Fr. Dr. Joseph Laracy is a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark and member of the Seton Hall University Priest Community. He holds a doctorate from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. His principal technical interests are in systems science: systems theory (e.g., cybernetics), applied dynamical systems, and systems engineering. He also enjoys teaching topics in applied statistics, logic, and the history of mathematics and science. Father Laracy's principal theological interests are in the intersection of faith & reason and empirical science & Christianity. In addition, Father Laracy is interested in pastoral applications of Viktor Frankl's existential analysis—logotherapy. Father Laracy's work at the Complex Systems Research Laboratory at MIT concentrated on uncertainty and dynamics in large-scale, complex engineering systems and looked at key sources of uncertainty, ways to model and quantify uncertainty, and ways to maintain properties such as safety and resilience as systems change over time. His master's degree research at that time was supported in part by NASA Ames Research Center (Model-Based Hazard Analysis Research) and National Science Foundation (A Socio-Technical Approach to Internet Security). As a student at the University of Illinois, he pursued research activities to architect a scalable RSA cryptographic co-processor, supported in part by the National Science Foundation. Laracy also worked on a software pattern-based fly-by-wire aircraft control system. In the course of his studies, he held engineering positions with Lucent Technologies (Wireless Terminal Interoperability Laboratory), Ball Aerospace and Technologies (NASA Deep Impact Mission), and Light Source Energy Services.
In light of the persistent problem of "academic silos" in the contemporary university, Nagib Callaos and others have demonstrated the importance of interdisciplinary communication for those engaged in the advancement of scientific research. Two twentieth century scholars, Ian Barbour (1923-2013) and Bernard Lonergan, SJ (1904-1984), offer a concrete approach to interdisciplinary communication by advocating a common epistemology and metaphysics for integrating traditional academic disciplines. Barbour, an experimental physicist and theologian, and Lonergan, a philosopher, theologian, and economist, both suggest a "critical realist" epistemology. Barbour's preferred metaphysical framework for a systematic synthesis between disciplines, e.g., natural science and theology, is the process thought of Alfred North Whitehead. Lonergan, on the other hand, develops his own generalized empirical method (GEM) in which the being investigated is that which occurs within consciousness. We compare and contrast these two approaches as well as critically engage them.
