Dr. Jose L. Saldivar, Jr. is a first-generation college graduate who holds BA (Chicana/o Studies) and MEd (Social Sciences of Education) degrees from Stanford University, and a PhD (Cultural Studies in Education) from The University of Texas at Austin. He is an educational consultant and coach, specializing in college, career, and life readiness coaching, and faculty development. Dr. Saldivar, a Rio Grande Valley native, is a full-time faculty member at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. He is the founder of CREO (College and Career Readiness and Educational Opportunity Consultants), which provides college, career, and life readiness consulting services to a variety of clients, including K-12 institutions, higher education, community organizations, and private companies. As part of CREO’s initiatives, Dr. Saldivar hosts The Way to College Podcast.

Fr. Lorenzo Lebrija is the chief innovation officer of Virginia Theological Seminary and the executive director of TryTank Research Institute, which focuses on advancing theological research to meet the evolving needs of the church in the modern world.  Before launching TryTank, Fr. Lorenzo was the Chief Development Officer for the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. He also served as the Pastor on behalf of the Bishop at St. John's Episcopal Church in San Bernardino, CA, and as priest associate at St. Athanasius Episcopal Church at the Cathedral Center of St. Paul in Los Angeles.  

Before entering seminary, Fr. Lorenzo was president and CEO of Seraphic Fire & Firebird Chamber Orchestra, Miami's professional choral and orchestral ensemble. He was also the Miami Program Director for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation responsible for the Knight Arts Challenge, and was General Manager for RadioActiva Hispanic Radio and Editor/Director of Operations for Miami's Community Newspapers. 

Fr. Lorenzo holds an MDiv from the General Theological Seminary in New York City and is currently finishing the doctoral program at Virginia Theological Seminary. He also has an MBA and a B.A. from Florida International University, has completed the full training at the Fundraising School at Indiana University, is a Certified Foresight Practitioner from the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, CA, has a certificate in Design Thinking from IDEO in Palo Alto, CA, and is a graduate of Rice University's Executive Education Program. He is the author of How to Try: Design Thinking and Church Innovation (Church Publishing Incorporated, 2021).

Benedito de Queiroz Alcântara is a History professor at the Rede Pública Estadual [State Public Network]. As a member of Repam Brasil’s Rede Eclesial Pan-Amazônica [Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network], he serves as Repam representative in the Diocese of Macapá and as coordinator of the Eixo Justiça Socioambiental [Socio-Environmental Justice Axis] of Repam Brasil. He also coordinates the Projeto Guardiões Ambientais Ribeirinhos [Riverside Environmental Guardians Project], which trains youth from riverside communities located at the mouth of the Amazon between Pará and Amapá. In the Diocese, he additionally serves on the Comissão Justiça e Paz [Justice and Peace Commission] and on the Equipe de Formação Fé e Cidadania [Faith and Citizenship Training Team]. He was part of the Brazilian delegation to the 2023 Encuentro Continental Fraternidad Secular San Carlos de Foucauld América [Continental Meeting of the Secular Fraternity of Saint Charles De Foucauld] in Medellín, Colombia.

Yonar Brenes Masís is an assistant professor at the Ministry of Public Education of Costa Rica and host of the podcast El show de Yonar BM. He was a delegate from the youth Fraternities in Costa Rica to the 2023 Encuentro Continental Fraternidad Secular San Carlos de Foucauld América [Continental Meeting of the Secular Fraternity of Saint Charles De Foucauld] in Medellín, Colombia.

