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.

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.

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.

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.

Dr. Javier Viera is the President (2021) and Professor of Education and Leadership at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. A native of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Dr. Viera is the first person of color to hold the office of president in the seminary’s 168-year history. He has served as Dean, Provost and Professor of Pastoral Studies at Drew University Theological Seminary; as executive minister of Christ Church in New York City; and as chair of his local Human Rights Commission. He is an ordained elder in the New York Conference of The United Methodist Church. Other professional activities include the Wabash Center Advisory Committee, the University Senate and Commission on Theological Education of The United Methodist Church, the Religious Education Association, and the American Academy of Religion. His scholarly interests center on inter-religious dialogue and how learning occurs across religious and ideological differences; adult learning and development, particularly Freirean dialectics and pedagogy; and the history of Latin America, particularly revolutionary and anti-colonial movements in the Hispanic Caribbean. Dr. Viera holds a PhD in Education from Columbia University Teachers College, an STM from Yale University, an MDiv from Duke University, and a BA from Florida Southern College. In 2020, he received the Yale Divinity School Distinction in Theological Education award and is currently completing a PhD in Latin American studies/history from the Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico.

Dr. Alejandro Nava is a Professor of Religious Studies and Classics at the University of Arizona (UA). He received his MA and PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Chicago. His first teaching position was at Seattle University, before joining the faculty at UA, where he teaches courses that include 'Love and World Religions,' 'The Question of God,' 'Religion and Culture in the Southwest,' 'Rap, Culture, and God' and 'Religion in Latin America.' Dr. Nava is the author of The Mystical and Prophetic Thought of Simone Weil and Gustavo Gutiérrez: Reflections on the Mystery and Hiddenness of God (SUNY Press, 2001); Wonder and Exile in the New World (Penn State University Press, 2013); In Search of Soul: Hip-Hop, Literature and Religion (University of California Press, 2017); and Street Scriptures: Between God and Hip-Hop (University of Chicago Press, 2022).

Dr. Luis G. Pedraja is President of Quinsigamond Community College (QCC). He was born in Cuba, and throughout his career, has focused on Latino perspectives, and has published many books and articles exploring how understanding language and culture can promote intercultural dialogue and tolerance. He holds a BA from Stetson University and a PhD in Philosophy and Religion from the University of Virginia. He has been on faculty at the University of Puget Sound and Southern Methodist University, where he also served as a division chair and faculty senator. Additionally, he served as Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean at the Memphis Theological Seminary and as Vice President for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. He also led the first program to grant American accreditation to foreign universities and has provided guidance to universities in South America, Asia, and Europe on achieving American higher education standards. Additionally, he has served as Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Antioch University in Los Angeles and Interim Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs for Peralta Community College District in California. Dr. Pedraja serves on multiple boards in the region, the state, and the nation, including: United Way, Latino Education Institute, Masshire Central Region Workforce Board, Worcester Regional Research Bureau, and Co-Chair of the Mayoral Commission for Latino Advancement and Education. He was recently appointed to represent the Massachusetts community colleges in the Governor’s newly formed Healthcare Collaborative and serves on the American Association of Community Colleges’ (AACC) Commission on Institutional Infrastructure & Technology. Dr. Pedraja lives in Worcester with his wife and daughter.

Dr. Theresa L. Torres, a second-generation Mexican American, is Associate Professor of Sociology and Race, Ethnic and Gender Studies (REGS) in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC). Her areas of expertise are Latinx Studies (in the United States, particularly Kansas City), Gender Studies, Immigration Studies, Ethnic Studies, Religious Studies, and Anthropology. Using ethnographic field studies, her current research is on the impact of religion and spirituality in the lives of Latina Leaders and the role of Latinas in religious and civic organizations. She holds a BA in Secondary Education from Benedictine College; an MA in Pastoral Studies in Mexican American Culture and Theology from Boston College; and a PhD in Religious Studies, Theology, and cognate in Anthropology and Latino Studies from Catholic University. Dr. Torres is the author of The Paradox of Latina Religious Leadership in the Catholic Church: Las Guadalupanas of Kansas City (Palgrave MacMillan, 2013), a book on Latina spirituality and resilience based on interviews of Latina leaders. 

Dr. Theresa A. Yugar is a Peruvian American scholar in religion whose scholarly focus is on women, ecology, and climate change on a global level. She is a graduate of Harvard University with a master’s degree in Feminist Theology and has a PhD from Claremont Graduate University in the field of Women Studies in Religion. Her research interests include creating counter narratives in course curriculum, reclaiming the native indigenous cosmology within a Buen Vivir ecological framework, reimagining Andean colonial frameworks, and reflecting on 17th century Novohispaña Latina woman Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in a contemporary U.S. context. 

Dr. Yugar is the Chief Editor for the book, Valuing Lives, Healing Earth: Religion, Gender, and Life on Earth (Peeters, Belgium, 2021), which focuses on women who embody commitments to healing the earth rendered vulnerable by problematic social systems in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. She is also the author of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Feminist Reconstruction of Biography and Text (Wipf and Stock, 2014). She is the scriptwriter for the TED-Ed Lessons Worth Sharing "History’s Worst Nun," which has been viewed nine million times since its publication in November 2019. Dr. Yugar has also been recognized by The Peruvian Consulate, in Lima, with a diploma for organizing the Santo Niño de la Mascaipacha (Holy Child of Cuzco) cultural event at Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral, in Los Angeles, which reclaims the “ancestral cult of the Peruvian Andes.”

The grandson of agricultural workers and day laborers, Danny Ballon-Garst was born and raised in San Diego, California, along the San Ysidro/Tijuana border, where his dad pastored an Apostolic church. As a scholar, Ballon-Garst is interested in studying the relationship between religion and social change, and he pursues his research questions primarily through a historical lens. In his doctoral studies, Ballon-Garst is conducting a historical study of black and brown queer Pentecostals and Evangelicals in the United States in the twentieth century, drawing connections from these historical movements and actors to current queer religious movements, including queer transnational religious movements in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Prior to pursuing a career in academia, he practiced law at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and at a corporate law firm in Los Angeles. Ballon-Garst holds BA and JD degrees from the University of Southern California, and an MTS from Harvard Divinity School.

Rebecca Rhodes Blackburn is a PhD student in Biblical Hermeneutics at Chicago Theological Seminary. Her research centers contemporary hermeneutical strategies in biblical studies, including womanist, queer, mujerista, and feminist approaches. Blackburn cultivates tools for self-critical engagement of the biblical text in historically centered Christian communities. In addition to her research, she is involved in various projects related to interreligious dialogue and cooperation. She currently serves as a fellow for the Tri-Faith Initiative’s inaugural Emerging Clergy Seminar. Before her PhD work, Blackburn worked in higher education, promoting student success and community thriving. She has experience teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Blackburn holds a Bachelor’s in social work and a Master’s in spiritual formation and leadership; these degrees work together to keep her attuned to strategies that support the material, social, and spiritual conditions of the communities to which she belongs. Blackburn is a member of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and is Program Operations Manager at Interfaith America. Outside of her studies, she enjoys exploring Chicago on foot and getting lost in good stories.