Rev. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P., is a priest in the Order of Preachers, also known as the Dominicans. He completed his Bachelor’s Degree (B.S.E) in Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania and then earned his Ph.D. in Biology from M.I.T. where he was a fellow of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He was then a fellow of the International Human Frontier Science Program at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at the University College London.
After entering the Dominican Order, Fr. Austriaco completed his Pontifical Bachelor’s Degree in Sacred Theology and his Master’s of Divinity Degree at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. The following year, he earned his Pontifical License in Sacred Theology (S.T.L.). He received his Pontifical Doctorate in Sacred Theology (S.T.D) from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland in moral theology in 2015.
Fr. Austriaco currently serves as an Associate Professor of Biology and an Instructor of Theology at Providence College in Providence, RI. His NIH-funded laboratory is investigating the genetics of programmed cell death in the yeasts, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Candida albicans. Papers describing his research have been published in PLoS ONE, FEMS Yeast Research, Cell, the Journal of Cell Biology, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, among others. His essays in bioethics have been published in the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Studia Moralia, Ethics and Medics, and the Linacre Quarterly.
Fr. Austriaco’s first book, Biomedicine and Beatitude: An Introduction to Catholic Bioethics, was published by the Catholic University of America Press two years ago. It was recognized as a 2012 Choice outstanding academic title by the Association of College and Research Libraries.