Father Federico Carrasquilla Muñoz is an Antioquian priest born in Itagüí, Colombia and assigned to the Archdiocese of Medellín. In 1958, he went to Rome to study theology at the Gregorian University and was ordained in 1959 in the chapel of St. John Lateran, Italy. He experienced up close the appointment of John XXIII as Pope and the events related to the Second Vatican Council. During his theological studies in Rome, he learned about the spirituality of Brother Charles de Foucauld, who left a deep impression on Fr. Carrasquilla for life. His philosophical work also draws from that of Karl Marx, whose method of analyzing reality Fr. Carrasquilla emulated. His book Escuchemos al corazón: Aportes para una antropología del pobre [Let Us Listen to the Poor: Contributions to an Anthropology of the Poor] (Indo American Press Service, 1997) takes cues from Marx, in addition to his reading of Jesus in the gospels. His other publications include essays in Volver a Jesús de Nazaret [Return to Jesus of Nazareth] (Boletín Horeb, 2011); Los escandalos de pedofilia en iglesia: Una lectura desde la fe [Pedophilia Scandals in the Church: A Reading from Faith] (San Pablo, 2014); and Escuchemos al corazón: Elementos de antropología de la afectividad [Let Us Listen to the Heart: Elements of an Anthropology of Affectivity], with Verónica Reyes Mercado (2022). Upon his return to Medellín in 1962, he began working as rector of Philosophy at the Conciliar Seminary. In 1967, he went to live and work in the parish La Divina Providencia, in the Popular neighborhood of Medellín, where there was a process of “invasion” underway by inhabitants who came from the different towns and regions of Antioquia due to the cycle of violence that the country was experiencing at the time. Alongside the community, he experienced the permanent tension brought on by police, precarious housing, and the subsequent cycles of violence due to the arrival of guerrilla groups such as the ELN and the M-19, and by the emergence of drug trafficking in the 70s and 80s. In 1984, the archbishop of Medellín transferred Fr. Carrasquilla to a parish in the municipality of Bello. He was later part of the Golconda group (“red priests”) and Sacerdotes para América Latina [Priests for Latin America] (SAL). Now octogenarian, he continues to produce scholarship, leading retreats and speaking before groups comprising lay people, educators, intellectuals, and at universities. –Hernán Ramírez

Hernán Darío Ramírez is the Coordinator of the Charles de Foucauld Secular Fraternity of Colombia and one of the main organizers of the Continental Meeting of the San Carlos de Foucauld Secular Fraternity America 2023 in Medellín, Colombia. He has published several writings related to this movement, including the profile “Testimonio de primavera eclesial [Testimony of ecclesial spring]: Federico Carrasquilla Muñoz” (Kairós Educativo) and the foreword to Volver a Jesús de Nazaret [Return to Jesus of Nazareth] (Boletín Horeb, 2011). After earning a degree in mechanical engineering and working in private industry for a few years, he was seduced by Latin American theological thought and made the leap to working with socially conscious efforts from a perspective of faith. He works to support popular organizations–urban and rural–as well as farming and indigenous communities. In the last nine years, he has worked through the Pepe Breu Foundation, an organization that defends the victims of the Colombian internal armed conflict. Foucauldian spirituality has served Ramírez as a source of inspiration and light, as a criterion for making decisions in his life.

César Leonardo de León is the author of speaking with grackles by soapberry trees (FlowerSong, 2021), winner of the Texas Institute of Letters John A. Robertson Award for the best first book of poetry (2021) and of the Philosophical Society of Texas Best Book of Poetry award (2022).  Also a Golden Circle Award recipient from The University of Columbia Press, he holds an MFA in creative writing, with a certificate in Mexican American studies from The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. He is an educator, one of four poet-organizers for Poets Against Walls, and a member of the Macondo Writers Workshop. His work has appeared in Queen Mob’s Tea House, Pilgrimage, The Acentos Review, Yellow Chair Review, La Bloga, Zócalo Public Square, and in the anthologies Asina is How We Talk: A collection of Tejano poetry written en la lengua de la gente (Flowersong Press, 2022), Pulse/Pulso: In Remembrance of Orlando (Damaged Goods Press, 2018), Imaniman: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands (Aunt Lute Books, 2016), The Border Crossed Us: An Anthology to End Apartheid (VAGABOND, 2015), and Texas Weather Anthology (Lamar University Press, 2016), among others.

Alejandro Enríquez is a Boiler Engineer for the New York City Department of Education (DOE) and a parishioner of Transfiguration Parish in Brooklyn, NY, where he worked in maintenance at the parochial school Our Savior for many years. He also worked as Second Chef at a French restaurant in Manhattan. For more than a decade, Enríquez has led a Jesús de Nazaret [Jesus of Nazareth] Fraternity at Transfiguration, which he represented as a delegate at the 2023 Encuentro Continental Fraternidad Secular San Carlos de Foucauld América [Saint Charles de Foucauld Secular Fraternity Continental Meeting] in Medellín, Colombia. Born in Puebla, Mexico, Enríquez lives in Ridgewood, NY with his wife Petra; they have three daughters and live with a daughter and two grandchildren.

