Alex Miller is a Pittsburgh native, where he grew up as the fifth of eight children in a large Irish-Catholic family, and there he remained until his matriculation to Georgetown University in 2004.

A 2008 graduate of Georgtown University, Alex Miller (very excitedly) came to Notre Dame's ECS program directly out of his undergraduate studies in theology and philosophy. While his philosophy coursework was fairly spread out, his theology course work focused on Christian historical theology. In this study, Alex's interest was picqued by the Patristic period, especially the Cappadocian Fathers and early monasticism, ultimately resulting in an honors thesis on the person of the theologian according to St. Gregory of Nazianzus and John Henry Cardinal Newman (a patrologist himself).

In high school, Alex developed an interest in languages, beginning with the study of German, Spanish, and Latin. His undergraduate studies in theology only served as an enabler in this habit, and at Georgetown he studied Biblical Hebrew, New Testament Greek, and a modicum of Polish in addition. Finally, before his senior year, he spent two months in the Benedictine monastic community of St. Benoit du Lac in Quebec for intensive immersion Latin and French training.

Currently, his coursework is evenly split between language courses (Latin and Greek, with an interest in Syriac if feasible) and theology courses (Patristics and liturgy), with the intent of preparing for PhD programs in historical theology.

In addition to the demands of his coursework, Alex is a Knight of Columbus and a bagpiper with the Notre Dame Pipes & Drums.

Sean Moberg was born and raised in Southeast Michigan, where he has lived his entire life until moving to South Bend to study at Notre Dame.  Sean graduated in 2008 from the University of Michigan with a major in Ancient Civilizations and Biblical Studies and a minor in German.

Sean had no particular intention of studying Christian history when he began his career at Michigan.  Indeed, he had no real plan whatsoever.  Sean fell backwards into his field by signing up for classes that looked amusing and, somewhat to his surprise, found that these congregated around the Biblical Studies department.  After borrowing a copy of The Sayings of the Desert Fathers from a friend, Sean fell deeply in love with early monasticism, which in due time became the subject of his senior thesis on education among the early Egyptian monks.

As evidenced by his German minor and the four years he spent living in the Max Kade German Residency at the University of Michigan, Sean is deeply interested in the study of foreign languages, both ancient and modern.  This has worked out very nicely for him at Notre Dame, where he is able to study both Greek and Latin, and one day, he very much hopes, Coptic as well.  The study of the ancient languages complements well Sean’s other courses of a more historical and theological nature.

The specifics of Sean’s future plans remain somewhat vague, although he hopes both to continue his studies in early Christianity and Desert monasticism, as well as hopefully one day returning to the Ann Arbor area. 

Kellen Plaxco has long been interested in the study of Christian theology’s historical development.  Born in Fort Smith, AR, Kellen studied religion and classical Greek at Baylor University, where he worked primarily on New Testament exegesis, Italian, German, and Greek.  In 2004, he received a University Scholar’s B.A., having written an honors thesis on the function of gnosis in the theologies of Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. 

Following undergraduate school, Kellen studied at Princeton Theological Seminary for a Master of Divinity.  While there, he worked on biblical exegesis, German and Greek, and ancient and modern theology.  He cultivated an interest in the theology of Karl Barth and gained exposure to the historical development of theological loci such as atonement, election, christology, and trinity.   He also became familiar with academic conversations about the study and retrieval of patristic biblical exegesis.

Kellen came to the early Christian studies program at Notre Dame directly from Princeton in 2007.  While at Notre Dame, he has taken a number of doctoral-level seminars on ancient Christian figures like Irenaeus, Augustine, Evagrius of Pontus, Tertullian, and Cyprian.  He has begun to become acquainted with the history of ancient rhetoric by studying Cicero and Quintilian.  He has taken up the study of the history of philosophy by reading Plato’s Republic and other dialogues, as well as by pursuing philosophical connections between the trinitarian theologies of Boethius and Richard of St. Victor.  Having been introduced to Greek paleography, he plans to work on Latin paleography in the coming semester.  In all of his coursework, Kellen has been striving to improve reading proficiency in Latin, Greek, French, and German.  He views himself as a historical theologian and hopes to continue his studies by working in a doctoral program on the history of Christian thought.

Kellen somehow, someday, would love to study in Europe for an extended period of time.  He lives with his lovely wife, Jamie, and their two dogs, Abbey and Nelli, in Chicago’s Wicker Park.

