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.

Noemí Palomares, a fronteriza from Texas, earned a BA in Biblical Text from Abilene Christian University, where she has taught. She also holds an MAR in Hebrew Bible from Yale University’s Divinity School and is currently a PhD candidate in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament at Boston College. She will begin teaching at Pepperdine University in the fall of 2020.

Rev. Dr. Eric D. Barreto is the Frederick and Margaret L. Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary and an ordained Baptist minister. He holds a BA in religion from Oklahoma Baptist University, an MDiv from Princeton Seminary, and a PhD in New Testament from Emory University. Prior to coming to Princeton Seminary, he served as associate professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary, and taught as an adjunct professor at the Candler School of Theology and McAfee School of Theology. Dr. Barreto is the author of Ethnic Negotiations: The Function of Race and Ethnicity in Acts 16 (Mohr Siebeck, 2010), the co-author of Exploring the Bible (Fortress Press, 2016), and editor of Reading Theologically (Fortress Press, 2014). For more, go to ericbarreto.com and follow him on Twitter (@ericbarreto).

Dr. Joshua Bartholomew is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He earned a BS in Psychology with a minor in Theology from Fordham University, an MDiv in Systematic Theology from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, and a PhD in Religious and Theological Studies and Social Ethics from the joint program at The University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology. Dr. Bartholomew is also an Adjunct Professor in Religious and Theological Studies at Iliff School of Theology, an Affiliate Professor at Regis University, and a licensed minister from the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York. Dr. Bartholomew serves as minister in residence at Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury, MA. Dr. Bartholomew’s academic fields of concentration include Christian theological ethics, racial formation theory, and political economics. By recovering intellectual resources and economic social practices from The Black Panther Party as an economic model of racial justice, Dr. Bartholomew’s research deals with the relationship between economic justice and racial equality within the U.S. and its transnational range of influence.

Dr. Miguel A. De La Torre is a professor of Social Ethics and Latinx Studies at Iliff School of Theology, a scholar-activist, author, and an ordained Southern Baptist minister. The focus of his academic pursuit is social ethics within contemporary U.S. thought, specifically how religion affects race, class, and gender oppression. Since obtaining his doctoral in 1999, he has authored over a hundred articles and published thirty-three books (five of which won national awards). A Fulbright scholar, Dr. De La Torre has taught in Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, and Germany. Within his guild he served as the 2012 President of the Society of Christian Ethics. Within the academy, he is a past-director to the American Academy of Religion; served as the past chair of the Committee for Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession, past chair of the Ethics Program Section; authored the “AAR Career Guide;” served on the Program Committee, and presently serves on the editorial board of JAAR. Additionally, he is the co-founder and present executive director of the Society of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion and the founding editor of the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion. Dr. De La Torre has written numerous articles in popular media and has served on several civic organizations. Recently, he wrote the script to a documentary on immigration, Trails of Hope and Terror the Movie, which has screened in over 18 film festivals, winning over seven film awards.

Dr. Jean-Pierre M. Ruiz is Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow in Theology and Religious Studies in St. John's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He holds STL and STD degrees in Biblical Studies, and an STB in Theology, all from Pontifical Gregorian University. A Past-President of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS), Dr. Ruiz maintains an active program of research in biblical studies. His particular interests are in the prophetic and apocalyptic literature, and with a special focus on the relevance of the Bible to contemporary concerns regarding immigrants and refugees. This was the focus of his book, Readings from the Edges: The Bible and People on the Move (Orbis Books, 2011), the winner of a Catholic Press Association Award. A contributor to the New Oxford Annotated Bible and to the Anselm Academic Study Bible, he is widely recognized as an authority on the Apocalypse of John. Dr. Ruiz has served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Hispanic / Latino Theology and as associate editor of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly. He is a consultant on teaching and learning with the Lilly Endowment-funded Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion. Dr. Ruiz serves on the Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group of the U.S. Department of State, and he was a participant in the nationally broadcast Bill Moyers series, Genesis: A Living Conversation.

Dr. M. Daniel Carroll Rodas is the Blanchard Professor of Old Testament at the Wheaton College Graduate School. He holds a ThM from Dallas Theological Seminary and a PhD from the University of Sheffield, both degrees in Old Testament. Dr. Carroll Rodas is half-Guatemalan (his mother was Guatemalan) and was raised bilingual and bicultural. In his youth he spent many summers in Guatemala and later taught many years at El Seminario Teológico Centroamericano in Guatemala City. He has taught Old Testament at Denver Seminary, where he founded a Spanish-language lay training program. At Wheaton, he hopes to model a commitment to connecting careful biblical scholarship with the mission of the church as it engages today’s complex realities. Dr. Carroll Rodas is the author of The Lord Roars: Recovering the Prophetic Voice for Today (Baker Publishing Group, 2022), The Bible and Borders: Hearing God's Word on Immigration (Brazos Press, 2020), and The Book of Amos (New International Commentary on the Old Testament) (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2020).

