Team Info

SELF, VIRTUE, AND PUBLIC LIFE
PROJECT TEAMS

2021 Subaward Conference
March 5-6, 2021

Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing Team

Dr. Nancy E. Snow is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Institute for the Study of Human
Flourishing at the University of Oklahoma. She was co-Director of The Self, Motivation & Virtue
Project, a $2.6 million research initiative on the moral self, and is currently the Principal Investigator of
The Self, Virtue, and Public Life Project, a $3.9 million research initiative. She is the author of more than
forty-five papers on virtue and ethic, as well as of Virtue as Social Intelligence: An Empirically Grounded
Theory (Routledge, 2009), Contemporary Virtue Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and the co-
author, with Jennifer Cole Wright and Michael T. Warren, of Understanding Virtue: Theory and
Measurement (Oxford University Press, 2021). She has also edited or co-edited eight volumes: In the
Company of Others: Perspectives on Community, Family, and Culture (Rowman & Littlefield 1996); Legal
Philosophy: Multiple Perspectives (Mayfield, 1999), co-edited with Larry May and Angela Bolte; Stem Cell Research: New Frontiers in Science and
Ethics (Notre Dame, 2004); Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology, and Psychology (Oxford, 2014), The Philosophy and Psychology
of Character and Happiness (Routledge, 2014), co-edited with Franco Trivigno; Developing the Virtues: Integrating Perspectives, co-edited with Julia
Annas and Darcia Narvaez (Oxford, 2016); The Oxford Handbook of Virtue (Oxford, 2018), and Self, Motivation, and Virtue: Innovative
Interdisciplinary Research, co-edited with Darcia Narvaez (Routledge, 2018). Virtue, Democracy, and Online Media, a co-edited volume with
Maria Silvia Vaccarezza, is currently in press at Routledge. She is the series editor of “The Virtues,” a fifteen-volume interdisciplinary
series on virtues published by Oxford University Press. She is currently writing monographs on hope, and virtue ethics and virtue
epistemology. [email protected]

Mechelle Gibson is the Institute Program Administrator and Director of Finance, responsible for the
implementation and management of Institute operations, and logistics. Mechelle has worked at The University of
Oklahoma since 2001 in various capacities, including as Director of Operations in the Office of the Senior Vice
President and Provost for ten years. During this time, she gained extensive experience and knowledge in matters
relating to Finance and Administration, as well as Facility Management and Human Resources. Mechelle
completed her Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration and Leadership at the University of Oklahoma in May
2008. [email protected]

Dr. Andrew Jebb received his PhD in 2020 from Purdue University in industrial-organizational psychology.
While there, he worked on projects relating to statistics, psychological measurement, happiness, and
employee well-being. His work has been published in a variety of journals, such as Psychological Science and
Journal of Management, and has been featured in some popular outlets such as Forbes and Business Insider.
Andrew currently lives in Maine and enjoys spending time with friends and family, being outside, and all the
other things that make life good. [email protected]

Dr. Linda Parsons has enjoyed a 40-year career as a public educator. She recently retired from the Norman
Public Schools as Principal at Washington Elementary, one of the Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing
(ISHF) partner schools. Dr. Parsons has also served as an Assistant Principal, a Curriculum Coordinator, a Library
Media Specialist, and as a teacher. Prior to coming to Norman in 2003, Dr. Parsons worked in the Putnam City
Public Schools, the Edmond Public Schools, and the Deer Creek Public Schools. Before moving to Oklahoma,
she taught in St. Louis and Texas. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Education from Texas Tech
University, a Master's degree from the University of Central Oklahoma in Instructional Media, and a Doctorate
from Oklahoma State University in Curriculum and Supervision.
Linda is currently working part time as an Educational Outreach Coordinator for the ISHF and has a heart for
collaborating with teachers and school leaders who are weaving virtue education into their school programs. [email protected]

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IMPORTANT INFORMATION
New Subaward Team timeline

• May 15, 2021 Update Report Due
• August 1, 2021 Progress Report Due
• November 1, 2021 Update Report Due
• January 15, 2022 Final Progress and Financial Reports Due
• Grant will end February 22, 2022.
*Final Subaward Conference will be in early Fall. Dates are to-be-determined. We hope to host the conference in-person, however, if
needed we will conduct via Zoom again.

