Daniel J.M. Cheely, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Daniel J. M. Cheely, Ph.D is a historian of the Renaissance and Reformation. He graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. His research has been supported by grants from the Social Science Research Council, the Pew Charitable Trust, the Huntington Library, and the Harvey Fellows Program of the Mustard Seed Foundation, among others. His scholarship has been published in The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (Duke UP), Church History: Studies in Christianity & Culture (Cambridge UP), The European Legacy (Routledge), and The Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception (DeGruyter), and has been presented at the Institute for Historical Research, the American Academy of Religion, Sixteenth Century Society & Conference, the Renaissance Society of America, the American Society for Church History, the Mid-Atlantic Conference of British Studies, and other conferences in the United States and Europe.
Before beginning doctoral studies at Penn, Dr. Cheely joined Teach For America in Chicago, where he taught eighth grade for R.S. Abbott School, chaired the social science division and partnered it with local universities through the Chicago History Project. He is now, while serving as Executive Director of the Collegium Institute, also the Executive Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society (PRRUCS) and also its Perry Family Scholar of History, Religion, and Culture.
José Pérez-Benzo
Assistant Director
Managing Director of the Young Catholic Leaders Initiative
José Pérez-Benzo joined Collegium in 2019 after spending two years at Princeton developing and conducting seminars that integrate humanistic studies in philosophy, literature and theater. While working for Collegium, he completed his Master of Liberal Arts here at the University of Pennsylvania in 2022. Joe coordinates our Young Catholic Leaders Project as well as assisting with development & recruitment.
jperezbenzo@collegiuminstitute.org
Maura Mimnagh Thibault
Chief Financial Officer
Maura Mimnagh Thibault is a non-profit development and finance leader who is passionate about people and the common good. Her association with Collegium Institute began with its inception in 2013, first as an advisor, then as a Trustee, as a staff member since 2018, and always as a donor. She brings 25 years of experience working with diverse stakeholders to achieve mission-driven operational success to her current role as Collegium’s Chief Financial Officer, responsible for development, donor relations, financial management, and special event planning. Previously, Maura worked as a sales and marketing professional in the financial services industry, including as an Executive Director at Morgan Stanley.
Maura holds an MBA from Fordham University and a BA in Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania. She remains an active Penn Alumni Leader, serving as President for the award-winning Class of 1994 and as an emeritus member of The Penn Fund Executive Board. Maura looks forward to knowing you and sharing more information with you about the Collegium Institute community.
mauramimnagh@collegiuminstitute.org
Jessica Sweeney
Director of the Ars Vivendi Arts Initiative
Director of Design
Jessica Sweeney comes to the Collegium Institute after completing her Master of Arts in Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota where she wrote her thesis, “How Did I Forget You? How Did I Lose You?: An Augustinian Exploration of Childhood and the Cosmic in Malick’s Tree of Life.” After her graduate studies, she went on to teach at Trinity School in Eagan, MN where she taught art history, Spanish and Humane Letters.
Jess completed her undergraduate studies in Art History and English with work at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Florida. She is a wife, mother, and artist, and reflects on these intermingling roles at Commonplace Living.
As Collegium’s Director of Design and Managing Director for our Ars Vivendi Arts Initiative she has brought her knowledge of art history and visual aesthetics to develop our visual presence and cultivate a space to explore the intersection of art and the life of the mind through workshops, artist retreats, and lectures. Jess met her husband at Collegium’s first Genealogies of Modernity summer seminar.
jsweeney@collegiuminstitute.org
Caroline Arnold
Program Fellow and Coordinator
Caroline Arnold joins the Collegium team from Boston College, where she completed her MA in Philosophy. Her primary philosophical interests lie at the intersection of philosophy and the religious, especially in the thought of Plato, Augustine, and William Desmond.
In 2020, Caroline received her BA from Villanova University with a double major in Humanities and Philosophy and a minor in Classical Studies. Caroline was also a member of the Villanova Honors program, where she wrote her award-winning Honors thesis, “Insignes Pietate Viri: Virgil, Augustine, and Dante on the Virtue of Piety.”
It was during her time at Villanova University that Caroline was first introduced to the Collegium Institute as a participant in Collegium’s Paideia Seminars.
carnold@collegiuminstitute.org
Kate Whitaker
Program Fellow and Operations Assistant, Program Manager for the Legal Humanities Fellowship
Kate Whitaker joined the Collegium Institute in 2023 after receiving her BA from the University of Chicago in the Classics, Religious Studies, and Law, Letters, and Society departments. There, she wrote her honors thesis on comparative theology, philosophy, and law titled “Death Hovers Over the Marriage Bed: Grasping at Immortality in Classical and Biblical Works.” At the Collegium Institute, Kate is the Program Manager for the Legal Humanities Fellowship and coordinates the Post-Classical Language Workshops, as well as writing the Food for Thought sessions and assisting with the Executive Seminars.
kwhitaker@collegiuminstitute.org
Faculty Directors
Jessie Taylor
The Magi Project for Science & Theology
Dr. Jessie Taylor is the Director of the Magi Project at the Collegium Institute. Motivated by exploring fundamental questions about the nature of the universe and our place in it, Dr. Taylor earned a PhD in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania with a focus in cosmology and a masters of theological studies from the University of Notre Dame with a focus on Judaism and Christianity in antiquity. She currently is an assistant professor of Physics at the University of the Sciences.
Sarah-Vaughn Brakman
Medical Humanities Project
Sarah-Vaughan Brakman, PhD, is a practicing clinical ethics consultant who is known nationally and internationally for her expertise in clinical medical ethics and in the ethics of embryo donation. The founding director of the Ethics Program at Villanova, Dr. Brakman holds the Anne Quinn Welsh Faculty Fellowship in the Honors Program. She earned her master’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy with a specialty in medical ethics through a joint program of Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine. She is the ethics consultant and chair of the National Ethics Committee of Devereux, the nation’s largest nonprofit provider of behavioral and mental health care.
Matt O’Brien
Philosophy of Finance Project
Matthew O’Brien, PhD, is an equity research analyst with O’Brien Greene & Co., an investment management firm in suburban Philadelphia. Before beginning his career in finance, he taught humanities at Villanova University, where he was a Veritas Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Ryan Center in the Department of Political Science, and philosophy at Rutgers University, where he was a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy. Dr. O’Brien has served as a director on the boards of the Neumann Forum, the Princeton Club of Philadelphia, and Regina Luminis Academy. He received his A.B. in philosophy cum laude at Princeton University and studied Greek and Latin in the post-baccalaureate program in classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin.