Rev. Erick Berrelleza, S.J., was elected to the Marquette University Board of Trustees in 2024.

He is the founding dean of Boston College’s Messina College, a fully residential associate degree program with the goal of preparing low-income, first-generation students to complete a bachelor’s degree or to begin their careers.

A Los Angeles native and member of the Jesuits USA West Province, Father Berrelleza earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Loyola Marymount University, a Master of Divinity from Boston College, and a doctorate in sociology from Boston University. His research lies at the intersection of space and place, the sociology of religion, and immigration. He has studied the exclusionary effects of gentrification in a Boston-neighborhood church and the everyday practices of survival by immigrants in the New Sanctuary Movement. His most recent project is an ethnography of Latino religious life in urban and rural North Carolina. His work has appeared in City & Community and the Review of Religious Research.

Father Berrelleza was previously a visiting scholar in Boston College’s Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life and served as an assistant professor of sociology at Santa Clara University. He has also served on the board of trustees at Boston College, Santa Clara University, Brophy College Preparatory in Phoenix, and Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, California.