Daniel Borzutzky is a poet and Spanish-language translator from Chicago. His most recent books are The Murmuring Grief of the Americas (2024), and Written After a Massacre in the Year 2018 (2021). His 2016 collection, The Performance of Becoming Human, received the National Book Award. Lake Michigan (2018) was a finalist for the Griffin International Poetry Prize. His most recent translations are Cecilia Vicuña’s The Deer Book (2024); and Paula Ilabaca Nuñez’s The Loose Pearl (2022), winner of the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. His translation of Galo Ghigliotto's Valdivia received the American Literary Translator’s Association’s 2017 National Translation Award, and he has also translated collections by Raúl Zurita, and Jaime Luis Huenún. He teaches English and Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Alejandra Mejía is an Assistant Editor and Editorial Operations Coordinator at Duke University Press, where she acquires books in Latinx history. Her politics and devotion to migrant justice are largely informed by being the daughter of a single, working-class immigrant mother. She is also the Chief Editor of Migrant Roots Media, an independent media platform that centers the analyses of migrants and children of migrants to unearth the root causes of global migration. She served as co-lead of the Antiracism Toolkit for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in Scholarly Publishing, hosted by the Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications. Mejía holds a BA in Comparative Literature with a concentration in Latinx studies from Williams College. 

Rev. Dr. Aizaiah G. Yong is an administrative faculty member and practical theologian at the Claremont School of Theology. There he also co-directs professional doctoral programs related to contemplative leadership & the Center for Engaged Compassion (CEC). The CEC is devoted to co-repairing the world through the teaching, study, and cultivation of compassion. Ordained as a Pentecostal Christian minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and with strong ties to the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries (TFAM), he has over 15 years of experience in religious and higher education leadership, healing, and advocacy work informed by psychospiritual practice, and international public speaking. Together he, his life partner Nereyda Yong, and his father Amos Yong, have co-founded Spirited Renewal, an organization devoted to transforming 21st-century spirituality, culture, and relationships. Rev. Dr. Yong is a trusted thought leader on issues at the intersections of spiritual, cultural, and relational transformation. His forthcoming book, Trauma and Renewal: Toward Spiritual, Communal, and Holistic Transformation (Orbis Books, 2025) received the nationally acclaimed 2023 Louisville Institute Book Grant for Scholars of Color. Multiracial Cosmotheandrism: a Practical Theology of Multiracial Experiences (Orbis Books, 2023) received the 2020 Hispanic Theological Initiative Dissertation Prize and the 2022 Raimon Panikkar Prize. Rev. Dr. Yong holds a PhD in Practical Theology: Intercultural Education and Formation, from Claremont School of Theology; an MA in Theology and Culture from Northwest University; and a BS in Organizational Leadership and Management from Regent University. His greatest joys are being in a life partnership with Neddy and being a parent to awe-inspiring children.

Dr. Yohana Junker is an Associate Professor of Art, Spirituality, and Culture and Associate Dean for Spiritual Life at Claremont School of Theology. Dr. Junker’s research and publications probe the intersections among the fields of art history, eco-criticism, and decolonial studies, with special attention to contemporary Indigenous and diasporic art practices. In her writing, art, and activism, she explores the human capacity to imagine and retrieve generative ways of being even in the face of impossibility. She also investigates the ways artists create poetic spaces that allow viewers to come together, reclaim agency, and restore a sense of purpose, a thirst for justice, and a desire for transformation. Her artwork is central to her scholarship and activism. Dr. Junker holds a  PhD in Art and Religion from Graduate Theological Union; an MTS in Visual Arts and Spirituality, Theological Aesthetics and Art History from Christian Theological Seminary; and a BA in Journalism and Communications from Universidade Metodista de São Paulo. She is co-editing, with Dr. Aaron Rosen, Modern and Contemporary Artists on Religion: A Global Sourcebook (Bloomsbury).

Dr. Edwin Hernández serves as President of Antillean Adventist University. With extensive experience in higher education, philanthropy, and scholarship, he is recognized for his advocacy of theological education and commitment to advancing scholarship. Before his current role, Dr. Hernández was the Executive Director of the Louisville Institute, based out of the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and served as President and Provost at AdventHealth University. His career includes positions as Senior Program Officer at the DeVos Family Foundations, Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Latino Religion at the University of Notre Dame, Program Officer at The Pew Charitable Trusts, and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Antillean Adventist University. He also taught as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Andrews University. Dr. Hernández earned his PhD and MA in Sociology of Religion from the University of Notre Dame, an MDiv from Andrews University, and a BA in Theological Studies from La Sierra University. He has led significant research initiatives on theological education, congregational studies, and philanthropic strategies. Throughout his career, Dr. Hernández has remained a dedicated scholar and writer, authoring and contributing to five books and over 60 articles and reports, establishing him as a thought leader in his discipline.

Dr. Johanna Fernández is an Associate Professor of History at Baruch College, City University of New York (CUNY). Dr. Fernández specializes in 20th Century U.S. history and the history of social movements and is the author of The Young Lords: A Radical History (UNC Press, 2020). The book explores the Puerto Rican counterpart of the Black Panther Party and has received the American Book Award, the Frederick Jackson Turner Award, the New York City Book Award, the Merle Curti Award, and the Liberty Legacy Foundation Award. Dr. Fernández's recent research and litigation have significantly advanced the field, particularly through her successful Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) lawsuit against the NYPD, which recovered the "lost" Handschu files. This archive, containing over one million surveillance records compiled by the NYPD from 1954 to 1972, includes crucial primary documents on New Yorkers, including Malcolm X, making it the largest repository of police surveillance records in the U.S. She is the editor of Writing on the Wall: Selected Prison Writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal (City Lights, 2015) and with Abu-Jamal co-edited a special issue of Socialism and Democracy titled "The Roots of Mass Incarceration in the US: Locking Up Black Dissidents and Punishing the Poor" (Routledge, 2014). Her scholarly contributions have earned her multiple accolades, including the Fulbright Scholars grant for research in the Middle East and North Africa and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Her writings have been featured internationally, from Al Jazeera to the Huffington Post, and she has appeared in various media outlets, including NPR, The New York Times, and Democracy Now! As an accomplished filmmaker, she directed and co-curated the exhibition ¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York, recognized by The New York Times as one of 2015’s Top 10 Best in Art. She also wrote and produced Justice on Trial: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal (BigNoise Films, 2010). Dr. Fernández holds a PhD in U.S. History from Columbia University and a BA in Literature and American Civilization from Brown University. During the pandemic, she hosted WBAI’s radio morning show, “A New Day” and currently hosts their morning show, “What’s Going On!Friday.” Her current research focuses on U.S. fascism.

Macarena Hernández is a multimedia journalist and educational consultant. Formerly, she was an editorial columnist at The Dallas Morning News; the Rio Grande Valley Bureau Chief for The San Antonio Express-News; the Fred Hartman Distinguished Professor of Journalism at Baylor University; and the Victoria Advocate Endowed Professor in the Humanities at the University of Houston-Victoria. She served as founding content editor and production manager for HTI Open Plaza. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and PBS.

Nelly Rosario is the author of Song of the Water Saints: A Novel, winner of a PEN/Open Book Award. She holds an MFA from Columbia University. Her fiction and creative nonfiction work appears in various journals and anthologies, including Daughters of Latin America: An International Anthology of Writing by Latine Women (Amistad Press/Harper Collins, 2023), Critical Dialogues in Latina and Latino Studies (New York University Press, 2021), and Teaching Black: Pedagogy, Practice, and Perspectives on Writing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021). She has been on faculty at Texas State University-San Marcos, Medgar Evers-CUNY, The City College of New York-CUNY, Columbia University, and was a Visiting Scholar in the MIT Comparative Media/Writing Program. Rosario has served as Assistant Director of Writing for the MIT Black History Project and as founding content editor/webmaster for HTI Open Plaza. Currently, Rosario serves as Chair and Associate Professor in the Latina/o Studies Program at Williams College.

Amanda Bolaños is the Stanley Hauerwas Scholar and a ThD candidate of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School. Her research interests include offering a real, pastoral, and critical perspective in the systematic success and harm of religion in communities through the praxis of Latinx liberation theology, feminist theology, Catholic Social Teaching, and virtue ethics. Bolaños was born in Palm Springs, California to a Guatemalan father and an Italian-Canadian mother. She is a Roman Catholic who aspires to converse about the present effects of a diaspora space, to offer a critical perspective of euro-centered aestheticism, and to shed light on those who have complex, beautiful, and multifaceted identities. She holds an MTS degree from Duke Divinity School (2022), an MA in Theology from the University of Notre Dame (2020) and BA in Political Science and Perspectives (Theology/Philosophy) from Boston College (2018) where she received the George F. and Jean M. Bemis Award. Bolaños currently serves as the Young Adult Minister at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Chapel Hill, NC.

Dr. Marlene Mayra Ferreras is assistant professor of practical theology at the HMS Richards Divinity School at La Sierra University (2017), where she also received BA degrees in Religious Studies and Spanish (2003). Dr. Ferreras’ academic interests intersect social science and theology. She studies the strategies women use to resist systems of violence and oppression for the purpose of providing spiritual care that assists women in identifying and developing preferred futures. Her research on decolonial approaches in care and counseling with working-class Latinx women focuses on the identity and eschatology of Indigenous female maquila workers in Yucatan, Mexico. Dr. Ferreras’ recent book Insurrectionist Wisdoms: Toward a North American Indigenized Pastoral Theology (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022) won the 2023 national HTI Book Prize. Awards granted also include the Wills and Dorothy Fisher Award (Claremont School of Theology, 2018), the Forum for Theological Exploration Doctoral Fellowships (2015, 2017) and a HTI Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (Princeton, 2017). She holds a PhD in practical theology: spiritually integrative psychotherapy from Claremont School of Theology (2019). Her two MA degrees in theology are from Claremont School of Theology (2019) and Fuller Theological Seminary (2012), with an emphasis in biblical studies. She also received an MS in Marital and Family Therapy from Loma Linda University (2011). The daughter of a Cuban refugee single-mother, Dr. Ferreras was born and raised in southern California. She is an ordained Seventh-day Adventist minister with fourteen years experience in pastoral ministry, serving communities around Loma Linda, California, as well as a registered associate marriage and family therapist with the California Board of Behavioral Sciences.

Jacob Leal, a PhD candidate in Constructive Theology at Boston University, is a Texas-born Mexican-American whose research is influenced by ancestral veneration of what remains in the afterlife of colonial trauma, in both Mexican culture and Mexican people. Leal holds an MTS from Duke University Divinity School and a BA from Vanguard University of Southern California. Rooted in precolonial Indigenous cultures and how Indigenous ancestors haunt structures of coloniality, his interest in Mexican ancestral understandings seeks to offer important contributions to Constructive Theology. Leal’s research employs liberation theologies, decolonial theory, and trauma studies to explore the continuing presence of our ancestors. As such, the influence of his abuela‘s stories of visitations from deceased loved ones is a force toward his precolonial understanding of time, space, and death. Leal hopes to expose negative Western labels of ancestral visitations, which deem interactions with the dead taboo. His passion for theological research and training simultaneously realizes the importance of creating inclusive academic spaces and opportunities for Latines and marginalized voices, like his abuela, to tell their stories.

ire’ne lara silva, 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate, is the author of five poetry collections: the eaters of flowers (Saddle Road Press, 2024); FirstPoems (Flowersong Press, 2021); CUICACALLI/House of Song (Saddle Road Press, 2019); Blood Sugar Canto (Saddle Road Press, 2016); and furia (Mouthfeel Press, 2010). Her two chapbooks are Hibiscus Tacos (Alabrava Press, 2021) and Enduring Azucares (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015). ire’ne recently released her first comic book, VENDAVAL (Chispa Imprint of Scout Comics, 2024). She is the recipient of a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction, a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, the final Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award. Her short story collection, flesh to bone (Aunt Lute Books, 2013), won the Premio Aztlán and the short story collection, the light of your body, will be published by Arte Publico Press in spring 2025. ire’ne is currently a Writer at Large for Texas Highways Magazine.

