2020 Way Klingler Young Scholar Award Recipient

Assistant Professor of Theology

Dr. Kate Ward is an assistant professor of theology in the Klingler College of Arts and Sciences. She is one of the 2020 recipients of the Way Klingler Young Scholar Award.

Ward’s research focuses on economic ethics and ethical method, specifically virtue ethics and Catholic social thought. She has published articles on wealth, virtue and economic inequality in journals including Theological Studies, Journal of Religious Ethics, Heythrop Journal and Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. She is currently completing a monograph that explores the impact of wealth, poverty and inequality on the pursuit of virtue for Georgetown University Press.

“Dr. Ward’s research productivity is extremely impressive for a junior faculty member in the third year of her first full-time, tenure-track academic position,” Dr. Danielle Nussberger, associate professor and chair of theology, said. “Her long list of academic presentations also attests to her ongoing, ever-expanding research activity. The quantity of her publications and presentations is matched by their quality.”

The Way Klingler Young Scholar Award supports promising young scholars in critical stages of their careers. The award funds $2,000 in operating costs and covers a portion of salary to afford the recipient a one-semester release from teaching.

Ward’s semester long research plan involves completing editorial revisions to her book manuscript and revising and resubmitting an essay on taxation for a journal of ethics. She will also work on an ongoing project about changing views of women in the workplace in Catholic social thought. Ward also plans to invest some of her time into public scholarship, such as granting interviews, contributing to blogs and writing for popular publications.

Ward graduated from Harvard College in 2005. She earned her Master of Divinity with a concentration in Bible from the Catholic Theological Union in 2011. Before she began pursuing her Ph.D. at Boston College, she worked at AFSCME Council 31, a labor union, organizing workers in Catholic health care settings.