Rev. Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, OP, PhD, STD

Rev. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P., completed his Bachelor of Science in bioengineering, summa cum laude, at the University of Pennsylvania, and then earned his Ph.D. in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a fellow of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). He was ordained a priest in the Order of Preachers in May of 2004. He earned his Pontifical License in Sacred Theology (S.T.L.) in Moral Theology at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC, in 2005, and a Pontifical Doctorate in Sacred Theology (S.T.D.) at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, in 2015. He completed his MBA at Providence College in 2020.

Fr. Austriaco currently serves as professor of biology and of theology at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island, and director of ThomisticEvolution.org. He is also a research fellow at the Center for Religious Studies and Ethics at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philippines. His U.S. National Institutes of Health-funded laboratory at Providence College is investigating the genetics of programmed cell death using the yeasts, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Candida albicans, as model organisms. His first book, “Biomedicine and Beatitude: An Introduction to Catholic Bioethics,” was published by the Catholic University of America Press in 2011. It was recognized as a 2012 Choice outstanding academic title by the Association of College and Research Libraries.