Patricia Núñez Porras has been in education for twenty-plus years and currently works with the Austin Independent School District in Texas. Her career in education started early in Mexico as a pre-kindergarten teachers’ assistant. She holds a Master’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin in Curriculum & Instruction, with a concentration in Bilingual/Bicultural Education, and is currently a doctoral student in Cultural Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Certified as an Education Administrator with the Texas Education Agency, Núñez has worked as a bilingual teacher, an instructional coach, and an advocate for equitable access to high-quality bilingual education at local and national levels. Her greatest joys include collaborating on designing and co-teaching engaging units grounded in culturally relevant pedagogy. Núñez also stays energized, designing summer programs with themes like El maíz y el chocolate that sustain and revitalize languages, and highlight cultural assets and strengths.

Dr. Mark S. Young, president of Denver Seminary, is a theological educator and pastoral leader with over 40 years of global ministry experience. Prior to joining Denver Seminary in 2009, he served as professor of world missions and intercultural studies at Dallas Theological Seminary from 1995–2009 and was the founding academic dean of the Biblical Theological Seminary in Wroclaw, Poland.

Dr. Young has authored several publications, including The Hope of the Gospel: Theological Education and the Next Evangelicalism (Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2022); One True Story, One True God: What the Bible Is All About (Our Daily Bread Publishing, 2021); “Marriage and the Mission of God,” published in Marriage: Its Foundation; Theology and Mission in a Changing World (Moody Press, 2018); and “Recapturing Evangelical Identity and Mission,” published in Still Evangelical? Insiders Reconsider Political, Social, and Theological Meaning (InterVarsity Press, 2018). He has also presented on issues in theological education and mission for numerous international symposia and conferences.

Dr. Young holds a PhD in Educational Studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and a ThM in New Testament Literature and Exegesis from Dallas Theological Seminary. He serves as the board chair for the Association of Theological Schools and is a member of the International Council for Evangelical Theological Education, Evangelical Theological Society, OMSC Missions Leaders Forum, and several other organizations. He has been married to Priscilla Young for nearly 40 years, has three children and eight grandchildren.

Dr. Vincent W. Lloyd is professor of theology and religious studies and the director of the Center for Political Theology at Villanova University, where he researches and teaches about the philosophy of religion, religion and politics, and race. Dr. Lloyd's publications include Black Dignity: The Struggle Against Domination (Yale University Press, 2022); Break Every Yoke: Religion, Justice, and the Abolition of Prisons, with Joshua Dubler (Oxford University Press, 2019); Religion of the Field Negro: On Black Secularism and Black Theology (Fordham University Press, 2017); and Anti-Blackness and Christian Ethics, edited with Andrew Prevot (Orbis, 2017). He coedits the journal Political Theology as well as the book series Transforming Political Theologies, published by Routledge, with Judith Gruber and David True. A second-generation Panamanian-American, Dr. Lloyd is vegan and lives with a partner, two children, and a pit bull in Philadelphia's Powelton neighborhood.

Dr. Matthew Vega is an assistant professor of theology and religious studies at the University of San Diego, where he is also an affiliated faculty member with the Africana Studies department. Dr. Vega earned a PhD in theology and religion as well as an MA in religion from the University of Chicago. He holds a BA in biblical and theological studies from Wheaton College. A scholar of race and religion, Dr. Vega's teaching and research explore the dynamics of race and class in Black (USA), Latin American, and majority world theologies of liberation. His work has appeared in various publications, including The Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Sojourners, and The Political Theology Network. Additionally, he co-authored a chapter in the Theology and Pop Culture series published by Fortress Press and Lexington Books, which compares the emergence of Black (USA) theology in the 1960s with the emergence of the Miles Morales Spider-Man. Dr. Vega's scholarship has been funded by the Hispanic Theological Initiative, the Forum for Theological Exploration, and the Anthony C. Yu Fellowship in Comparative Religion.

Dr. Philip Jenkins is Distinguished Professor of History, and Co-Director of the Program on Historical Studies of Religion at Baylor University. He works in several diverse fields, with major current interests that include the studies of global Christianity, past and present; new and emerging religious movements; and Late Modern U.S. history, chiefly post-1975. Dr. Jenkins holds a PhD from Cambridge University and has published thirty books, which have been translated into sixteen languages. These most recent include He Will Save You from the Deadly Pestilence: The Many Lives of Psalm 91 (Oxford University Press, 2022); Climate, Catastrophe, and Faith: How Changes in Climate Drive Religious Upheaval (Oxford University Press, 2021); A Global History of the Cold War 1945-1991 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021); Fertility and Faith: The Demographic Revolution That Is Transforming All The World’s Religions (Baylor University Press, 2020); Rethinking a Nation: The United States in the 21st Century (Macmillan/Red Globe, 2019); and Crucible of Faith: The Ancient Revolution That Made Our Modern Religious World (Basic Books, 2017).