Budget information update:

• All expenditures should be submitted no later than December 30, 2021 to your Institution for processing. I would like to get
everything processed by the end of January 2022 to allow for both your Institute and OU to reconcile financials.

• With the no-cost extension, be aware that additional funds are not being provided for the 6-month extension. If you have
someone on salary, you will need to potentially realign some of your budget to cover salaries and fringe. Please plan accordingly,
if you need help, contact Mechelle Gibson for assistance.

• Several airlines are not reimbursing airfares due to pandemic. If you are hesitant about travel, please plan accordingly with virtual
meetings. We can discuss realignment of funds if needed.

• If realignment of funds is required, email Mechelle ([email protected]) to discuss.

Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing Event News:

We are excited to invite you to participate in any of the following events coming this fall.
Teaching Intellectual Virtues: As part of the Institute's 5-year anniversary celebration and in collaboration with Dr. Hong Lin of OU's
Center for Faculty Excellence, the ISHF will sponsor a mini-conference, four follow-up workshops, stipends for faculty to integrate
virtues into new and existing courses, and a two-week workshop for participating faculty, led by Dr. Lin. The last two workshops are to
be held from 10:30 – 11:30 AM CST on the following dates. Registration for these events is required.

• March 12, 2021 - Dr. Jill DeTemple, Chair & Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Southern Methodist University, will
present, “The Dialogic Classroom: Inviting Listening, Curiosity, and Deep Learning in Postsecondary Education.” Registration

• March 19, 2021 – Dr. Domonic Chaloner, Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame,
will present, “Theory and Practice of Developing Virtue through Science Education.” Registration

Virtue Forum Luncheons: Our Virtue Forum Luncheon series began during the planning stages of the Institute, as a way for OU faculty
and staff to discuss flourishing and virtue at OU and in higher education generally. Approximately once a month, OU faculty, staff and
graduate students convene over lunch to share virtue-related research and explore new ideas. Participants are united by an interest in
approaching education informed by an understanding of human flourishing, character, and virtue. No reservation is required. Please see
Zoom link next to each date. For further information to include, presentation abstract, guest lecturer bio, etc., please go to the following
URL. VFL

• March 10, 2021 11:0 0 – 12:00 PM CST– Tristen Rogers, Ph.D. “Can’t we be friends? Civic Friendship in an Age of Incivility”

ZOOM meeting information: Link Meeting ID 382 223 6992 Passcode ISHF2021

• March 16, 2021 – 11:00 – 12:00 PM CST- Sean A. Valles, Ph.D. “Fostering epistemic attitudes as part of an elder supportive
‘culture of health’. ZOOM meeting information: Link Meeting ID 382 223 6992 Passcode ISHF2021

• April 7, 2021 – 12:00 – 1:00 PM CST – Jennifer Cole Wright, Ph.D., “Understanding Virtue”. Zoom meeting information:
Link Meeting ID 382 223 6992 Passcode ISHF2021

• May 5, 2021 – 12:00 – 1:00 PM CST – Jennifer Herdt, Ph.D. “Grit & Perseverance: Telling the difference” Zoom meeting
information: Link Meeting ID 382 223 6992 Passcode ISHF2021

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Expansive Other-Regarding Virtues and Civic Excellence

Dr. Ryan Byerly is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. His research

focuses on topics in virtue theory and philosophy of religion. Dr. Byerly’s recent books include
Intellectual Dependability: A Virtue Theory of the Epistemic and Educational Ideal (2021) and
Putting Others First: The Christian Ideal of Others-Centeredness (2019). He recently completed a
program of cross-training in the Psychology of character. [email protected]
Dr. Megan Haggard is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Francis Marion University.
Previously, she completed her Masters and Doctoral degrees in Psychology at Baylor University
under the guidance of Dr. Wade Rowatt and spent one year as Postdoctoral Fellow at the
Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing at the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Haggard’s
research interests include personality psychology, particularly the virtues of curiosity and
intellectual humility, differences in personal morals by gender, the influence of religion on
feelings toward in-groups and out-groups, and advanced statistical analysis.
[email protected]

