Rev. Eli Valentin serves as pastor of the Bridge Church of God in Allentown, Pennsylvania. In addition to his pastoral ministry, he has been a lecturer at Union Theological Seminary, New York Theological Seminary, and Hunter College (CUNY). Valentín has served as a political advisor to numerous elected officials across the country and is the editor of Sermons from the Latino/a Pulpit and the author of the forthcoming Reinhold Niebuhr: A Political Life.

Dr. Margarita Benítez is Executive Director of Fundación Puertorriqueña de las Humanidades. She holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy, and graduate degrees in Hispanic Studies from Vassar College (BA), Middlebury College (MA), and Columbia University (PhD). Her lifelong involvement with higher education began at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), where she was born and raised. At UPR, Dr. Benítez was a professor of literature and humanities, as well as chancellor of UPR’s Cayey Campus, and acting chancellor of UPR’s Humacao campus. After moving to Washington, DC in 1997, she held a number of senior positions in higher-education organizations, such as the Office of Postsecondary Education in the US Dept. of Education, the Institute for Higher Education Policy, Excelencia in Education, The Education Trust, and the American Council on Education. Dr. Benítez has presented and published multiple papers on topics related to higher education, accreditation, women's issues, and Hispanic literature and culture in the U.S. In addition, she has taught at Columbia University, Fordham University, SUNY/Albany, and several universities in Spain. In 2018, Dr. Benítez returned to Puerto Rico after being appointed executive director of the Puerto Rico Endowment for the Humanities, the first woman to lead the nonprofit organization.

Rev. Dr. Melinda Contreras-Byrd is a NJ state licensed psychologist who specializes in issues of "race", gender, ethnicity and faith. She is a graduate of the Rutgers Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology and Princeton Theological Seminary, and she presently serves as an adjunct faculty member in the Doctor of Ministry program at New Brunswick Theological Seminary. Rev. Dr. Contreras-Byrd has been a professor of Psychology, Christian and Pastoral Counseling, and Black Studies. For six years, she served as the Special Services Advisor to the Office of the Dean of Students at Princeton University and has served as Chaplain for the Hispanic Theological Initiative. Rev. Dr. Contreras-Byrd is an ordained Elder and assistant pastor in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She is founder of Solidaridad, a mental-health/clergy wellness partnering initiative between pastors in the U.S. and the Dominican Republic, where she is Dean of the AME Ministerial Institute. A poet and author, Rev. Dr. Contreras-Byrd’s most recent book is entitled Saving the Lives of Black and Latinx Pastors: A Self Care Study (Red Sea Press, 2019). 

Kamaria Milagros Byrd is a licentiate in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She received her Masters degree in Organizational Leadership from Rider University and is presently a first year student at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Dr. Jorge Juan Rodríguez V, the son of two Puerto Rican migrants, grew up with his parents, grandmother, and uncle in a small affordable housing community in urban Connecticut. His story of diaspora, translanguaging, race, and religion propelled his academic journey, leading him to degrees in biblical studies, social theory, liberation theologies, and a PhD in History from Union Theological Seminary. His scholarship examines the intersections of race, religion, and social movements with a particular focus on Black and Brown religious activism in the 20th century, including groups like the New York Young Lords. Dr. Rodríguez is an administrator and educator. In addition to his role as Visiting Assistant Professor of Historical Studies at Union Theological Seminary, he serves full-time as the Associate Director for Strategic Programming at the Hispanic Summer Program, a nonprofit that creates year-round educational spaces for Latinx graduate students of religion. Additionally, Dr. Rodríguez frequently consults with universities and organizations across the country to help them imagine and build more just economic, curricular, and labor systems in their institutions. Learn more about his work at www.jjrodriguezv.com and follow him on Twitter at @jjrodv.

Dr. Lloyd D. Barba is Assistant Professor of Religion and core faculty in Latinx and Latin American Studies at Amherst College. He holds a PhD from University of Michigan, an MA from University of Michigan, and a BA from University of the Pacific. He has published essays on the history of race and religion, Pentecostalism, Catholicism, the Sanctuary Movement, and material religion. Dr. Barba is the author of Sowing the Sacred: Mexican Pentecostal Farmworkers in California, 1916-1966 (Oxford University Press, 2022).

Rev. Dr. Joanne Solis holds a PhD in Organizational Leadership and Development, with an emphasis on Ecclesial Leadership. Dr. Solis is the co-founder of CaminoRoad, a development company that focuses on increasing the cultural responsiveness of individuals and organizations. She is a consultant, multi-ethnic coach, qualified administrator of the IDI (Intercultural Development Inventory), and she teaches leadership courses at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. Dr. Solis is an entrepreneurial, visionary strategist who travels extensively, speaking on topics related to leadership, cultural competency, and educational equity.

Dr. Matilde Moros is Assistant Professor of Gender Sexuality and Women’s Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a theological social ethicist working in the field of gender, sexuality and women's studies. The ethics of resistance and subversion of hegemonic world-views and narratives of power lead her teaching and learning toward a counter-narrative method of decolonial, transnational feminist ethics. Feminist social ethics must respond to sexual and gender violence and the multiple intersections of which race and its various social constructions has led to the exclusion from centers of power of many peoples, including Latin-American and Latinx communities. Dr. Moros conducts research on the communal and historical effects of organized resistance to gendered and sexual violence has led her to an approach to liberation ethics in which recovery of resistance methods has become the primary focus.

Dr. Carmelo Santos was born in Puerto Rico and grew up by the beach across the bay from San Juan, in a small town called Catano. He received his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Rico, where he specialized in Organo-metalic synthesis. His academic interests are in the intersection of science (specifically brain and cognitive science) and theology (particularly Liberation and Postcolonial theologies with an emphasis on Pneumatology and Theological Anthropology). He has taught undergraduates at Georgetown University the course “God & the Brain.” He is fundamentally interested in the question of how concrete religious practices, symbols and narratives actually shape the ways our brains (and nervous system in general) and how they can facilitate the decolonization of colonized people’s imaginaries. Dr. Santos is senior pastor of Hope Lutheran Church in Annandale, VA and serves on the board of directors of the immigrants’ rights organizations CASA de Maryland and CASA in Action. 

Dr. Angela Tarango is Associate Professor of Religion at Trinity University (TX). Her first book is Choosing the Jesus Way: American Indian Pentecostals and the Fight for the Indigenous Principle (University of North Carolina Press, 2014). She is currently writing a book on material religion and Latino Methodism at San Antonio’s La Trinidad United Methodist Church.

Dr. Xochitl Alvizo teaches in the area of Women and Religion and the Philosophy of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality at California State University, Northridge. She is committed to bringing an intercultural feminist approach to theology and the study of religion. Her interests include feminist and queer theologies, congregational studies, ecclesiology, and the emerging church. Her work is inspired by the conviction that all people are inextricably connected and what we do, down to the smallest thing, matters. She makes her church home with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Dr. Alvizo is co-founder of Feminism and Religion (feminismandreligion.com) and The Pub Church, Boston. Dr. Alvizo, along with Gina Messina, is co-editor of the volume Women Religion Revolution (FSR Books, 2017).

Dr. Leopoldo A. Sánchez M. is the Werner R.H. and Elizabeth R. Krause Professor of Hispanic Ministries, Professor of Systematic Theology, and Director of the Center for Hispanic Studies at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. He received his PhD from Concordia Seminary and his MDiv from Concordia Theological Seminary. His latest books are T&T Introduction to Spirit Christology (T&T Clark, 2021) and Escatología: La esperanza cristiana (Concordia, 2020). Other works include Sculptor Spirit: Models of Sanctification from Spirit Christology, with a foreword by Oscar García-Johnson (IVP Academic, 2019), and two Pickwick titles, Receiver, Bearer, and Giver of God’s Spirit: Jesus’ Life in the Spirit as a Lens for Theology and Life (2015) and Immigrant Neighbors Among Us: Immigration Across Theological Traditions (2015), which he co-edited with M. Daniel Carroll R. Dr. Sánchez is Principal Double Bass with the St. Louis Civic Orchestra, the bassist for Di Kamer Kapelye, and an avid listener and student of the music of Rubén Blades.

Dr. Sophia A. Magallanes is currently an independent scholar who is an Adjunct Professor of Old Testament at Fuller Seminary. She also teaches a course in Spanish at El Centro Latino. Dr. Magallanes served as an Assistant Professor of Theology & Biblical Studies at Life Pacific University for six years. She holds BA and MA degrees in Biblical Studies from Azusa Pacific University; a Masters in Theology from Fuller Seminary; and a PhD in Divinity, with an emphasis in Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament, from the University of Edinburgh. Dr. Magallanes specializes in Hebrew Wisdom Literature and Old Testament studies. She has authored several articles in dictionaries, the Wisdom Commentary Series, peer-reviewed journals, and is currently writing a commentary on the Book of Job.

Dr. Jacqueline M. Hidalgo is Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Diego. Formerly, she served as Professor of Latina/o/x Studies and of Religion; Associate Dean for Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; and Director of the Oakley Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences at Williams College. She is a past president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS) and Vice President of the New England/Eastern Canada Region of the Society of Biblical Literature. Dr. Hidalgo has written several essays that examine the intersections of gender, sexuality, ecology, Latine studies, and biblical studies. She is the author of Latina/o/x Studies and Biblical Studies in Brill Research Perspectives in Biblical Interpretation 3.4 (2020), as well as Revelation in Aztlán: Scriptures, Utopias, and the Chicano Movement (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). With Efraín Agosto, she also co-edited the collection of essays Latinxs, the Bible, and Migration (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Dr. Hidalgo holds an AB from Columbia University, an MA from Union Theological Seminary, and a PhD from Claremont Graduate University.

Dr. Néstor Medina is Assistant Professor of Religious Ethics at Emmanuel College, University of Toronto. He engages ethics from contextual, liberationist, intercultural, and post/decolonial perspectives. Dr. Medina explores the ethical implications of religious/theological debates, and how these shape concrete social structures and notions of ethnoracial and cultural identity. He also studies how lived religious experiences shape/transform people’s understandings of ethics on the ground, especially reflecting from Latina/o/x (Canadian and USA), Latin American, and Latina/o/x Pentecostal perspectives. Dr. Medina is the author of Mestizaje: (Re)Mapping ‘Race,’ Culture, and Faith in Latina/o Catholicism (Orbis, 2009), the commissioned booklet On the Doctrine of Discovery (Canadian Council of Churches, 2017), and Christianity, Empire and the Spirit (Brill, 2018).

Dr. Mariana Alessandri is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), where she teaches ethics, existentialism, religious studies, and the history of philosophy. She also engages in public philosophy, publishing in The New York Times, Times Higher Ed, Chronicle of Higher Ed, Yahoo Parenting, New Philosopher Magazine, and Womankind. Dr. Alessandri volunteers with the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas, as well as with the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights.