and questions of institutional viability,
particularly so in my last pastorate. In each of these contexts, it was always a struggle to lead them out of denial and into significant practical theological reflection and change, opting for new life. I felt called by God to try to understand this widespread contemporary phenomenon to the end of assisting the church, particularly my denomination – The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)- into more intentional and faithful praxis. One of my hypotheses thus far is that a congregation’s ecclesial identity, nurtured by theological reflection and practices such as preaching, is key to their success in transformation, though such identity has rarely been an explicit aspect of the variety of church renewal programs.

John Tamilio III

Dissertation Title: “Table Conversations: The Practice and Understanding of the Eucharist in the United Church of Christ”

The United Church of Christ (UCC) has the reputation (inside and outside of the denomination) of being non-creedal and non-liturgical.  The recent scholarship of leading UCC theologian Gabriel Fackre has challenged the former claim.  In my dissertation, I hope to challenge the latter claim.  By working with several congregations throughout the denomination (which represent the four bodies that formed the UCC in 1957) as well as the denomination’s normative liturgical texts, it is my hope to articulate the UCC’s theology (or theologies) of Holy Communion.  I will use Don Browning’s A Fundamental Practical Theology: Descriptive and Strategic Proposals, as well as the teachings of Michael Quinn Patton in qualitative research methods, as methodological guides.  NB: I am working with the National Offices of the UCC on this project as well.

Josh Sweeden

Josh Sweeden is a Practical Theology student with a concentration in Congregation and Community.  His particular interests regard how churches (or faith communities) are social bodies living out unique and often alternative forms of politics and economics.  His current research concerns the theological economics embodied by faith communities in response to a particular contextual forms of consumerism, marginalization, and injustice.
Josh Sweeden is a minister in the Church of the Nazarene, a tradition that he has both inherited, and to which he (admittedly) is indebted.  He holds an M.Div. from Nazarene Theological Seminary and a BA in Theology and Christian Ministry from Point Loma Nazarene University.  He is a native of Northern California and is married to Nell Becker Sweeden, who is also a Practical Theology doctoral student at BU.

Kirk VanGilder

•Th.D. Cand., Practical Theology and Mission Studies, Boston University, 2003
•M. Div., Masters of Divinity, Iliff School of Theology, 1997
•B.S., Sociology, Ball State University, 1993

Kirk VanGilder, M.Div, Th.D Cand., was born hard of hearing before losing more hearing in late adolescence and transitioning into the Deaf world.  He is an ordained United Methodist clergyperson and has served as a minister in Deaf churches in Baltimore and Pasadena, MD as well as campus minister to Gallaudet University from 1997-2002.  Kirk has also traveled to Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Turkey to work with Deaf community development and support.  He is currently working on his Th.D dissertation titled, Traversing Boundaries: A Hermeneutical Reorientation of Practical Theological Method Toward Developing Self-Theologizing Agency with Reference to Deaf Zimbabwean Women.  Kirk hopes to continue his travels and research in other countries as well as present his findings and experiences to a wide variety of scholarly and non-scholarly audiences.  He is currently a President’s Fellow in the department of Philosophy and Religion at Gallaudet University, Washington, DC.

Specializations:  Practical theology, missiology, global Christianity, Deaf theologies, theologies of liberation, cross-cultural theologies, theological methodologies.

Laurel Scott

Laurel E. Scott is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and currently serves as Pastor of the multi-ethnic/racial Centralville Church in Lowell, Mass. Currently at the prospectus stage of the program, she proposes researching the church’s response to the contemporary immigration debate, through its treatment of immigrants. Among her other interests are women’s issues, ecumenical and inter-faith activities and worker justice. She is the current Anna Howard Shaw scholar at BUSTH.

Marc Lavallee

Before entering the doctoral program, I received my BA in Theology from Saint Anselm College and a Master’s of Arts in Religion from Yale Divinity School. My areas of interest include: Patristic spirituality, desert monasticism, wisdom  traditions (especially the use of phronesis in practical theology), and peace studies.