Daniel García Ordaz, a.k.a. The Poet Mariachi is a singer-songwriter, teacher and author from Mission, Texas. He is also a TEDx Speaker, Navy veteran, 2018 Pushcart Prize nominee, and the 2023 McAllen Poet Laureate, City of McAllen, Texas. García Ordaz’s Christian faith permeates much of his writing, which is seasoned with influences from his Mexican American upbringing. He earned a BA in English from The University Of Texas-Pan American (UTPA, now the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley) and an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), and he appears in the documentary ALTAR: Cruzando fronteras/Building Bridges (2009). His books include You Know What I'm Sayin'? (El Zarape Press, 2006), Cenzontle/Mockingbird: Songs of Empowerment (FlowerSong Press, 2018) and its YA Edition, as well as Read Until You Bleed: Funny & Thoughtful Poems For Funny & Thoughtful Children (El Zarape Press, 2023). García Ordaz's work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including Asina Is How We Talk (FlowerSong Press, 2022); Good Cop/Bad Cop (FlowerSong Press, 2021); Living Beyond Borders: Growing Up Mexican In America (Penguin Random House, 2021); Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century (Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, 2020); Poetry of Resistance: Voices For Social Justice (University of Arizona Press, 2016); Twenty: In Memoriam (El Zarape Press, 2014); and Boundless, the anthology of the Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival, which he founded. He may be found on social media at @poetmariachi.

Paolo Piscitelli is a Visiting Lecturer in Sculpture in the Department of Studio Arts at University of Pittsburgh. Influenced by the atmosphere of the Arte Povera movement, he has worked in a broad range of techniques and disciplines including drawing, sculpture, installation, digital media, phenomenological experimentation with materials and their interaction with time. His sculpture prioritizes a sustainable ecological practice developed, in part, through traveling and teaching. Piscitelli’s current work and research involve the use of simple hand tools to carve small-scale sculptures assessed with sight and touch. Piscitelli has exhibited internationally, doing many shows in private spaces–like Studio Tucci Russo, Torre Pellice and e/static, Turin (Italy); Galerie Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam (Holland)--as well as in public spaces like Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GAM) in Torino and in Bologna, Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea (MLAC) - Sapienza, Rome; and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (Italy); the FRAC-Bourgogne in Dijon (France); Lawndale Art Center, Houston, TX and the Museum of Art, Denver, CO (United States). He holds BFA and MA degrees in Sculpture from Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti in Turin, Italy, and an MFA in Creative Practice from the Transart Institute in the School of Art and Media at University of Plymouth, UK. Piscitelli lives and works in Pittsburgh, PA. See more of his work at: artpaolo.com.

Dr. José E. Balcells Gallarreta is the Executive Director of Iodea, a non-profit organization providing religious educational programs. At Iodea, Balcells explores how to make theological studies more engaging and effective by using proven methods of instruction that integrate Digital Tutor (DT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. Prior to this, he taught at several universities in California and in Puerto Rico. Dr. Balcells holds an MA in Biblical Languages from the Jesuit School of Theology of Berkeley and a PhD in Biblical Studies, with an emphasis on texts of Second Temple Judaism and the archaeology of the Ancient Near East of the Persian period, from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. His article “Old Testament Archaeology.” appears in The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century (Bloomsbury, 2022). Part of his research has focused on the integration of archaeology with biblical studies. One of his most important projects in this area was the publication of Household and Family Religion in Persian-Period Judah: An Archaeological Approach (SBL Press, 2017) as part of the Society of Biblical Literature’s Ancient Near East Monograph Series. He has participated in archaeological excavations in Tel Akko and Tel Azekah, Israel. He also has been involved with other projects related to the archaeology of the ancient Near East. Professional memberships include: American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), Asociación Bíblica Española (ABE), and Society of Biblical Literature (SBL).

Sudabée Lotfian-Mena is in her first year of the doctoral theology program at the University of Dayton. She is a multi-racial, multi-ethnic Latina-Middle Eastern scholar whose area of study focuses on First-World neoliberal and globalist schemes and their effects on the Third World. She hopes to explore the implications of these postcolonial/decolonial realities for the religious sphere, both in Latin America and in transplanted population spaces.

Edward Vidaurre is an award-winning poet and author of eight collections of poetry, including Cry, Howl (Prickly Pear Publishing, 2021) and By Throat, By Miracle: New & Selected Poems (Luchadora Press, 2023). His writings have also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Texas Observer, and Los Angeles Review of Books, as well as in other journals and anthologies. He is the publisher and editor-in-chief of FlowerSong Press and its sister imprint Juventud Press, as well as the founder of Pasta, Poetry & Vino and Barrio Poet Productions. He was the 2018-2019 City of McAllen, Texas Poet Laureate; a recipient of an Award of Merit 2020 by The Philosophical Society of Texas for Best Book of Poetry by a Texas Author; and a 2022 inductee to the Texas Institute of Letters. Vidaurre—a Californian of Salvadoran ancestry born in East Los Angeles and transplanted to the Texas borderlands—resides in McAllen, TX with his wife and daughter, where they foster dogs in need until they find their forever homes.