Dr. Joel Pérez is an executive and leadership coach (PCC) with over 25 years experience in higher education. He is the owner of Apoyo Coaching and Consulting, LLC and a Professionally Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation (ICF), where he currently serves as the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Los Angeles Chapter, leading inclusion efforts. He specializes in career transitions, career coaching, identity-conscious leadership coaching for professionals who want to develop their cultural humility. As a consultant, he assists organizations that want to move from performative statements toward sustainable change. He has a certification in the the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI), is a Qualified Administrator for the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), a Gallup Strengths Certified Coach, and a certified coach through the Academy of Creative Coaching. Dr. Pérez has over 20 years of experience in higher education, serving in various key leadership roles. He recently served as the Interim Executive Director for the Immigration Resource Center of San Gabriel Valley, which provides low-cost immigration legal services, educational events, and connection to local community resources in California.

Dr. Pérez earned a BS in Business Administration from Biola University, an MEd in College Student Affairs from Azusa Pacific University, and a PhD in Higher Education Administration from Claremont Graduate University. He has been married over 25 years and has four children, and he enjoys cheering on the Los Angeles Dodgers. 

Dr. Peter Rios is the author of Untold Stories: The Latinx Leadership Experience in Higher Education (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2021) and is currently writing a second book titled Apostles of Equity: A Guide to Transforming your Leadership from Exclusion to Inclusion (Fortress Press). Ongoing research interests include: the political engagement and representation of minoritized and marginalized people in the U.S. and the Caribbean, Whiteness and normativity, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, the intersections of race, religion and politics, and social transformation through business and leadership.

Dr. Rios brings transdisciplinary theory and practice to his teaching and research, applying critical race and Latina/o/x Critical theory, intersectionality, narrative inquiry, leadership and liberative theologies to address issues with social justice and organizational leadership. He has served as a leadership consultant and coach to diverse organizations including churches and religious institutions, businesses, educational institutions, and non-profits. Most recent projects include work with Duke Divinity School, Harvard University, and the Lilly Endowment. Presently, he serves on the Board of Directors for La Asociación para la Educación Teológica Hispana [Association for Hispanic Theological Education] (AETH), a network of theological institutions and people that, since 1992, has served throughout the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and, more recently, in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Dr. Rios has been invited to speak and train leaders, nationally and internationally. He previously served as a lecturer of leadership studies at Penn State and has been an affiliate faculty at various institutions, teaching undergraduate and graduate students. He has also been a vice president at two universities. Prior to academia, he was involved in pastoral ministry for over ten years and has over twenty years of leadership development experience.

Dr. Rios holds a PhD in Intercultural Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary, a Doctorate in Strategic Leadership (DSL) from Regent University School of Business and Leadership, and he completed doctoral coursework at the University of Southern California. For more information, please visit www.peterriosconsulting.com.

Dr. Rafael Vizcaíno is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at DePaul University. His work focuses on Latin American and Caribbean philosophy, especially decolonial thought, and on the intersection between religion, politics, and secularization. He holds a BA from Northwestern University, and an MA and a PhD in Decolonial Thought from Rutgers University. Winner of the American Philosophical Association’s 2020 Essay Prize in Latin American Thought, Dr. Vizcaíno is currently working on a book-length manuscript that interprets the modern dialectics of secularization from the perspective of Latin American and Caribbean thought. His publications appear in the anthology Decolonising the University, the APA Newsletter on Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy, and the following journals: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Journal of World Philosophies, Comparative and Continental Philosophy, TRANSMODERNITY: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, The CLR James Journal, Political Theology, Philosophy and Global Affairs, Radical Philosophy Review, and LÁPIZ.

Dr. Maggie Elmore is an assistant professor of history in the Department of History at Sam Houston State University. A historian of the 20th century United States, she specializes in immigration, religion and politics, and human rights. Dr. Elmore holds BA and MA degrees from Texas Tech University, and a PhD from University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Elmore is currently the 2021-2022 Clements Fellow for the Study of Southwestern America at Southern Methodist University. Her current project, Torn Soul: The American Catholic Church and Mexican Immigrants, tells the story of the Catholic Church's fraught relationship with Mexican immigrants and its attempts to reshape U.S. immigration policy.