Michelle Walsh

Rev. Michelle A. Walsh is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister who is currently studying for a ThD in practical theology with a concentration in pastoral theology and psychology at Boston University.  She also holds a master of divinity and a master in social work from Boston University and is a licensed independent clinical social worker.  Rev. Walsh has worked for over 17 years in lay and professional urban ministry and social work and has directed two major mental health clinics.  She currently has a private practice in pastoral psychotherapy and urban consulting.  Rev. Walsh’s research interests are in the pastoral and public dimensions of trauma and theology, particularly in the urban context.  She has done pilot studies on African-American youth rituals in the aftermath of violence and loss.

Nell Becker Sweeden

Nell is in her second year in the Practical Theology ThD program with a concentration in Church and Society. A native Californian, Nell is married to Josh Sweeden (also in the Practical Theology program). While in her studies, Nell also works in theological education for Nazarene Compassionate Ministries.

Her research interests involve the intersection of ecclesiology with the contextual reality of global migration. Nell is particularly interested in the identity of the church formed through the practice of hospitality and pilgrimage. She hopes to further explore how global migration challenges the church toward further faithfulness in balancing the tension between theology of place/welcome together with theology of pilgrimage. This year Nell will be doing further research on the U.S./Mexico Border and conduct ecclesiological studies in two communities of faith, one on each side of the border.

Pat McLeod

I am a native of Montana who initially came to BU to study Science and Religion with Wesley Wildman.  Wesley was my advisor for an STM that I completed in Science and Religion.  A couple years into my doctoral work I took Bryan Stone’s evangelism class.  That experience altered the trajectory of my graduate studies.  I shortly thereafter switched from Theology to Practical Theology and am currently in the final stages of a Practical Theological dissertation on “Evangelism in an American University Context.”

My wife Tammy and I serve as chaplains at Harvard University.

We have four children.

Song Bok Jon

Bob (Song Bok) Jon
1 year of Th.D. student in Practical Theology, concentrating on Homiletics

Academic Advisor
Dr. Dale P. Andrews

Education
B.A. Yonsei Univ.
M.Div. Boston Univ.
S.T.M. Yale Divinity School

Research Interest
Black Preaching
Korean Preaching
Prophetic Preaching
Homiletical Methodology

Possible Dissertation Topic
Comparative Study between Black Preaching and Korean Preaching

Susan Forshey

BA History (Western Washington University); MDiv (Monastic Studies); St John’s University, MN; ThD student, Practical Theology and Spirituality—I am a Celtic tree-loving emergent anglo-catholic episcopalian with pentecostal and monastic overtones. Find me reading and drinking tea in a cafe window seat, at the monastery in Cambridge, journaling, painting, or hiking. My background includes living in and facilitating intentional Christian communities, healthcare, hospital chaplaincy, and Christian education. I started in the Roman Catholic Church and have worshipped within the Assemblies of God, Presbyterian, and Episcopalian traditions.  Currently in my 4th year of the ThD, I am completing my exams and dreaming of beginning my dissertation on spiritual disciplines as an ecclesial person’s response to consumerism.

Xochitl Alvizo

Xochitl Alvizo was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. After completing her Master of Divinity with a concentration in Theology in 2007, she began the doctoral program in Practical Theology at the Boston University School of Theology with a concentration in Community and Congregation. She is in the ordination process with the (Christian Church) Disciples of Christ and involved in a new church start – a church in a pub.

I want to always be in conversation around two questions: What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to be the church. These are questions we must continuously ask ourselves as people who claim to be part of the Christian tradition so that our conversation, reflection and critique (with those inside and outside the church) may lead us toward more faithful participation in the Good News. In terms of my dissertation, I plan on studying the phenomenon of “pub church” – congregations that meet in pubs.