Cara Polk came to the ECS program after completing double degrees in 2005 in English Literature and Linguistic Anthropology at Biola University of La Mirada, California. In the intervening time between her Biola graduation and matriculation at Notre Dame in the fall of 2008, Cara undertook studies of Biblical Greek, Ecclesiastical Latin, and Biblical Hebrew at Talbot School of Theology in California. She was also able to complete some graduate-level coursework in philosophy and theology at Talbot before moving to Boulder, Colorado to work for a small liberal arts school there. Though the move was unexpected, Cara believes the time out of school prepared her for ECS in unexpected ways: She was afforded the chance to relax a bit, hike around the Rockies a bit more, and do a great deal of thinking about what she really wanted to study. She’d also like potential students to know that returning to school after having to take time off can be done. Don’t give up!

There are several courses Cara took during her time at Biola which she recognizes as having prepared her to study the beliefs and practices of early Christians in their socio-cultural context. Those include Anthropological Theory, Sociolinguistics, Archaeology, and Contextual Theology. Cara also sees that having studied as an English major helps her to appreciate the literary qualities of early Christian texts, while her courses in Literary Theory and Philosophy of Language have prepared her to closely read those same texts for the values and ideas influencing their authors.

Cara also minored in Biblical Studies and feels that being Scripturally-literate is greatly enhancing her experience in the ECS program. However, if there is one recommendation she would make to potential students, it is to prepare by studying as much Classical Greek and Latin as possible before applying. She also thinks it is helpful to have learned to sit for long hours in one place (though she doesn’t think it is necessary to mention this skill in one’s Statement of Intent).

In her first semester in the ECS program, Cara is focusing on developing her language competencies and broadening her knowledge of the cultural and intellectual setting in which early Christianity arose. Thus, her fall courses are Intermediate Classical Latin and Greek, Introduction to Early Christianity, and Plato’s Late Dialogues.

Xueying Wang was born and grew up in a small city along the east coast of China. Before entering the early Christian studies program, she was a German major (undergraduate) and had an M. A. degree in literature, focusing on the Medieval European period. She read and loved the works of Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Chaucer, Dante, and most important of all, St. Augustine. Through reading Augustine’s Confessions, she became interested in early Christian theology. She began to read Church history and Christian literature during the Early and Medieval periods under the guidance of her supervisor Gao Feng-Feng; her master’s thesis at Peking University, named “humilitas as Oratorical Principle: A Study of Augustine’s De doctrina christiana,” focused on how Augustine adapted the Ciceronian oratorical model to meet the Christian pastoral needs.

Xueying enjoys studying in the ECS program because it grants her ample opportunities to work with the world’s top theologians, and at the same time she can cultivate her ancient and modern language skills. Through her coursework she is increasingly interested in patristic theology, and the reception and development of patristic doctrines by medieval theologians. The topics she is interested in include exegesis, death and after-life, prayer, and the mystical ascent to God. In order to pursue these interests, she studies the works of Origen, Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory the Great, Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugh of St. Victor, Thomas Aquinas and several other patristic and medieval theologians. She is interested in apologetic literature, particularly that of Origen, Tertullian, Lactantius.

Currently Xueying is learning scholastic theology during the high Middle Ages with Prof. Joseph Wawrykow, and reading the works of Tertullian and Cyprian from a social historical perspective with Prof. Blake Leyerle. She is also reading Plato’s myths in Greek with Prof. David O’Connor, and continues to build her Latin skills and learn paleography in Introduction to Christian Latin. In her first year at Notre Dame, she read Tacitus in Latin with Prof. Sabine MacCormack, and continued her interest in ancient rhetoric in the class of Prof. Martin Bloomer. She also took three theology classes: Introduction to the Old Testament with Prof. Gary Anderson, Introduction to Early Christianity with Prof. Brian Daley, and St. Augustine with Prof. John Cavadini.

Having lived in Beijing for eight years, she found it hard at first to get used to the quiet life in South Bend. But as time goes by, she enjoys the peacefulness here because it helps her concentrate and study. By the way, her name Xueying means Snow-Welcome in Chinese: her parents gave her this name because it was snowing when she was born. At Notre Dame, she finds many opportunities to commemorate this event—it snows a lot!