Rev. Dr. Tony Tian-Ren Lin is a Research Professor at New York Theological Seminary. He is a cultural sociologist whose scholarship focuses on the intersection of religion, immigration, race, and ethnicity. He is the author of Prosperity Gospel Latinos and Their American Dream (University of North Carolina Press, 2020), which Publisher’s Weekly praises as a “well-reasoned,” “evocative debut” that “immerse[s] readers in the lives of his subjects.” He was previously a Research Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia where he held numerous academic and administrative positions. Rev. Dr. Lin was born in Taiwan and grew up in Argentina. He holds a bachelor degree from Boston University, a Master of Divinity and Master of Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a Master and Doctor of Philosophy in sociology from the University of Virginia. He is an ordained Presbyterian minister who has served churches in New Jersey and Virginia. His work has been featured in The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, LatinoUSA, WNYC, and other venues.

Dr. João Chaves is Assistant Professor of Evangelism and Mission at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and Associate Director for Programming at the Hispanic Theological Initiative (HTI). He holds a PhD in Religion from Baylor University, and has presented and published his research broadly, both in English and in Portuguese. Dr. Chaves is the author of four books, including Migrational Religion: Context and Creativity in the Latinx Diaspora (Baylor University Press, 2021) and The Global Mission of the Jim Crow South: Southern Baptist Missions and the Shaping of Latin American Evangelicalism (Mercer University Press, 2022). His forthcoming book, co-written with Mikeal Parsons, is titled Remembering Antônia Teixeira: A Story if Missions, Violence, and Institutional Hypocrisy (Eerdmans, 2023). He has contributed to numerous book reviews, peer-reviewed articles, and chapters in larger works. His ongoing projects include editing “Christianity, Race, and Ethnicity: Latinx Critical Conversations on Identity Construction and Religious Participation” for Perspectives in Religious Studies (Winter 2022) and co-editing, with T. Laine Scales, the forthcoming book Baptists and the Kingdom of God (Baylor University Press, 2023). Dr. Chaves is also co-editor for the Perspectives on Baptist Identity book series, published by Mercer University Press, and works with the Editorial Board for the HTI Series on Religion and Theology En Conjunto, a book series published by Baylor University Press.

Fray Dr. Gilberto Cavazos-González, OFM, SThD is a Friar Minor with a doctorate in spirituality from the Pontifical University Antonianum in Rome, Italy. He is a native of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, where he formerly served as a pastor and youth evangelizer in San Antonio. As a Latino Spiritualogian, he has a particular concern for the relationship of Christian spirituality, Catholic social teaching and pastoral ministry. His academic research interests include methods for the study of Christian Spirituality, Franciscanism, art and spirituality, Marian spirituality, Hispanic/Latin@ spirituality, and Spiritual Formation. For over 15 years, he taught Christian spirituality at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and is a full professor of Spirituality Studies. Currently, he is the Director of Technology Teaching at the Antonianum, teaches in an online program, and is Treasurer of the Pontifical Academy of Mary International (PAMI). He has preached at many retreats and parish missions, and has spoken at academic conferences in the United States, Mexico, Europe, and South America. Fray Dr. Cavazos-González has written several books on Christian, Latino/a, and Franciscan spiritualities. His book Tradiciones of Our Faith: A Resource for Intercultural Faith Sharing (World Library Publications, 2012) was awarded a 2014 International Latino Book Award (IBLA), and he authored the Chapter on Spirituality Studies for the Wiley Blackwell Companion to Latino/a Theology (Wiley, 2015). Fray Dr. Cavazos-González is currently writing a book on the Marian Spirituality of Sor Juana de la Cruz Vásquez Gutiérrez, a Spanish Franciscan sister who was a mystic, a pastor, and a preacher to royalty, prelates, nuns, and her parishioners in the early 1500s.

Dr. Hosffman Ospino is a native of Colombia, where he pursued undergraduate studies in Philosophy. He holds an MA in theology with concentration in Church History and a PhD in Theology and Education from Boston College. His research explores the dialogue between faith and culture, and the impact of this interchange upon Catholic theological education, catechesis, and ministry. He has served as the principal investigator for several nationally recognized studies on how the Hispanic Catholic presence is transforming parishes, schools and organizations. Dr. Ospino writes a bilingual monthly column for Catholic News Services (Journeying Together / Caminando juntos), and his writings have received several prizes from the Catholic Press Association. He has also authored and edited more than a dozen books, including Cultural Diversity and Paradigm Shifts in Catholic Congregations (Fordham University Press, forthcoming). An officer of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS), he is actively involved in ministry and faith-formation projects in various parts of the United States. Dr. Ospino has received many honors, among them the 2018 ACHTUS Virgilio Elizondo Award for his distinguished achievement in theology.

Dr. Rodrigo Serrão is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Hope College. His research focuses on the intersection of race/ethnicity, religion, and immigration in the United States. He also writes on political sociology, region, and race in Brazil. He has recently published an article on racism and regional bias in Brazil (published by Latin American Perspectives). With João Chaves, he wrote on the reactions and responses to COVID-19 by some Brazilian immigrant churches in Florida (published by the International Journal of Latin American Religions). In addition, Dr. Serrão has engaged in public sociology by writing essays on his experience as an international student in a theological seminary in the United States (posted on Good Faith Media) and on the issue of racial democracy and racism in Brazil (posted on The North American Congress on Latin America [NACLA]). Dr. Serrão was born and raised in Brazil and currently resides in Holland, Michigan, with his partner Adriana and their daughter Liz.

Dr. Gerardo Martí is Professor of Sociology at Davidson College. He is also President-Elect of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, and his book, The Deconstructed Church: Understanding Emerging Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2014), co-written with Gladys Ganiel, received the 2015 Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Currently, Dr. Martí’s research is funded generously through Lilly Endowment’s Thriving Congregations Initiative and focused on churches actively confronting racial injustice. His most recent book is American Blindspot: Race, Class, Religion, and the Trump Presidency (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2020).

Dr. Luis R. Rivera is associate professor of theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary (UMC), where he served as Academic Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs. He was a faculty member and Academic Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs at McCormick Theological Seminary (PCUSA) in Chicago. Dr. Rivera started his teaching career in 1986, when he joined the Faculty of the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico.

Dr. Rivera holds degrees from the University of Puerto Rico (B.A.), the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico (M.Div.), and Harvard University, the Divinity School (Th.M., Th.D.). His research and teaching have focused on the theological and hermeneutical challenges posed by the experiences of global migrations and the formation of diaspora communities and congregations amidst multicultural societies in a globalized world. Currently, he is conducting research to write a book on the history and legacy of the Latinx Protestant theological movement in US graduate theological education.

Dr. Rivera has served throughout the years as leader or resource for some of the most important Latino/a/x organizations in theological education: Association for Hispanic Theological Education; the Hispanic Summer Program, the Hispanic Theological Initiative Consortium, La Comunidad, and the Center for the Study of Latino/a Catholicism in San Diego University. He has also contributed to the work of ATS Chief Academic Officers Society, the ATS Committee on Race and Ethnicity, the Board of InTrust Center for Theological Schools, the Forum for Theological Exploration, and the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion.

Frank Yamada is the sixth executive director of the Association of Theological Schools. He brings to this role years of leadership experience in theological education and in communities of faith. He has written about and speaks on the future of theological education. Before coming to ATS, he was the tenth president of McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago and was an active Hebrew Bible scholar with a focus on cross-cultural and feminist hermeneutics.

An active biblical scholar, Yamada has authored and edited books and articles on cross-cultural and feminist hermeneutics. He is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, where he has served as a chair and as a steering committee member of the Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics Group, the Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible Section, and the Committee for Underrepresented Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession. In addition, he was a member of the Ethnic Chinese Biblical Colloquium and the American Academy of Religion, and he was the cochair for the Managing Board of the Asian Pacific Americans and Religion Research Initiative annual conference.

A graduate of Southern California College, Yamada earned his Master of Divinity and Doctor of Philosophy from Princeton Theological Seminary. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, USA and has written and spoken on the future of the church and theological education.

Dr. Erica M. Ramírez is Director of Applied Research at Auburn Seminary. A fifth-generation Texan, with deep roots in San Antonio, she was previously the Richard B. Parker Assistant Professor of Wesleyan Thought and Heritage at Portland Seminary in Portland, Oregon. Ramirez holds a PhD in Sociology of Religion at Drew University, where she studied under the late Otto Maduro, a leading sociologist of his generation. Her dissertation revisited the Azusa Street mission revival through the frame of the maternal divine, working with themes of revolution, disruption, and the carnivalesque. With broad interests in religion, contemporary politics, and culture, Dr. Ramirez is particularly interested in “how radical religious traditions present as a challenge to and resource against social oppression.” Bridging popular and scholarly audiences, she co-wrote an article on Pentecostals and Donald Trump for The Washington Post and has contributed scholarly articles to Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion, Canadian Journal of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity, and Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies. She has presented academic papers to the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Association for the Sociology of Religion, and the Red de Investigadores de Fenómenos Religiosos Annual Meeting. Dr. Ramirez is a Hispanic Theological Initiative scholar and a fellow of both the Forum for Theological Exploration and the Louisville Institute. She has three children with her husband, Chris: Judah, Julia, and Camilla.