Dr. Michael E. Lee is Professor of Theology with affiliation in Fordham’s Latin American and Latino Studies Institute. Born in Miami, FL of Puerto Rican parents, he holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago (MA) and the University of Notre Dame (BA, MA, PhD). His research interests include: Roman Catholic theology, liberation theologies, Christology, spirituality, religion & politics, ecological theology, Latin American and U.S. Latinx theologies. Dr. Lee teaches courses in Roman Catholic theology, liberation theologies, Latin American and Latinx theologies, Christology, and spirituality. He has served as President of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS) and on the governing board of the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA). His commentary has appeared in a wide variety of venues including The New York Times, Rolling Stone Magazine, CNN, ABC-NY, National Public Radio, The Tablet (UK), and El Faro Académico (El Salvador). He has lectured in universities across the U.S. and in Spain, Mexico, El Salvador, Belgium, and Austria.

His award-winning research includes: Revolutionary Saint: The Theological Legacy of Óscar Romero (Orbis, 2018), which was supported by a Sabbatical Grant for Researchers from the Louisville Institute and earned a Catholic Press Association Book Prize. He edited Ignacio Ellacuría: Essays on History, Liberation, and Salvation (Orbis, 2013), providing an English-speaking audience access to a collection of Ellacuría’s most substantial theological essays. Bearing the Weight of Salvation: The Soteriology of Ignacio Ellacuría (Herder & Herder, 2010) won the 2010 Hispanic Theological Initiative Book Prize, sponsored by Princeton Theological Seminary.

Dr. Lee’s scholarly activity has always been complemented by a commitment to practical community engagement. He has lived at André House, a Catholic Worker-inspired community, and engaged in liturgical music and bilingual pastoral ministry in parishes in Miami, FL, Phoenix, AZ, Chicago, IL, South Bend, IN, and New York City. He has served on the boards of international NGOs, such as CRISPAZ (Christians for Peace in El Salvador) and the Foundation for Sustainability and Peacemaking in Mesoamerica.

Angel García was the Executive Director of South Bronx People for Change, a Church-based, direct-action membership organization co-founded by Fr. Connolly. Born in Puerto Rico, García is a graduate of Princeton University and Pace University. As a long-term resident of the South Bronx and a lapsed Catholic, García has volunteered on worker cooperative projects, and social justice, environmental and political campaigns, and an affordable housing board, happily recruited by Fr. Connolly. Currently, García is a member of Sierra Club NYC and the Rainbow Garden of Life and Health, a South Bronx community garden. He has spoken about his book The Kingdom Began In Puerto Rico: Neil Connolly’s Priesthood in the South Bronx (Fordham University Press, 2021) at Fordham University’s Curran Center for American Catholic Studies, at the Artists and Authors Series of the Princeton University Class of 1979, and at the St. Frances de Sales Pop-up Theology Lecture Series, named after Fr. Connolly.

Abel Alvarado is a playwright, book writer/lyricist, costume designer, community programs manager, and producing artistic director at Teatro Nuevos Horizontes/New Horizons Theatre Company (TNH Productions). He conceived and wrote ARENA: A House Music-al. An award-winning costume designer, he has worked on many productions, including In The Heights; It Happened in Roswell; A Force To Be Reckoned With; An L.A. Journey; Little Red, Drunk Girl; Remembering Boyle Heights; Bad for the Community; Teatro MOZ; Mariela In The Desert, They Shoot Mexicans, Don't They?; Vietgone; Enemy of the Pueblo; Evangeline, The Queen of the Make-Believe; and Disney's Aladdin: Dual Language Edition. Alvarado’s video work includes: Wardrobe Stylist for Grammy Award nominee Gerardo Ortiz’s music video “Para qué lastimarme?" and for the web series Café Con Chisme. In 2019, he was awarded "Best Costume Design" by the NAACP Theater Awards for his costumes in Disney's Beauty and the Beast - The Broadway Musical at CASA 0101. Producing the Brown and Out IV & V Theater Festival and designing for Josefina Lopez's Real Women Have Curves at the Pasadena Playhouse are personal highlights of Alvarado’s work. Alvarado’s community work includes being a Research Assistant for Spectrum Community Services at Charles Drew University, Voter Registration Manager with Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, and Health Education Specialist with The Los Angeles LGBT Center.

Dr. Kristy Nabhan-Warren is Professor and the inaugural V.O. and Elizabeth Kahl Figge Chair in Catholic Studies in the Departments of Religious Studies and of Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Iowa. Her teaching and scholarship focus on the lived, daily experiences of American Christians and their communities, with research interests that include: American Religions; Ethnographic approaches to the study of religion; Catholic Studies; and Latinx Studies. Dr. Nabhan-Warren holds a BA in Religious Studies and Political Science, and a PhD in Religious Studies, both from Indiana University; she also holds an MA in Religious Studies from Arizona University.

