Thomas Cattoi, a native of Italy, studied economics and philosophy at Oxford and London Universities before completing a PhD in Systematic and Comparative Theology at Boston College. In 2006, he joined the faculty of the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, where he teaches classes on Buddhist-Christian dialogue, Christology, and early Christian theology and spirituality. He has led a number of theological immersions to India and Nepal and lectured at different Chinese universities under the auspices of the Malatesta foundation. He is the author of Divine Contingency: Theologies of Divine Embodiment in Maximos the Confessor and Tsong kha pa, 2009; Theologies of the Sacred Image in Theodore the Studite and Bokar Rinpoche, forthcoming; and a number of journal articles in Buddhist-Christian studies.

He presently serves as professor of Theology at Santa Clara University where he sits as the Dwan Family Endowed Chair in Ecumenical and Interfaith Dialogue.