The Centre for Marian Studies
Educational advancement in all matters regarding the Virgin Mary
Registered Charity 1183579
Meet Our Committee Members
The Centre for Marian Studies management committee is made up of six Trustees and five management consultants.
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Dr. Sarah Jane Boss - Founder, Secretary & Librarian
Sarah Jane Boss is one of the founders of the Centre for Marian Studies. She teaches the Mariology course at St Mary’s College, Oscott. She is also the author of numerous publications in Marian studies, including Empress and Handmaid (Cassell, 2000), Mary (Continuum, 2004) and, as editor and contributor, Mary: The Complete Resource (Continuum and OUP, 2007).
Dr. Catherine O'Brien - Director, Chair of Trustees & Membership Secretary
Catherine O’Brien is Director of the Centre for Marian Studies. She was a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies and French at Kingston University London and has published widely on intersections between film and theology, including a book on Mary in film entitled The Celluloid Madonna (Wallflower Press, 2011) and a monograph entitled Martin Scorsese’s Divine Comedy: movies and religion (Bloomsbury, 2018).
Sr. Cathy Jones - Trustee
Sr Cathy Jones is a Religious of the Assumption and a member of the chaplaincy team at St Mary's University, Twickenham. She has an MPhil on the Marian theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar's Theo-drama from Heythrop College and completed a doctorate on the relationship between Mary and the Holy Spirit in the writings of René Laurentin at St Mary's University.
Dr. Andrew Louth - Trustee
Andrew Louth is Professor Emeritus of Patristic and Byzantine Studies, University of Durham, and was Visiting Professor of Eastern Orthodox Theology in the Faculty of Theology attached to the Amsterdam Centre of Eastern Orthodox Theology (ACEOT), Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, 2010–14. His research has mostly been in patristics, with monographs on Dionysios the Areopagite (1989), Maximos the Confessor (1996), and John Damascene (2002). His most recent books are Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology (2013) and Modern Orthodox Thinkers: from the Philokalia to the Present (2015). He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2010, and is an archpriest of the Diocese of Sourozh (Moscow Patriarchate).
The Rev'd Canon Dr. Paul Williams, DL – Trustee
Paul was Vicar of Tewkesbury Abbey, Canon of Gloucester Cathedral, and one of Her Majesty's Deputy Lieutenants of Gloucestershire. He is now Domestic Chaplain to HM the King and Rector of the Sandringham Group of Churches. He read theology at St Andrews University in Scotland and undertook further theological studies at Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he was Assistant Chaplain. Paul is a Fellow of the Centre of Marian Studies and a Member of the Royal Historical Society. He was a theological consultant to ARCIC's Marian Statement and has published several articles on Anglican Mariology. Paul was awarded a doctorate from the Archbishop of Canterbury for his thesis on Marian liturgical texts in the English Reformation.
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Dr. Melanie Landman - Trustee
Dr Melanie Landman began her academic career studying Social Policy at Goldsmiths, University of London. After graduation, she worked for several years in the health charity sector before undertaking an MA in Gender, Culture and Society at Birkbeck, University of London. She continued her postgraduate research at the University of Roehampton and completed her PhD, entitled An Investigation into the Phenomenon of the Black Madonna, in 2012. She has maintained her association with Roehampton as a visiting lecturer. Her ongoing research interests include pilgrimage studies and lived/vernacular religion.
Mike Russell - Trustee
Michael (Mike) Russell did his first degree in Politics at the University of Leicester and continued there for his teacher training before returning to his home town of Oldham to begin his career. In the late 1990s he attended his first Centre for Marian Studies conference at Ushaw and has been associated with the Centre since then. He studied under Sarah Boss for the Master’s degree in Marian Studies and was awarded that in 2004. Since then he has been awarded an M. Sc. in Educational Research from the University of Manchester for his work into School Appeals Panels. He is currently working as an independent scholar on aspects of Marian studies in the North-West of England.
Dr. Chris Maunder - Treasurer
Chris Maunder is a visiting fellow in Theology & Religious Studies at York St John University, and has served there as Head of Department, Head of B.A., and Head of M.A. He is the editor of Origins of the Cult of the Virgin Mary (Continuum, 2008) and the Oxford Handbook of Mary (OUP, 2019). He has written several articles on Mary in the New Testament and Marian apparitions as well as a monograph: Our Lady of the Nations: Apparitions of Mary in 20th-Century Catholic Europe (OUP, 2016). He was asked in the mid-1990s to edit a new volume of Henry Bettenson’s collection, Documents of the Christian Church (OUP, 1999, 2011). He is married to Natalie.
Fr. Kevin Alban, O. Carm. - R.I.P.
Kevin Alban, who died on the 4th May 2021, studied history at Oxford and theology in Rome and London. He held a doctorate in Church History. He was a member of the Carmelite Order and served as General Secretary and General Bursar. He was also Prior Provincial of the British Province. He taught Mariology in London and Church History in Oxford.
Natalie Maunder - Website Administrator & Social Network Co-ordinator
Natalie Maunder was a tutor for the Catholic Certificate in Religious Studies. She has an MA in Theology and Public Life, she is also a trustee of the fifteenth century Chapel of Our Lady of the Crag, Knaresborough. Natalie is married to Chris Maunder.
Dr. Jacob Phillips - Conference Officer
Dr Jacob Phillips is currently Director of the Institute of Theology at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, where is also a lecturer in theology. His Ph.D focused on human subjectivity in the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and his current research embraces a diverse range of sub-disciplinary areas, mostly within systematic and philosophical theology. He is particularly concerned with issues of human self-understanding, subjectivity, and obedience, and enjoys opportunities to explore these themes through Mariology. Recent publications include the monographs Mary, Star of Evangelisation: Tilling the Soil and Sowing the Seed (Paulist Press 2018), and Human Subjectivity in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Integrating Simplicity and Wisdom (T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology, 2019).