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Civic Virtue and “True” Selves: Finding Authenticity in the Complexities of Public

Matthew Vess is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Texas
A&M University. His research broadly focuses on the psychological processes associated with people's
efforts to resolve existential concerns. [email protected]
Matt Stichter is an Associate Professor of Philosophy in the School of Politics, Philosophy, & Public
Affairs at Washington State University. He pursues research at the intersection of moral psychology, virtue
ethics, and the philosophy of expertise. He has published extensively on the “virtue as skill” thesis, arguing
that the development of virtue should be understood as a process of skill acquisition, and he draws on the
psychological research on self-regulation and expertise to formulate this thesis. email: [email protected]
Joshua Hicks is a Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Texas A&M
University. His research focuses on understanding the antecedents and consequences of the experience of
meaning in life, authenticity, self-alienation, perceptions of free-will, and mortality awareness. email:
[email protected]
Rebecca Schlegel is a Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Texas A&M
University. Her research is in social and personality psychology, with a focus on existential psychology. She
studies issues related to self/identity, authenticity, and meaning in life. Much of her work has specifically
focused on the idea of “true self” and how it serves as a hub of meaning in people’s lives. email:
[email protected]

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Experiences and Civic Virtues

Howard Nusbaum, PhD, is Stella M. Rowley Professor of Psychology and Director, Chicago Center
for Practical Wisdom, Department of Psychology, the Committee on Computational Neuroscience and a
member of the Neuroscience Institute at The University of Chicago. He served as Division Director for
the Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences Division of the National Science Foundation for 2016-2017. His
research focuses broadly on communication, learning, and wise reasoning, investigating how cognitive
and social-emotional processes interact in decision-making and interaction. [email protected]

Anne Henly, PhD, is a Senior Instructional Professor in the Department of Psychology and the College
at the University of Chicago. She is director of Undergraduate Studies in Psychology and founding
director of the Undergraduate Research Initiative in Psychology, a program she developed to promote
the involvement of undergraduates in the research process as an integral part of their education. Her
interests focus on the interplay of conscious and nonconscious processes in shaping cognition and socio-
emotional processes, especially the influence of language use and its potential as a tool for reflective
wisdom. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 2004, focusing on the ambiguity
inherent in language and the cognitive processes that allow us to quickly and easily understand one
another during spoken language comprehension. Her research has continued to investigate the role of language, whether it be in taking
the perspective of others, in reflection during decision-making, or in the potential for humanities education to promote wise reasoning.
Her current research explores how the broad range of experiences in college, curricular and non-curricular, lead to changes in epistemic
attitudes and social engagement. [email protected]
Jeannie Ngoc Boulware, MA, has worked extensively in research and communication over the
course of her career. She is currently the Assistant Director of Communications & Research for
the Center for Practical Wisdom at the University of Chicago and an Adjunct Professor of
Psychology at Northeastern Illinois University. Her research interests lie in understanding
wisdom and approaches to developing wisdom such as mindfulness and civic engagement. She is
particularly interested in interdisciplinary interventions in high-risk populations and helping to
move policy forward in community health. In collaboration with her husband, Jason Boulware,
she has produced several award-winning films on various aspects of this work and received the award for ‘Best Documentary Short’
from the American Psychological Association for a film on the impact of public art in low-income neighborhoods.
[email protected]
Jason Boulware, MFA, is an African American visual artist and director based in Chicago working in
documentary and experimental documentary formats. His work is influenced by 1990’s hip hop culture, the
policing of low-income neighborhoods, and police brutality to create a mixture of intimate profiles and
examinations of forces that effect his community. He is the recipient of the Marion Kryczka Excellence in
Teaching Award from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Illinois Youth Center - Chicago
volunteer of the Year Award, and the State of Illinois Juvenile Justice Department Volunteer of the Year
Award.