Dr. Nabhan-Warren is a member of The American Academy of Religion, serving as Co-Chair of the Religion and Social Science (RSS) unit. She is the elected Vice-Chair of the Council of Graduate Studies in Religion (CGSR) and serves on the Steering Committee of the journal Spiritus: A Journal of Christianity. Dr. Nabhan-Warren is the author The Cursillo Movement in America: Catholics, Protestants, and Fourth-Day Spirituality (2013) and Meatpacking America: How Migration, Work, and Faith Unite and Divide the Heartland (2021), both published by The University of North Carolina Press, where she is also the creator and editor of Where Religion Lives, a book series on innovative ethnographies of religion. Her other books include The Virgin of El Barrio: Marian Apparitions, Catholic Evangelizing, and Mexican American Activism (New York University Press, 2005); Américan Woman: The Virgin of Guadalupe, Latinas/os, and Accompaniment (Loyola Marymount University Press, 2018); and The Oxford Handbook on Latinx Christianities in the United States (Oxford University Press, 2022).

Rev. Dr. Lakisha R. Lockhart is Assistant Professor of Christian Education at Union Presbyterian Seminary. Her research interests are in the areas of religious education; practical, liberation, and Womanist theologies; ethics and society; multiple intelligences; embodied faith and pedagogies; theological aesthetics’ theopoetics; creativity, imagination, and play. Her teaching takes seriously the benefits and necessity of play, movement, aesthetics, creative arts, and embodiment. For Dr. Lockhart, the body is a locus for doing theology and theological reflection. She holds a BA from Claflin University, an MA from Vanderbilt University, and a PhD from Boston College. With an MDiv from Wesley Theological Seminary and ordained to ministry in the non-denominational tradition, Dr. Lockhart recognizes the importance of teaching Christian education for the strengthening of the church. Her focus on practical pedagogy is not only to develop more committed and knowledgeable educators and ministers, but also more committed and knowledgeable congregants.

She has authored and co-authored numerous publications and book chapters, including United Against Racism: Churches for Change: Facilitator’s Guide (Friendship Press, 2018); “Enfleshing Catechesis Through Embodied Space” in Together Along the Way: Conversations Inspired by the Directory for Catechesis (Crossroad, 2021); “Let’s Dance: Zumba and the Imago Dei of Beautiful Black Bodies” in The Other Journal: An Intersection of Theology & Culture; and “My Wildest Dream: A Letter to My Black Son” in Religious Education. Dr. Lockhart also was featured in the Just Womanist Series for The Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership. Her awards and honors include “Millennial Womanist to Watch” from The Millennial Womanist Project, “Images of Success” from Claflin University, and a First Wornom Innovative Grant from the Religious Education Association Project.

Lupita Tonantzin Castañeda-Liles is Co-Founder & Chief Inspirational Officer, with her mother, of Becoming Mujeres a firm that helps Latina teens and their female caregivers to translate cultural expectations into opportunities. Lupita is the author of the forthcoming children’s book I Now Smile More. The book is about the positive aspects of having divorced parents. I Now Smile More not only tells the story about a young girl and her experience of having divorced parents but it also illustrates how she handles the experience. Besides writing, she also enjoys the outdoors, cooking with her abuelita, and playing with her dog. Lupita is a first-year student in high school. Her goal is to foster positivity among teens.

Dr. María Del Socorro Castañeda is Co-Founder & Chief Education Officer, with her teenage daughter Lupita, of Becoming Mujeres, a firm that helps Latina teens and their female caregivers to translate cultural expectations into opportunities. Dr. Castañeda is a sociologist and ethnographer. She holds a BS in Sociology from Santa Clara University and MA and PhD degrees in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Castañeda is a Ford Foundation Fellow and the award-winning author of Our Lady of Everyday Life: La Virgen de Guadalupe and the Catholic Imagination of Mexican Women in America (Oxford University Press, 2018). Before co-founding Becoming Mujeres, she was Assistant Professor at Santa Clara University in the Religious Studies Department. Dr. Castañeda is a sought-out speaker and expert in the areas of Mexican popular Catholicism, Our Lady of Guadalupe devotion, LatinX cultural expectations, mother-daughter communication, and teenage girls and social pressures. Her research has been funded by the Ford Foundation, The Louisville Institute, Hispanic Theological Initiative, UC Mexus (University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States), Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, and The Ignatian Institute for Jesuit Education. Her work been featured in local and national newspapers, including the San Jose Mercury News and the National Catholic Reporter. She was born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, México and immigrated to the United States, undocumented, as a child. Dr. Castañeda’s goal is to teach Latina teens and women how to transgress oppressive gendered cultural expectations and become the mujeres they were meant to be.