Anthony Trujillo is a member of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, one of the six Tewa-speaking pueblos in the upper Rio Grande Valley. As a PhD candidate in American Studies at Harvard University, Trujillo works at the confluence of Native American and Indigenous Studies, history, religious studies, anthropology, and the arts. His research attunes to the bio/geo-graphic manifestations of Indigenous engagement with – and resistance to – colonial/imperial religious, political, and economic systems, largely in the context of 18th and 19th century North America, but also draws connections with contemporary Native nations and descendent communities. From a political and geographic angle, Trujillo seeks to discern the competing sources and configurations of sovereignty. He is also keenly interested in how creative expression—music, visual art, oratory, and literature—become vital avenues through which Indigenous peoples and people of color can move beyond constraints placed on their bodies, form intimate relationships of exchange among diverse communities, and maintain spaces and practices of belonging. Trujillo’s revitalizing practices include music, photography, writing, deserts, forests, bodies of water, the night sky, and cooking. He received an MA in History from Harvard University (2023), an MDiv from Yale University (2019), and a BA in Music Performance from Seattle Pacific University (2002).

Rebecca Mendoza Nunziato is a Xicana, born and raised in Colorado. Mendoza is the daughter and descendant of Mexican migrant farm workers and white settler ranchers. She is a doctoral student in the Committee for the Study of Religion at Harvard University with a focus on Latin American and Caribbean traditions, and a 2023 Ford PreDoctoral Fellow. Mendoza’s scholarship centers Indigenous philosophy, material religion, and ritual survivance pertaining to kinship among humans, plants, animals, ancestors, ancestral belongings, and land. Her interdisciplinary approach bridges ancient Mesoamerican materials and cosmovision with critical theory from Indigenous, Mexican, and Chicanx communities. She was a 2022 Summer Pre-Columbian Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks and a Graduate Student Associate at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Mendoza is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School (MDiv, 2023) and the University of Oregon (2014) with honors and bachelor degrees in Political Science and Spanish. In addition to her academic research, she has professional experience working in community organizing, advocacy, education, and storytelling.

Grace Loh Prasad is the author of The Translator’s Daughter (Mad Creek Books/The Ohio State University Press, 2024), her debut memoir. Prasad has been named a finalist for both the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize and the Black Lawrence Press Immigrant Writing Series. Her writing has been published in the New York Times, Longreads, The Offing, Hyperallergic, Guernica, Literary Hub, Catapult, KHÔRA, and elsewhere. She is a member of The Writers Grotto and Seventeen Syllables, an Asian American Pacific Islanders writers collective. Prasad lives in the Bay Area.

Dr. Raúl Zegarra is an Assistant Professor of Roman Catholic Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School and a member of the editorial and advisory team at the Hispanic Theological Initiative. Dr. Zegarra has held previous positions at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago. He received his PhD from The University of Chicago and holds master’s degrees in philosophy and theology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and the University of Notre Dame, respectively. His research focuses on the relationship between faith and politics, with particular emphasis on how the identity and commitments of minoritized groups are shaped. Awards recently granted include the New Scholar Essay Prize for Catholic Studies in the Americas (Fordham University, 2023), the Max Weber Kolleg Research Fellowship (University of Erfurt, 2022), and the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise (University of Heidelberg, 2021). Dr. Zegarra has authored four books, multiple book chapters, academic articles, and translations. His most recent book, A Revolutionary Faith: Liberation Theology between Public Religion and Public Reason (Stanford UP, 2023), highlights liberation theology’s contributions to a theory of social justice that welcomes the role of religious commitments. His current book project — Sacred Identities: Latines and the Intersectional Politics of Faith — attempts to problematize some of the assumptions of Latine theology regarding the relationship between race, gender, and religion in the Latine community. Dr. Zegarra is a regular op-ed contributor to the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio.