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Sustainability, Civic, and Character Education in a Pluralistic Democracy

Ólafur Páll Jónsson, is a professor of philosophy at the School of Education, University of Iceland. He
holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from MIT (2001). He has published widely within philosophy of education
on issues such as democracy, sustainability, creativity, and critical thinking.

Ragný Þóra Guðjohnsen, is an assistant professor of education at the School of Education. She holds
a Ph.D. in education from the University of Iceland (2016). Her doctoral dissertation “Young people’s
ideas of what it means to be a good citizen: The role of empathy, volunteering and parenting styles”
deploys both psychological and sociological theories and methods.

Sigrún Aðalbjarnardóttir, is a professor emerita at the School of Education, University of Iceland. She
holds an Ed.D. in human development and psychology from Harvard University (1988) and has worked
extensively within the fields of moral psychology and educational theory and practice more generally.

Karen Elizabeth Jordan is a Ph.D. student at the School of Education, University of Iceland. Her
background is in science education and sustainability education.

Unnur Edda Garðarsdóttir holds an MA degree in anthropology from the University of Iceland. She
holds an adjunct lecturer position in the School of Education where she has collaborated with various
researchers.

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Is LGBT progress seen as an attack on Christians?
Examining Christian/ sexual orientation zero-sum beliefs

Dr. Clara L. Wilkins is an Associate Professor in the department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at
Washington University in St. Louis. Before moving to WashU, she spent 7 years at Wesleyan University. She
completed her Ph.D. and M.S. at the University of Washington and her B.A. with honors at Stanford
University.
A fellow of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, she serves on several editorial boards including the
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Her research has been supported
by NSF, the Ford Foundation and Templeton Religion Trust.
Dr. Wilkins’ research examines prejudice, stereotyping, and the self. She explores how social change (e.g., racial
and gender progress) affects high-status groups’ perceptions of victimization. She also examines how variation
in racial and ethnic minorities’ physical appearance shapes stereotyping and identification. The over-arching
goal of her work is to understand social inequities in order to minimize their negative effects on individuals,

groups and society. [email protected]

Lerone A. Martin is the Director of American Culture Studies at Washington University in Saint Louis
where he is also Associate Professor of Religion and Politics in the John C. Danforth Center on Religion
and Politics.
Martin is the author of numerous articles as well as Preaching on Wax: The Phonograph and the Making of
Modern African American Religion (New York University Press, 2014). In support of his research,
Martin has received a number of nationally recognized fellowships and grants, including the National
Endowment for the Humanities, The American Council of Learned Societies, The Woodrow Wilson
National Fellowship Foundation, The Henry Luce Foundation, and the Teagle Foundation.
His commentary and writing have appeared in popular national media outlets including The NBC Today
Show, PBS, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, NPR, and CNN.

Jackie Lisnek is currently a graduate student at the University of Virginia where she is working
towards her PhD in social psychology under Dr. Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi. Before attending UVA, she
worked as a lab manager at Washington University in St. Louis for two years. Jackie is interested in
understanding and reducing bias and prejudice across a range of contexts including the political sector
and the criminal justice system. She is also interested in what motivates people to advocate for change
vs. justify the status quo. Jackie hopes to work alongside entities such as nonprofit organizations,
government officials and police departments to ensure that her research extends past the walls of
academia to create lasting societal change.

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Political Humility: Conceptualization and Implications for Online Political

Stacey McElroy-Heltzel joined the Counseling Psychology faculty at the University of Iowa in the fall of

2019. She earned her PhD in Counseling Psychology from Georgia State University in 2017 and completed
her pre-doctoral internship at the Georgia Institute of Technology Counseling Center. Her research interests
are in positive psychology, particularly humility and its subdomains (e.g., cultural humility, intellectual humility,
political humility), forgiveness, and religion/spirituality. She is also interested in measurement development
and evaluation, and multicultural families. For example, she is developing a line of work that examines how
cultural humility helps multicultural families navigate differences in values and worldviews and understand and
affirm one another's different lived experiences. [email protected]

