John M. Haas, PhD, STL, MDiv

John M. Haas is the president emeritus of The National Catholic Bioethics Center, having retired in 2019. Before assuming the presidency of the NCBC, Dr. Haas was the John Cardinol Krol Professor of Moral Theology at St. Charles Borromeo Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and an adjunct professor at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington, DC. He has been a consultant to both the Committee for Pro-Life Activities and the Subcommittee on Health Care Issues under the Committee on Doctrine for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He has been an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy for Life and a member of the Academy’s Directive Council. In 2011 the Holy Father appointed him as a consulter to the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers.

John M. Haas, PhD, STL, MDiv—President EmeritusJune 7, 2024John M. Haas

Joseph Meaney, PhD, KM

Joseph Meaney became president of the NCBC in 2019. He received his PhD in bioethics from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome; his dissertation topic was Conscience and Health Care: A Bioethical Analysis. Dr. Meaney earned his master’s in Latin American studies, focusing on health care in Guatemala, from the University of Texas at Austin. His bachelor’s degree was in history from the University of Dallas. Dr. Meaney was director of international outreach and expansion for Human Life International (HLI) and is a leading expert on the international pro-life and family movement, having traveled to eighty-one countries on pro-life missions. He founded the Rome office of HLI in 1998 and lived in Rome for nine years, where he collaborated closely with dicasteries of the Holy See, particularly the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Academy for Life. He is a dual US and French citizen and is fluent in French, Spanish, Italian, and English. His family has been active in the health care and pro-life fields in Corpus Christi, Texas, and in France for many years.

Joseph Meaney, PhD—NCBC PresidentSeptember 7, 2023Joseph Meaney

John F. Brehany, PhD, STL

Director of institutional relations and staff ethicist John F. Brehany joined The National Catholic Bioethics Center in January 2015. He leads implementation of the NCBC’s Catholic Identity and Ethics Review (CIER) program, a comprehensive, in-depth assessment program for Catholic health care based on the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. Dr. Brehany also serves as a consultant on a range of clinical and institutional issues and teaches in the NCBC’s certification program.

Philip Cerroni, MPH, MS

Philip Cerroni joined the NCBC in 2016 as an editor in the Publications Department, where he worked on Ethics & Medics and the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly (NCBQ) before becoming the managing editor of the NCBQ and production manager for the department in 2019. He earned an MPH in epidemiology from Temple University in Philadelphia in 2020 and an MS in bioethics from the University of Mary in Bismarck, ND, in 2022. He currently serves as an associate ethicist with the NCBC, focusing on increasing engagement with the NCBC’s mission and programs among individual, diocesan, and institutional stakeholders. He is studying for his doctorate in bioethics at Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome.

John Di CamilloSeptember 6, 2023Philip Cerroni

Sarah I. Denny Lorio, PhD, MA, FCP

Dr. Sarah Denny Lorio holds a PhD in Bioethics from the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome and an MA in Theology from Notre Dame Seminary and Graduate School in New Orleans, LA. An avid speaker, her doctoral research focused on the differing philosophies that affect the practice of women’s health in the United States of America and argued for a "third way" of sex education that teaches young people fertility awareness-based methods both as preventive medicine and as proximate vocation preparation.

John A. Di Camillo, PhD, BeL

John A. Di Camillo, PhD, BeL, is an ethicist and the Personal Consultations Director at The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC). He manages NCBC’s 24/7 free ethics consultation service for individuals, which includes training, mentorship, and supervision of Personal Consultations Fellows and Interns. He fields hundreds of phone and email consultations each year while reviewing hundreds more prepared by fellows and interns.

DiAnn Ecret, MA, PhD, MSN, RN

DiAnn Ecret joined The National Catholic Bioethics Center as the nurse planner and adjunct lecturer during the summer of 2016. She graduated from Our Lady of Lourdes School of Nursing in 1987, completed her BSN and MSN from Wilmington University, obtained an MA certification in theology/ethics from Villanova University, and completed her PhD in health care ethics at Duquesne University in 2017 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her dissertation was titled Using an Ethics of Care to Re-interpret Consent in the Management of Care for Addiction Disorders. Dr. Ecret has thirty years of combined nursing experience in pediatric and adult critical care and in nursing education. She is an assistant professor at Thomas Jefferson University’s Jefferson College of Nursing,

Edward J. Furton, MA, PhD

Edward (Ted) Furton directs a staff of three who produce the NCBC’s many books and serial publications. He is founding editor of the award-winning journal The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly and the longest-serving editor of Ethics & Medics, a monthly bulletin on moral issues in the health and life sciences. He and his staff have recently completed the third edition of the best-selling Catholic Health Care Ethics: A Manual for Practitioners. He has edited books by a variety of distinguished authors, including Daniel Cronin, John Leies, Marilyn Coors, Matthew Hanley, and Arland Nichols. He subscribes to the natural law theory of ethics and has written and spoken on many topics in bioethics, including stem cell research, reproductive technologies, vaccine use, brain death, organ donation, and physician-assisted suicide. He is interested in the role of religion in American public life.

Edward J. Furton, PhD, MA—Director of PublicationsSeptember 6, 2023Edward J. Furton

Marie T. Hilliard, MS, MA, JCL, PhD, RN, DM

Senior Fellow Marie Hilliard holds graduate degrees in maternal–child health nursing, religious studies, canon law, and professional higher education administration. She has been recognized for her involvement in health care advocacy at the state and national levels and was honored at the Second Annual International Nurses Day at the United Nations for her exemplary practice in the global delivery of health care. Dr. Hilliard has been a board member of several state and national organizations, including the Canon Law Society of America. She is an Army colonel (ret.), serving for more than twenty years, including as an acting deputy commander for a United States Army Reserve Brigade responsible for nursing and medic training for the northeastern United States.

Marie Hilliard, JCD, PhD, RN—Senior FellowSeptember 6, 2023Marie T. Hilliard

Andrew S. Kubick, PhD, MA

Dr. Kubick holds a Ph.D. in Bioethics from the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum and an M.A. in Theology from Holy Apostles College & Seminary. Aside from his work at NCBC, he serves as Deputy Director of the National Center for Religious Freedom Education and Research Fellow in Bioethics and Medical Conscience at the Religious Freedom Institute, and Adjunct Instructor of Bioethics at University of Mary.

John Di CamilloSeptember 6, 2023Andrew S. Kubick

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD

Fr. Tad Pacholczyk earned his doctorate in neuroscience from Yale and did postdoctoral work at Harvard. He is a priest of the diocese of Fall River, MA, and serves as Senior Ethicist at The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationSeptember 6, 2023Father Tad

Joe Zalot, PhD

Jozef Zalot joined The National Catholic Bioethics Center as a staff ethicist in July 2017. He served from 2015 to 2017 as the regional director of ethics and spiritual care for Mercy Health–Cincinnati and also served as a lecturer at the Athenaeum of Ohio/Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, where he taught courses in medical ethics and morality and justice in Catholic life. From 2004 to 2015, Dr. Zalot was a tenured professor at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, where he taught courses in health care ethics, business ethics, sexual and reproductive ethics, introduction to Catholic theology, and marriage. He has written two books and various articles and reviews, and he presents at academic conferences both domestically and internationally.

Joe Zalot, PhD—Staff EthicistSeptember 6, 2023Jozef Zalot