Fall 2025 Lectures

Fall 2025 Speaker Events

Fr. Ambrose is originally from Connecticut and entered the Dominican Order in 2007 and was ordained a priest in 2013. Before entering the Dominican Order, he graduated from The Catholic University of America with a BA in philosophy. After ordination he completed a Licentiate in Philosophy at The Catholic University of America and then taught for two years at Providence College. In the academic year of 2013-2014 he was a visiting scholar at Boston College and in the fall of 2014 he started a Ph.D. program in philosophy at the University of Virginia, where he wrote a dissertation entitled Aristotelian Change and the Scala Naturae. He joined the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception after completing his Ph.D. at the University of Virginia in the summer of 2021. In January of 2022, he was appointed an Assistant Director of the Thomistic Institute. In July 2025, he was appointed Director of the Thomistic Institute 

Michael A. Dauphinais, Ph.D., serves as the Fr. Matthew Lamb Professor of Catholic Theology and the co-director of the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal at Ave Maria University, Ave Maria, Florida.  He has co-authored with Matthew Levering Knowing the Love of Christ: An Introduction to the Theology of Thomas Aquinas; Holy People, Holy Land: A Theological Introduction to the Bible; and The Wisdom of the Word: Biblical Answers to Ten Questions about Catholicism.  He specializes in C.S. Lewis, the Bible, and St. Thomas Aquinas. He speaks frequently in both academic and popular settings, and particularly enjoys visiting Thomistic Institute student chapters. Dr. Dauphinais hosts The Catholic Theology Show podcast to help a wide audience discover the richness of coming to know and love God as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.

Sister Anna Wray is a native of Connecticut and a member of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia of Nashville, TN.  Sister received her PhD in philosophy from The Catholic University of America, having written her dissertation on Aristotle’s account of the activity of contemplation.  Sister is an assistant professor on the faculty of CUA's School of Philosophy in Washington, DC, where she regularly teaches courses in rhetoric, philosophy of religion, and philosophical psychology.  She is also an adjunct professor for Aquinas College, where she teaches metaphysics and epistemology to her sisters in formation.  Her research and conversational interests include imagination and attention in human agency and speech, the effects of technology on human agency, and form as function and unifying activity.