Heather Battaly is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut. She specializes in epistemology,
ethics, and virtue theory. She is the author of Virtue (Polity 2015), co-editor of Vice Epistemology (2020), editor
of The Routledge Handbook of Virtue Epistemology (2018) and of Virtue and Vice, Moral and Epistemic
(Blackwell 2010), Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Philosophical Research, and Associate Editor of the Journal
of the American Philosophical Association. She has published widely on the topics of intellectual virtue and
intellectual vice. Her currents projects focus on: humility, closed-mindedness, and vice
epistemology. [email protected]

1). [email protected] Don (Donnie) Davis is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Georgia State University. Donnie did
undergraduate work at Yale and his doctorate at Virginia Commonwealth University, under Everett
Worthington. His research and clinical interests are in the area of positive psychology. His work focuses
on humility and related virtues such as forgiveness and gratitude. He has published over250 articles or
chapters, as well as several books on these themes. He has participated in over 20 grant-funded projects.
He is the Associate Editor of the Journal of Positive Psychology. In terms of fun, Donnie enjoys biking,
hiking, and other outdoor activities, and is also an avid reader. He also loves spending time with his
partner, Cirleen DeBlaere, and his three kids, Catherine (age 11), Adam (age 7), and Emerson (age

Joshua N. Hook, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the
University of North Texas. His research interests focus on humility,
religion/spirituality, and multicultural counseling. [email protected]

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Personal Liberty, Mutual Respect and Tolerance: Values and Virtues in Crisis

Dr David Lundie is Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Glasgow School of Interdisciplinary Studies.
His research interests are in the values and ethos of schooling, political philosophy of education and the impact on
education of the values of the political, social, religious, economic, security and technology sectors. He is associate
editor of the British Journal of Religious Education, and convenor of the Holyrood Faith Debates series, which
seeks to engage Scottish policy-makers in research-informed discussion on the role of faith and belief in education
policy. [email protected]

Caroline (Carly) Bagelman grew up on Coast Salish territories in British Columbia, Canada. She completed her MA in
Cultural, Social and Political Thought at the University of Victoria, worked as a curriculum designer for the Critical
Thinking Consortium at the University of British Columbia and University of Victoria, then completed a PhD in
Education at the University of Glasgow. Her work takes a critical look at how the resettlement of refugee and asylum
seeker children operates in UK schools and communities, as well as the education UK students receive about forced
migrations. She also researches colonial practices of education (with a focus on the Canadian context), and possibilities
for decolonising. [email protected]
Cathal O'Siochru is a senior lecturer in Education Studies at Liverpool Hope University. He has a background in
Psychology, Research Methods, Education and IT. His general research area is the psychology of education and he
specializes in looking the way in which beliefs and perceptions of students can influence their studies. Other research
interests include Personal Epistemological and Pedagogical beliefs, Action Research, Assessment Practices and
Feedback and Collaborative learning. Correspondence: Dr Cathal O'Siochru, Education Studies., Liverpool Hope
University, Hope Park, Liverpool, Merseyside L16 9JD, United Kingdom ([email protected])

Dr. Victoria Blinkhorn attained a BA in Criminology from Liverpool Hope University in 2010. Throughout her
degree, she developed a specific interest in Forensic Psychology. In order to pursue that, she stayed at Liverpool Hope
University to complete an MSc in Psychology, which also acted as an accredited conversion with the BPS. She then
went on to the University of Huddersfield and completed the MSc in Forensic and Investigative Psychology in 2013.
In the same year, she began working as an Associate Lecturer for Liverpool Hope University, specializing in
Psychology of Education. Within the first year of this role, she began thinking about researching her PhD and
undertook to write about female narcissism. Her title became "Narcissism in females: Relationships to attitudes towards violence, sexual
coercion, and offending behavior in a non-forensic sample" and she obtained her PhD in 2018 from the University of Liverpool. After a
short time at Sunderland University, she joined Liverpool John Moores University in March 2020 as Lecturer in Forensic Psychology.
Her research interests concern how mental illnesses, personality disorders and traits help to explain offending behavior in adults. She also
undertakes work in some areas of applied psychology. In addition, she is a Principle Research Consultant for the NHS and National
Probation Service investigating the effectiveness of the Psychologically Informed Consultation Service (PICS). [email protected]
Antonio Zuffianò is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Sapienza, University of Rome. His
research interests focus on the precursors and outcomes of prosocial behavior from childhood onwards. He is also
interested in designing and implementing school-based intervention programs aimed at promoting students' well-
being and resilience. His work has appeared in scientific journals such as Child Development, Developmental
Psychology, and the Journal of Youth and Adolescence. [email protected]
Lee Shannon is a Postdoctoral Research Assistant in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies,
University of Glasgow. His current research interests focus on the psychology of values and the language of values
education. [email protected]