Charles Alcorn has lived in and written about Texas his entire life. A former all-state linebacker, Alcorn founded Splendid Seed Tobacco Company, was a sportswriter, and worked as a packaged goods copywriter before receiving his PhD in English Literature/Creative Writing (Fiction) from the University of Houston. Alcorn is the author of the short-story collection Argument Against the Good-Looking Corpse (Texas Review Press, 2011). Beneath the Sands of Monahans (Deep Vellum Publishing, 2023) is his debut novel. Alcorn currently lives in Edinburg, Texas on the US-Mexico border.

Dr. Ahida (Calderón) Pilarski is Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at Saint Anselm College (NH). Her research focuses on the intersection of culture and gender in biblical interpretation, especially in Latina and Mujerista Biblical Hermeneutics. Her scholarly service to empower Latine (and Latina) communities includes, among others, being a member of the Editorial Board of the Wisdom Commentary Series (WCS), a member of the Steering Committee of HTI (Hispanic Theological Initiative), a member of the Committee for Underrepresented Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession at SBL (Society of Biblical Literature), a member of the Advisory Committee of Raíces Latinas at Boston University School of Theology, and the honor of having taught so far three courses at the HSP (Hispanic Summer Program). In June of 2022, she was elected Vice President of ACHTUS (Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States).

She holds a BA in Theology from the Facultad de Teología Pontificia y Civil de Lima (Perú); an MA in Old Testament from Catholic Theological Union; a ThM in Old and New Testaments from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago; an MLA from The University of Chicago; and a PhD in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

Dr. Pilarski has published many papers on the prophets, lamentations, migration, Latine and Latin American biblical hermeneutics, decolonial thinking and the Global South, and feminist critical inquiry. She has edited or co-edited Daughters of Wisdom: Women and Leadership in the Global Church (Wipf and Stock, 2023); 2 Kings [Wisdom Commentary Series] (Liturgical Press, 2019); Judges [Wisdom Commentary Series] (Liturgical Press, 2018); By Bread Alone: Reading the Bible through the Eyes of the Hungry (Fortress Press, 2014), and Pentateuco: Introducción al Antiguo Testamento/La Biblia Hebrea en Perspectiva Latinoamericana (Editorial Verbo Divino, 2014).

Dr. Nely Galán is a self-made media and real-estate entrepreneur. She was born in Santa Clara, Cuba and raised in Teaneck, New Jersey. Dr. Galán became the first Latina President of Entertainment for a U.S. television network—Telemundo—and an Emmy Award-winning producer of over 700 television shows in English and Spanish, including the hit reality series The Swan for 20th Century Fox, produced through her multimedia company Galan Entertainment. The company has created more than 700 television shows in English and in Spanish, helping to launch over 10 television channels around the world for companies like HBO, ESPN, FOX, MGM, and Sony. She holds a master’s and a doctorate in Clinical Psychology, with a focus on the psychology of money in multicultural communities.

Dr. Galán’s New York Times-bestselling book SELF MADE: Becoming Empowered, Self-Reliant, and Rich in Every Way (Spiegel & Grau, 2016; published in English, Spanish, and Mandarin) is an entrepreneurship-for-women manifesto that coined the phrase “Don’t buy shoes; buy buildings.” Her digital platform Becoming Self Made offers financial literacy content, including webinars and stories of self-made women of color. Money Maker/Mi mundo rico with Nely Galán (Money News Network), which targets listeners who have traditionally been denied a seat at the table, is the only business and entrepreneurship podcast for a mainstream audience with episodes in English and in Spanish. Dr. Galán is the founder of the 501c3 nonprofit The Adelante Movement, a national motivational tour and digital platform that unites and empowers Latinas socially, economically, and politically. Currently, Dr. Galán serves on the Aspen Institute’s Latinos and Society Advisory Board; formerly, she served as a board member of the Smithsonian Institute and of The Hispanic Scholarship Fund. She is the mom of Lukas Rodríguez and is based in Miami Beach, Florida.