Dr. Jonathan Calvillo is Assistant Professor of Sociology of Religion at Boston University School of Theology. His teaching and research center on the sociological study of religion, race and ethnicity, and immigration. His scholarship examines how religious affiliation influences ethnic identity construction among Latinxs. His new book, The Saints of Santa Ana, from Oxford University Press, examines how practices of lived religion shape ethnic identity among Catholic and evangelical Mexican immigrants. Through his ethnographic research at numerous churches, Dr. Calvillo has contributed to the Latino Protestant Congregations project, which spotlights themes of worship practices, ethnic identity, and community engagement in Latinx churches. Additionally, he has conducted neighborhood-based research within urban, Latinx communities, examining how lived religion shapes collective identities. Alongside his qualitative research, he is currently conducting archival research on Latinx congregations and religious movements. Finally, Dr. Calvillo is conducting an oral history project on hip hop, ethnoracial identities, and spirituality among Latinxs. Born and raised in Southern California, Dr. Calvillo is a second-generation Mexican American. He resides with his partner Nani and their three children in the city of Boston, MA.

Rev. Fr. Francisco Javiel de la Rosa is a Catholic priest from the Dominican Republic incardinated in the Diocese of San Juan de la Maguana (SJM), where he is pastor of the Parroquia San Pedro Apóstol in El Cercado, SJM. He studied philosophy at the Santo Tomás de Aquino senior seminary in 2003. He became a teacher at the Buen Pastor junior seminary and the college of the same name before receiving a degree in philosophy from the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra (PUCAMAIMA) in 2008. He studied theology at the Colegio Mayor of the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, Madrid for a year and completed his theological studies in the Dominican Republic. In his pastoral experience as a temporary deacon, he worked in the Santa Teresa de Jesús parish of Elías Piña in the province of Comendador. In 2014, he presented his thesis in theology, entitled “El Modelo de la Iglesia del Concilio Vaticano II y su Aplicación en la Diócesis de San Juan de la Maguana [The Model of the Church of the Vatican Council II and its Application in the Diocese of San Juan de la Maguana]" and earned a degree in Religious Science from the Seminario Santo Tomás of Aquino.

Dr. Santiago Slabodsky holds the Kaufman Chair in Jewish Studies at Hofstra University-New York. He is co-director of the trilingual journal Horizontes Decoloniales/ Decolonial Horizons and convener of the Liberation Theology and Decolonial Thought program at the Center for Global Dialogue. He served as convener of the PhD program in Religion, Ethics and Society at Claremont School of Theology and as associate director of the Center for Race, Culture and Social Justice at Hofstra University. Dr. Slabodsky holds a BA from Universidad de Buenos Aires, an MA from Duke University, and a PhD from University of Toronto. His book Decolonial Judaism: Triumphal Failures of Barbaric Thinking (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) received the 2017 Frantz Fanon Outstanding book award by the Caribbean Philosophical Association.

Victoria Pérez Rivera is a PhD student at the University of Southern California and an adjunct Bible professor at Latin American Bible Institute College (LABI) College. She obtained her Associates degree from LABI College, Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Vanguard University, and her Master's Degree in Theological Studies from Duke University. Her areas of academic interest include reception history of Pauline literature, ancient Greco-Roman culture, race, ethnicity and gender. She teaches classes such as New Testament, Biblical Exegesis, and Gender Issues in the Church.

Dr. Francisco Lozada, Jr. is the Charles Fischer Catholic Professor of New Testament and Latinx Studies at the Brite Divinity School. He is also the Director of the Borderlands Institute and the Latinx Church Studies program at Brite. He holds a doctorate in New Testament and Early Christianity from Vanderbilt University. He is a past president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States, a past steering committee member of the Bible, Indigenous Group of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), and past co-chair of the Latino/a and Latin American Biblical Interpretation Consultation (SBL). Besides serving in the past in several leadership capacities with the Society of Biblical Literature, he also serves on the board of directors for the Hispanic Summer Program and mentored several doctoral students with the Hispanic Theological Initiative (HTI). 