Dr. Mark D. Jordan, Richard Reinhold Niebuhr Research Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School, is a scholar of Christian theology, European philosophy, and gender studies. He spent his childhood in Ajijic, Mexico, where his parents lived in a community of expatriate artists. He currently teaches courses on the Western traditions of Christian soul-shaping, the relations of religion to art or literature, and the prospects for sexual ethics. Dr. Jordan holds a BA from St. John's College, and MA and PhD degrees from University of Texas at Austin. Over the last three decades, he has written extensively on sexual ethics, producing books that are widely regarded as opening important new conversations. But he has also continued to explore longstanding topics at the boundaries of philosophy and Christian theology. 

His latest book Transforming Fire (Eerdmans 2021) tells a brief history of the imagined scenes of theological education. He is at work on another manuscript about the neglected languages of queer spirituality. Dr. Jordan has received a number of grants and fellowships, including a John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a Fulbright-Hays grant (Spain), and a Henry Luce III Fellowship in Theology. With support from the Ford Foundation, he led a seminar on public debates about religion and sexuality for rising scholars from the United States and abroad. In 2019, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Mayra Rivera is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Religion and Latinx Studies at Harvard University. She is the president of the American Academy of Religion. Dr. Rivera works at the intersections between continental philosophy of religion, literature, and theories of coloniality, race and gender—with particular attention to Caribbean postcolonial thought. Her research explores the relationship between discursive and material dimensions in shaping human embodiment and socio-material ecologies. She holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from University of Puerto Rico, and MTS (summa cum laude) and PhD degrees in Theological and Religious Studies from Drew University. Her most recent book, Poetics of the Flesh (Duke University Press, 2015), analyzes theological, philosophical, and political descriptions of “flesh” as metaphors for understanding how social discourses materialize in human bodies. Her book The Touch of Transcendence: A Postcolonial Theology of God (Westminster John Knox Press, 2007) explores the relationship between models of divine otherness and ideas about interhuman difference. She is also co-editor, with Stephen Moore, of Planetary Loves: Spivak, Postcoloniality, and Theology (Fordham Press, 2010) and, with Catherine Keller and Michael Nausner, of Postcolonial Theologies: Divinity and Empire (Chalice Press, 2004). Dr. Rivera is currently working on a project that explores the relationships between coloniality and climate change through Caribbean thought.

Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Conde-Frazier is a multicultural educator, theologian, writer, and expert in the history and development of Biblical Institutes and pastoral training programs. She is the Director of the Asociación de Educación Teológica Hispana (AETH), as well as the creator of its Network of Theological Entities (ReDET, for its name in Spanish), and served as Vice-President and Dean of Esperanza College. Previously, Rev. Dr. Conde-Frazier was a professor of religious education at the Claremont School of Theology and taught Hispanic theology at the Latin American Bible Institute in California. Rev. Dr. Conde-Frazier was also the first director of the Orlando E. Costas Latin American Ministries Program at Andover Newton Theological Seminary. Dr. Conde-Frazier holds a PhD in theology and religious education from Boston University, and an MDiv from the Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. She is the author of many publications in areas of multicultural education, Latin feminist theology, academic spirituality, and education for justice, including Hispanic Bible Institutes: A Community of Theological Constructions (University of Scranton Press, 2005); Listen to the Children: Conversations With Immigrant Families / Escuchemos a los niños: Conversaciones con familias inmigrantes (Judson Press, 2011); and Atando Cabos: Latinx Contributions to Theological Education (Eerdmans, 2021).

Dr. Mary E. Hess is Professor of Educational Leadership, and Chair of the Leadership Division at Luther Seminary, where she has taught since 2000. She holds a BA in American Studies from Yale, an MTS in theological studies from Harvard, and a PhD in religion and education from Boston College. As an educator straddling the fields of media studies, education and religion, Dr. Hess has focused her research on exploring ways in which participatory strategies for knowing and learning are constructed and contested amidst digital cultures. She is particularly interested in dialogic forms of organizational development, and the challenges posed to communities by oppressive systems such as racism, classism, sexism, and so on. Her most recent book, co-written with Stephen S. Brookfield, is Becoming a White Antiracist: A Practical Guide for Educators, Leaders and Activists (Stylus Publishers, 2021).