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Forgiveness as a Civic Virtue in Post-Genocide Rwanda: The Promises &
Challenges of an Interdisciplinary, Cross-Cultural, Research-Practitioner

Collaboration (amidst a Pandemic)

Jonathan Tirrell, Ph.D., is a Research Assistant Professor of Developmental Science at Tufts University.
He takes a relational developmental systems (RDS)-based approach to studying positive youth development
(PYD) and character virtue development. His interests focus on forgiveness as a virtue with implications for
social justice and personal and communal thriving. [email protected]

Erin Kelly, Ph.D., is a Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University. She studies morality/ethics and
political philosophy, with particular interests in alternatives to retributive justice. She is the author of The
Limits of Blame: Rethinking Punishment and Responsibility (Harvard University Press, 2018). She is currently
planning a book entitled Civic Justice. [email protected]

Alistair Sim, Ph.D., is the Principle Scientific Advisor for Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, & Learning
(MERL) at Compassion International (CI), and co-principal investigator for the broader CI Study of PYD.
He serves as the bridge between research and practice in the context of CI programs in Rwanda in the present
study. [email protected]

Lionel McPherson, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University. He studies issues
related to global justice, ethics, and race in social philosophy. He serves as a consultant on issues related to
race, war and conflict, justice, and normativity in the present study. [email protected]

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The Mitigating Influence of Humility on Hostility Across Political
Differences

Kristin N. Garrett is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Wheaton
College (IL). She earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her
research and teaching focus on American political behavior, including political psychology, public opinion, morality
and politics, biology and politics, and research methods. She has published work in British Journal of Political Science,
Political Psychology, and State Politics & Policy Quarterly. [email protected]

Darcie Delzell is a Professor of Mathematics at Wheaton College (IL). She holds a master’s
degree in mathematics and a Ph.D. in statistics. She has published articles in theoretical statistics and has worked on
various collaborative projects in the areas of psychology, medicine, and biology. [email protected]

Bryan T. McGraw is Dean of Social Sciences and Education, department chair, and an Associate Professor of Politics
and International Relations at Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL. He earned his Ph.D. in political science at Harvard
University and has a range of research interests, mostly focused on the intersection of religion and liberal political
thought. His first book, Faith in Politics: Religion and Liberal Democracy, was published in 2010 by Cambridge University
Press. He is the co-editor of Natural Law and Evangelical Political Thought and has published work in Perspectives on Political
Science, Critical Review of Social and Political Philosophy, Political Studies, and several other places. He teaches classes on
classical and medieval political thought, modern political thought, church and state, and political ethics. [email protected]

Nathaniel J. Thom is an Associate Professor of Biology at Wheaton College (IL). He earned his Ph.D. in Exercise Science
from the University of Georgia, and he completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Applied Neuroscience at the Naval Health
Research Center in San Diego. His primary research focus is employing psychophysiological and neuroimaging methods to
better understand how to promote adaptive responses to stress. [email protected]

W. Jay Wood is a Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College (IL). He earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the
University of Notre Dame. His teaching and research focus on epistemology, philosophy of religion, and virtue ethics.
He is the author of Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous and co-author of Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative
Epistemology, among other publications. [email protected]

Everett Worthington, Ph.D., is Commonwealth Professor Emeritus working from
the Department of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University. He holds a Faculty Affiliate
appointment at the Institute for Quantitative Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard
University (Human Flourishing Program). He continues to be active in research and speaking around the
world. He is a licensed Clinical Psychologist in Virginia. He has published over 40 books and around 500
articles and scholarly chapters, mostly on forgiveness, humility and positive psychology, marriage, and family
topics, and religion and spirituality. He also has developed the REACH Forgiveness model (see www.EvWorthington-forgiveness.com) being
tested currently in a global grant-funded randomized controlled trials in 6 countries, and he has developed numerous other positive
psychological interventions. [email protected]