Dr. Lozada’s most recent publications (The Gospel of John: History, Community and Ideology, 2020; Toward a Latino/a Biblical Interpretation, 2017) concern cultural and ideological interpretation while exploring how the Bible is employed and deployed in ethnic/racial communities. As a teacher, he co-led immersion travel seminars to Guatemala to explore colonial/postcolonial issues and, most recently, to El Paso, TX and to Nogales, AZ to study life and society in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. In April 2019, Dr. Lozada received The Catherine Saylor Hill Faculty Excellence Award at Brite.  

Jon Rodríguez is currently pursuing a MDiv at Princeton Theological Seminary. In addition to his work with the Hispanic Theological Initiative, he is the Administrative Editor of the Princeton Theological Review. His research interests include the role of race and ethnicity in the Gospels and American religious history.

Dr. Matthew Pettway is Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of South Alabama, where he teaches Afro-Latin American, Caribbean, and Spanish literatures, and is associated with the Africana Studies Program. A native of Detroit, MI, Dr. Pettway holds a PhD in Hispanic Cultural Studies and an MA in Spanish and Latin American Literatures from Michigan State University. His research examines race, slavery, and African ideas of spirit and cosmos in nineteenth-century black Cuban literature. Dr. Pettway has a keen interest in how Afro-Latin Americans who endured extreme trauma in the colonial era took hold of the aesthetic and spiritual tools available to them to conceive a poetics of emancipation. His research is part of a broader project of literary and historical recovery, akin to what Toni Morrison has termed “a kind of literary archaeology.” Dr. Pettway’s work has appeared in American Studies Journal, PALARA, The Zora Neale Hurston Forum, The Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography, the Cuban journal Del Caribe, and his article “The Altar, The Oath and the Body of Christ: Ritual Poetics and Cuban Racial Politics of 1844” is the inaugural chapter in Black Writing, Culture and the State in Latin America, edited by Jerome Branche (Vanderbilt University Press, 2015). Dr. Pettway’s first book, Cuban Literature in the Age of Black Insurrection: Manzano, Plácido and Afro-Latino Religion (2019), is part of the Caribbean Studies Series of the University Press of Mississippi.

Dr. Juan Hernández, Jr. is Professor of Biblical Studies at Bethel University. He holds an MDiv and a ThM from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and a PhD from Emory University. His research centers on New Testament and early Christianity, with a special interest in New Testament Textual Criticism, especially the text of the Apocalypse and its reception history. Dr. Hernández's dissertation—Scribal Habits and Theological Influences in the Apocalypse: The Singular Readings of Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Ephraemi (Mohr Siebe, 2006)—was published by a major German publisher and won international awards. He also co-authored the first English translation of Josef Schmid’s Studies in the History of the Greek Text of the Apocalypse: The Ancient Stems (SBL Press, 2018), which until now has only been available in German.

Vinicius Marinho is a constitutional lawyer and a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His research engages religious, philosophical, and legal ideas about human dignity. His dissertation on human dignity in Brazil unites Latin American liberation theology, Jewish philosophy, and legal theory.

Dr. Gerardo Rodríguez-Galarza holds a PhD in Historical Theology from Saint Louis University. He was born in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico, and migrated to the Midwest as a teenager.

Rev. Dr. Oscar García-Johnson is Associate Professor of Theology and Latinx Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he is also Assistant Provost for the Center for the Study of Hispanic Church and Community (Centro Latino). He holds a BA from University of La Verne, and MA and PhD degrees from the Fuller Theological Seminary. Formerly, he served as a regional minister with the American Baptist Churches of Los Angeles for 11 years and planted four new churches in Southern California. An activist scholar, his research methodology interlaces de/postcolonial studies, indigenous theologies, and US Latino/Latin American studies into a critical hermeneutic he calls “Transoccidentalism”. His writings include Spirit Outside the Gate: Decolonial Pneumatologies of the American Global South (IVP Academic, 2019); Conversaciones Teológicas del Sur Global Americano (coedited, Puertas Abiertas/Wipf & Stock, 2016); Theology without Borders: Introduction to Global Conversations, co-authored with William Dyrness (Baker Academic, 2015); ¡Jesús, Hazme Como tú! 40 Maneras de Imitar a Cristo (Wipf & Stock, 2014); and The Mestizo/a Community of the Spirit: A Latino/a Postmodern Ecclesiology (Pickwick, 2009).