Dlia Adassa McDonald Woolery is an Afro-Costa Rican and Afro-Panamanian poet and essayist. Since 1997, she has been the director of the Don Chico Creation Workshops and director of the Francisco Zúñiga Díaz Cultural Café, in San José, Costa Rica. She is the founder and columnist of the art and literary criticism blog “La coleccionista de espejos” and a founding member of the Center for the Study of Ethnic Culture in Costa Rica. Her poetic works include El séptimo círculo del obelisco (Ediciones El Café Cultura, 1993), Sangre de madera (Ediciones El Café Cultural Francisco Zúñiga Díaz, 1995), …la lluvia es una piel (Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud, 2000), Instinto tribal…: Antología poética personal (Ediciones Kike y Tetey, 2004), Voces Indelebles (co-edited with Shirley Campbell, Universidad Nacional, 2010), and Todas las voces que canta el mar (Sediento Ediciones, México, 2012). Her poetry has been the subject of study for nine North American and European universities. In 2009, Woolery became the second Central American to be inducted into the Library of Congress, and her work has been featured in Place, Language, and Identity in Afro-Costa Rican Literature by Dorothy E. Mosby (University of Missouri, 2004); Under a Quicksilver Moon (Library of Congress, 2002); Woman Unfolding the City, edited by Anne Lambright and Elizabeth Guerrero (University of Minnesota, 2005); and meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, edited by Kwame Dixon (University of Syracuse / Universidad de Salamanca, 2003); among other publications. She was a finalist for the 2001 International Library of Poetry contest, organized by poetry.com, and received the 2004 Queen Mumuhusa trophy, awarded by the African Diaspora Association. Woolery has been a member of the Association of Colonense Writers (Panama) since 2015.

Isabel Gonzalez is an MDiv graduate from Princeton Theological Seminary (2024) and currently serves as Communications Coordinator at the Hispanic Theological Initiative (HTI) where she amplifies and celebrates the stories of Latine leaders and scholars in higher education. Gonzalez earned her Bachelor of the Arts in Biblical Religious Studies and English at Messiah University (2020). Driven by her passion for research and writing, she plans to pursue a PhD. Gonzalez is originally from Reading, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Vincent L. Wimbush is an internationally recognized scholar of religion, intellectual leader, and academic gadfly, with more than thirty years of advanced graduate-level teaching and research experience. He is author/editor of more than twelve books, including White Men’s Magic: Scripturalization as Slavery; MisReading America: Scriptures and Difference (Oxford University Press, 2012), Theorizing Scriptures; and African Americans and the Bible (Rutgers University Press, 2008), and scores of articles and essays. He is founding director of The Institute for Signifying Scriptures (ISS), an international scholarly organization, and is conceptualizer and director of several collaborative trans-disciplinary research projects, including a documentary film Finding God in the City of Angels (2010), on the ethnography of scriptures. Recipient of numerous awards and research grants, he is past president of the Society of Biblical Literature. Dr. Wimbush’s general teaching and research interests focus on the trans-disciplinary and comparative study of “scriptures” as sharp wedge for critical research and theorizing in the politics of language, social formation, consciousness, and orientation. His particular area of expertise turns around the uses of scriptures in the historical and contemporary circum-Black Atlantic as window onto the larger comparative phenomena and dynamics of scripturalizing and scripturalization.

Dr. Natasha Gordon-Chipembere is a professor of African Diasporic literature and of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She holds a PhD in English from the University of South Africa. Her dissertation focused on Sarah Baartman, “an enslaved Khoisan woman in the early 19th century who was taken to Europe and made to work in ‘freak shows,’” and appears in the anthology she co-edited, Representation and Black Womanhood: The Legacy of Sarah Baartman (Springer, 2011). Dr. Gordon-Chipembere’s writing has also been published in Essence Magazine, along with a monthly series, “Musings from An Afro-Costa Rican,” in the Tico Times. She is a Senior Co-editor with Eduardo Paulino of the AfroLatin@ Diasporas Book Series from Palgrave, where they prioritize the voices of emerging Afro-Latin@ scholars. Her current writing focuses on slavery and the legacy of Afro-descendants in Latin America, including her historical fiction novel Finding La Negrita (Jaded Ibis Press, 2022). Dr. Gordon-Chipembere is the founder and host of the annual Tengo Sed Writing Retreats in Costa Rica, an exclusive gathering of global BIPOC writers in Costa Rica for a week. She was born in New York to Costa Rican/Panamanian parents and eventually moved to Costa Rica with her husband and two children.