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Investigating Virtuous Autonomy in Turkish Public Life: Comparing
Communities of Democratizing Justice & Humanitarian Rescue/Care

Michael Spezio is Associate Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Data Science at Scripps College in
Claremont, CA. He directs the Laboratory for Inquiry into Valuation and Emotion (the LIVE Lab) and his research
focuses on emotion as the cognition and consciousness of valuational representations of self and others in decision
making. His work has an interactionist perspective that takes relationality as the central category for understanding
the human mind and brain, especially in the connection of valuation, empathy, theory of mind, and ethical formation
for virtuous autonomy. The LIVE Lab uses mixed methods including long-form interviews, computational
linguistics, cognitive computational modeling of choice, fMRI, and EEG. Prof. Spezio has received grant support
from the National Science Foundation, the Center for Human Flourishing, the Templeton Religion Trust, the Fetzer Institute, the Mind
and Life Institute, and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. His publications have over 2700 citations. He coedited
the Companion to Religion & Science (Routledge) and Habits in Mind (Brill). Prof. Spezio also teaches data science and developed the first course
on Data Science Ethics and Justice (DSEJ) at the Claremont Colleges, where he also directs a faculty development project in DSEJ. He is
a recipient of the 2015 Paul H. Silverman Award from the Ethics Center at University of California Irvine for distinguished work in
scientific approaches to ethics. He is ordained as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
[email protected]

Gregory R. Peterson is Professor of Philosophy and Religion and Director of the Ethics Lab at South Dakota State
University. In addition to over 50 articles in journals and books, he is author of Minding God: Theology and the Cognitive
Sciences (2003) and the co-editor of several volumes, most recently Property Rights in Contemporary Governance (2019).
Much of Dr. Peterson’s early work focused on the intersection of theology and cognitive science, while his current research
includes virtue theory, political philosophy, applied ethics, experimental ethics, and democratization. Dr. Peterson is the
recipient of numerous grants and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the
Humanities, the John Templeton Foundation, and others. [email protected]

Berk Esen is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Sabancı University,
Turkey. He received his PhD in Government from Cornell University in 2015 and was also a visiting researcher at
Columbia University, Sabancı University and Torcuato di Tella University. Before joining the department, he served
as Assistant Professor and Vice Chair at the department of International Relations at Bilkent University. His
research and teaching interests include the political economy of development, party politics and authoritarian
regimes with a focus on Latin America and the Middle East. His research has been funded by the Science and
Technology Institute of Turkey (TUBITAK) and published in top political science journals such as Party Politics,
Journal of Democracy, Third World Quarterly, PS: Political Science & Politics, South East European Society and
Politics, Journal of Near East and Balkan Studies, Mediterranean Politics, Turkish Studies, Review of Middle East Studies, and Middle East
Review of International Affairs. Berk has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Sakıp Sabancı International Research Award
for his work on democratic backsliding in Turkey and Hungary and the Turkish Science Academy Young Scientist Award (BAGEP).
Gunes Sevinc is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital
& Harvard Medical School. Her PhD dissertation focused on neural networks associated with moral cognition,
especially those involved in the detection of morally relevant stimuli Her current research interests include mindfulness
meditation and its relationship to moral and prosocial behaviors. She is specifically interested in the structural and
functional neural changes associated with mindfulness practice as they relate to moral decision making. Currently, she
is utilizing multivariate analysis methods to investigate the effects of mindfulness practice in improving cognition.
[email protected]

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Civic Virtue in Public Life: Understanding & Countering Incivility in Liberal
Democracies