Amirah Orozco is a theology doctoral student at the University of Notre Dame in the area of Systematic Theology, with a minor in Gender Studies. She is also a Doctoral Student Affiliate with the Kellogg Institute of International Affairs. Her interests center on mujerista and feminista latine thought as well as Catholic ecclesiology. Orozco’s scholarship pursues liberation and emancipation of the poor and marginalized, focusing on decolonial theologies and feminist movements in the Catholic Church. Her work is anchored in how social movements relate outside of the Church and why those relationships are important to understanding the role of the Church in public life. Orozco originates from the Border between El Paso,Texas and Juárez, Chihuahua, has worked with Latine immigrants in Boston and Chicago, and conducted research in Zacatecas about the legacy of San Luis Batiz Saenz and Mexico’s post-revolutionary church-state relations. She holds a Master's of Theological Studies from Boston College School of Theology and Ministry (2021) and a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston College (2019).

María Amantina Durán immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic in the mid-1960s. She and her husband Natalio Durán planted roots in Williamsburg (“Los Sures”), Brooklyn, where they began attending Transfiguration Parish. She went on to become a community activist and a leader in the Fraternidad Jesús de Nazaret, a chapter of the international Lay Fraternity of Charles de Foucauld, which helps parishioners meet regularly outside of Mass and strengthen their faith in God and connection with the community. With two daughters in college, she studied English at Solidaridad Humana, a school on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Durán volunteered at the Nuestros Niños Day Care Center in Williamsburg for 20 years and became officially employed as an Educational Aide for 13 years. Her testimonios are documented in various archival resources, including a 1989 oral history recording by the Brooklyn Historical Society as part of its Hispanic Communities Documentation Project. In the early 90s, she organized the first event to feature Dominican folk music, food, and knitting at the central Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza. She has also shared her experience on the New Yorkers for Parks Lots to Grow podcast and in Bargaining for Brooklyn: Community Organizations in the Entrepreneurial City (University of Chicago Press, 2007) by Nicole P. Marwell. Durán is a member of La Casita Verde community garden in Williamsburg and a founding member of Fundación Hijos de Loma Prieta, a Facebook page dedicated to the Loma Prieta community in Santiago, Dominican Republic. A proud wife and mother of five children and three grandchildren, Durán continues attending Mass at Transfiguration Parish and is involved in several charitable works in New York City and in her native country, for which she has received several City Council citations, proclamations, and awards. 

Jesús Rafael Jiménez was born in San José de Guanipa, Anzoátegui State, Venezuela. He works as an Accounting Technician and Social Promoter. Currently, he is Coordinator of Social Programs at the Buenaventura Catholic Parish in the City of San Félix, Bolívar State, Venezuela. In 2023, he was part of the Venezuelan delegation to the Continental Meeting of the Continental Meeting of the Secular Fraternity of Saint Charles De Foucauld América in Medellín, Colombia.

Dr. Maria Liu Wong is the Provost of City Seminary of New York. Dr. Liu Wong has also served as their Dean and currently directs the Faith and Families initiative, the Walls-Ortiz Gallery and co-directs the Ministry in the City HUB, a national learning network. She is also a Senior Fellow with the Theological Education Between the Times project and Research Scholar with the LearnLong Institute for Education and Learning Research. Her research interests include lifelong and transformative learning, learning cities, mentoring, action research, women and leadership, diversity, place and arts-based pedagogies, youth and urban theological education. Dr. Liu Wong holds an EdD in Adult Learning and Leadership (AEGIS) from Columbia University Teachers College, an MA in Urban Mission from Westminster Theological Seminary, an MA in International Educational Development from Columbia University Teachers College and a BA in English/Environmental Science from Barnard College. She is the author of On Becoming Wise Together: Learning and Leading in the City (Eerdmans, 2023), part of the Theological Education Between the Times series, and has co-authored Stay in the City: How Christian Faith Is Flourishing in an Urban World (Eerdmans, 2017) and the forthcoming companion Sense the City. Dr. Liu Wong is a member and fellowship group leader at Redeemer Presbyterian Church Downtown in New York.