Our Faculty Committee

Dr. Arthur P. Urbano​, JCTE Chair

Dr. Arthur P. Urbano has served as the chair of the Jewish-Catholic Theological Exchange committee since its founding in 2007. He received an M.T.S. in New Testament and Christian Origins at Harvard Divinity School and his Ph.D. in Religious Studies at Brown University. His primary research area is Early Church Theology and History, including the engagement between Christian, Jews, and pagans in antiquity.

He is currently working on a collaborative oral history project exploring the admission of Jewish students to Providence College and their experiences between 1917 and 1965. He co-teaches interfaith adult education courses with local rabbis at Rhode Island churches and synagogues and  serves as a board member of the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center in Providence.

John Allard, O.P.

Fr. John E. Allard, O.P., is an assistant professor of theology at Providence College and a member of the Dominican Order. He received an M.Div. and an S.T.L from the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, and he has done ministry in a variety of settings, including Sacred Heart Parish in Jersey City, missions both in Lesotho and South Africa, and the Catholic chaplaincy at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. 

He earned a Ph.D. in Religion and Religious Education from the Catholic University of America.  His academic interests include spirituality, rhetoric, and the work of the American monastic author Thomas Merton.

Dr. Holly Taylor Coolman

Holly Taylor Coolman earned her Ph.D. at Duke University in 2006. Her areas of specialty include Christian accounts of Judaism, as well as the family, especially adoption. Her publications include “Romans 9-11: Rereading Aquinas on the Jews,” in Reading Romans with St Thomas Aquinas, eds. Matthew Levering and Michael Dauphinais. (CUA Press, 2012) and “Law in Translation: Reflecting with Aquinas on the Promulgation of the New Law” in The Challenge of Catholic-Jewish Theological Dialogue, eds., Matthew Tapie & Alan Brill (Forthcoming, CUA Press). 

Dr. Coolman has been on faculty at PC since 2009 and was part of the initial organization of the Committee for Jewish-Catholic Theological Exchange.

Dr. Victoria L. Templer

Dr. Victoria L. Templer is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Neuroscience Program. Originally from the Boston area, she received her undergraduate degree in Neuroscience, Animal Behavior, and Cognitive Science from Franklin and Marshall College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Animal Behavior from Emory University.

Her research in the Neuroscience and Animal Cognition Laboratory research explores memory, attention, and learning in nonhuman models including nonhuman primates and rodents. She has served on the board for Congregation Beth Sholom and currently serves on the board of Core Connects Rhode Island and the Jewish Alliance Greater Rhode Island’s Anti-Semitism WorkGroup. As a psychologist and an observant Jew, she cares deeply about promoting interreligious dialogue, the relationship between mental health and spirituality, and eradicating all acts of hate and discrimination.

Dominic Verner, O.P.

After earning a B.S. in electrical engineering from Purdue University and an M.A. in philosophical studies from Mount St. Mary’s University, Fr. Dominic Verner, O.P. entered the Order of Preachers and was ordained to the priesthood in 2016. He has an S.T.L. from the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception and a Ph.D. in moral theology/Christian ethics from the University of Notre Dame, where he wrote his dissertation “Saving Honor: A Thomistic Ethics of Honor.”

He joined the theology faculty at Providence College as an assistant professor in the fall of 2022. His research and teaching interests especially concern Thomistic moral theory and the role that honor, friendship, and glory play in practical reason and the quest for beatitude.