Matteo Bonotti (PhD University of Edinburgh) is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and
International Relations at Monash University, having previously taught at Cardiff University, Queen’s University
Belfast, and the University of Edinburgh. Matteo’s research interests include political liberalism and public
reason, linguistic justice, free speech, food justice, and the normative dimensions of partisanship. His work has
appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as the American Political Science Review, The Journal of Politics, Political
Studies, the Journal of European Public Policy, the Journal of Common Market Studies, the Journal of Applied Philosophy,
Law and Philosophy, and the European Journal of Political Theory. He is co-author of the book Recovering Civility
during COVID-19 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) and his monograph Partisanship and Political Liberalism in Diverse
Societies was published by Oxford University Press in 2017. [email protected]

Steven T. Zech (PhD University of Washington) is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Department of
Politics and International Relations at Monash University. He was previously a Postdoctoral Research Fellow
at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. Steve’s research focuses on how
communities respond to political violence and terrorism at the local level and he has conducted extensive
fieldwork on self-defense forces in Peru, as well as militias in the Philippines and the United States. His work
has appeared in journals such as International Studies Review, the Journal of European Public Policy, Terrorism and
Political Violence, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Defense and Peace Economics, Defense & Security Analysis, and the Journal
of Terrorism Research. He is co-author of the book Recovering Civility during COVID-19 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)
and his dissertation Between Two Fires: Civilian Resistance during Internal Armed Conflict in Peru was awarded the Terrorism Research Initiative
(TRI) 2017 prize for Best Doctoral Dissertation in the Field of Terrorism and Counterterrorism Studies. [email protected]

Emily Kalah Gade (PhD University of Washington) is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Emory
University. Prior to coming to Atlanta, she was a 2017-2019 Moore/Sloan & WRF Innovation in Data Science
Postdoctoral Fellow working with Noah Smith and Michael McCann. Her research focuses on the causes, nature
and outcomes of political violence, insecurity of minority groups, state repression and forms of resistance. Her
research has been published in the American Political Science Review, the British Journal of Political Science
(forthcoming), the Journal of Conflict Resolution and the Journal of Peace Research, among other outlets, and
has received funding from a variety of sources, including the National Science Foundation. Along with Michael
Gabbay and Mohammed Hafez, she was awarded the Nils Petter Gleditsch Journal of Peace Research Article of the Year Award (2019).
[email protected]
Joshua Eastin (PhD University of Washington) is an Associate Professor of Political Science in the Hatfield
School of Government. He teaches courses in international relations, environmental politics, and security
studies. Professor Eastin’s research addresses the causes and consequences of economic underdevelopment.
Current projects examine the relationship between food insecurity and political violence; the formation and
mobilization of paramilitary groups and other local security institutions; and the role of climate change in
influencing women’s rights and gender equality. He has conducted extended fieldwork and surveys in the
Philippines, where he also served as a visiting research fellow at the University of the Philippines-Diliman.
His work has appeared in journals such as Defence and Peace Economics, International Interactions, International Studies
Quarterly, Political Geography, Terrorism and Political Violence, World Politics, and World Development. He is co-author
of Greening China: The Benefits of Trade and Foreign Direct Investment (University of Michigan Press, 2011).
[email protected]

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Civic Virtue in Public Life: Understanding & Countering Incivility in Liberal
Democracies

Pete Lentini, Associate Professor (PhD, Glasgow), is the Founding Director of the Global Terrorism
Research Centre (GTReC), Monash University, and the Director of the Social and Political Sciences
Graduate Research Program, Monash University. He has been involved in working with community groups
and government agencies in Australia and abroad on measures to counter violent extremism and rehabilitate
convicted terrorists and has been active in numerous interfaith initiatives. Monash University has presented
him with multiple commendations and awards for excellence in teaching, community-based research
partnerships and postgraduate supervision. He is the author of Neojihadism: Towards a New Understanding of
Terrorism and Extremism? (2013), and many other scholarly works on terrorism, extremism, and social
cohesion in Australia, and politics and political violence in the former USSR. [email protected]
Aurélia Bardon (PhD Columbia University and Sciences Po Paris) is Junior Professor in Political Theory
at the University of Konstanz, Germany. Her research focuses on public justification, religion, secularism,
and liberal neutrality. Her work has appeared in such journals as Constellations, the European Journal of Political
Theory, and Law and Philosophy. [email protected]

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