Personal

[The image was taken near my hometown in Austria, during a hiking tour in the mountains near Fließ]

I was born and raised in Landeck, a small town in the Tyrolean Alps in the western part of Austria. After high school, I joined the Society of the Divine Word, studied philosophy and theology at Sankt Gabriel near Vienna, was ordained a priest and served the church in Bulawayo, in the south of Zimbabwe, before studying anthropology in the United States of America (USA). After receiving a PhD in Anthropology and a Certificate in African Studies from the University of Florida in Gainesville, USA, I lived in a community of my religious order near Bonn, Germany, to teach anthropology at the Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule Sankt Augustin, which has moved to Cologne and was renamed Kölner Hochschule für Katholische Theologie, and to work as a member of the editorial team of Anthropos. Since 2007, I live and in Omaha, USA, and teach at Creighton University. I draw inspiration from and become energized by my faith and ministry, research and mentoring students, engaging with communities, spending time with friends, and being in nature.