Dr. Neomi De Anda is Executive Director of International Marian Research Institute (IMRI) at the University of Dayton, where she served as a Human Rights Center Research Associate and is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies. She teaches courses in religion, languages and cultures, Latinx studies, race and ethnic studies, and women and gender studies.  Dr. De Anda holds a PhD in Constructive Theology from Loyola University Chicago, and Master’s degrees in Theology (Oblate School of Theology) and Educational Leadership (St. Mary’s University, San Antonio).  Her research interests include LatinoXa Christology; theology and breast milk; chisme; Marianist Catholic Higher Education; the intersection of race and migrations, in conjunction with the Marianist Social Justice Collaborative Immigrant Justice Team; and partnering with the Hope Border Institute on a border theology at the intersections of the environment, migrations, labor, and women. Dr. De Anda is the most recent past president for the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS). Her honors include: the 2021 University of Dayton University Award for Faculty Teaching; the 2021 University of Dayton College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Service Award for faculty; recognition as a Courageous Woman's Voice at the University of Dayton (2020) and an outstanding faculty member in the State of Ohio by Ohio Magazine (2019). Dr. De Anda has also received various grants from the Hispanic Theological Initiative, the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Religion and Theology, the Association of Marianist Universities, and the Louisville Institute, where she now serves as a member of the board. 

Dr. Kay Higuera Smith is Professor of Biblical and Religious Studies and Program Director of the Religious Studies Minor program at Azusa Pacific University. She writes about social justice issues as they relate to Critical Gender Theory, Postcoloniality and Evangelicalism. In her most recent publication, she was Editor-in-Chief of Postcolonial Evangelical Conversations: Global Awakenings in Theology and Praxis (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014). She currently has two books under contract, one on the historical figure of Mary of Nazareth, and another on Latinx Biblical Hermeneutics.

Dr. Victor Carmona is Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Diego. He earned his doctorate at the University of Notre Dame. Before becoming a Latino moral theologian, Dr. Carmona served migrants and urban communities with the Mexican Catholic Conference of Bishops and the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate; experiences which continue to influence his thinking and teaching. He authored “Theologizing Immigration” in Blackwell’s Companion to Latino/a Theology, and has also published with the Journal of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States and with Liguorian magazine.

Rev. Lydia Hernández-Marcial is a doctoral candidate in biblical studies, specializing in the Hebrew Bible, particularly Wisdom Literature, at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC). She is a 2018-19 Hispanic Theological Initiative/Lilly Fellow and has taught at the Seminario Evangélico de Puerto Rico, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and McCormick Theological Seminary. As a minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), she served as a pastor in several churches in Puerto Rico, where she taught Old Testament, Christian Ethics, and Christian Theology at the Disciples of Christ Bible Institute. Rev. Hernández-Marcial holds a bachelor degree with a major in biology from the University of Puerto Rico, an MDiv from the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico, an STM from the Union Theological Seminary, and a ThM from the LSTC.

Rev. Dr. Doris García-Rivera is a Professor of Old Testament and Mission and Evangelism in the Certificate in Hispanic Ministries at Lexington Theological Seminary, where she also serves as Academic Coordinator for Pathways for Tomorrow Grant. Her work focuses on Nonprofit Organizations Management, Fundraising, Preaching, Social Justice, Interculturality, Ancient Near Eastern culture, and Prophetic Literature. Since 1982, Rev. Dr. García-Rivera has collaborated with a variety of journals and digital spaces, sharing valuable biblical and theological knowledge and receiving several awards for her writings. She spent 23 years of missionary service in Central America, connecting Indigenous and Central Americans communities with churches and organizations in the U.S. through the International Ministries of American Baptist Churches (IM-ABC). Formerly, she served as Interim Director at Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America (BPFNA)-Bautistas por la Paz. In 2014, Rev. Dr. García-Rivera was appointed President of the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico, becoming the first woman president in the seminary's history. She holds a PhD focused in Historical & Bible Studies and Sociology from Boston University's School of Theology; an MAR in Cross-Cultural Evangelism from the Andover Newton Theological School; an MS in Microbiology from the School of Medicine of Puerto Rico; and a BSc from University of Puerto Rico. In 1990, Rev. Dr. Garcia-Rivera was ordained as a minister of the ABC – Puerto Rican Baptist Churches. A proud mother of three adults, she enjoys science fiction, writing, and music.

Dr. Manuela Ceballos is a native of Medellín, Colombia, and studies Islamic and Christian mystical literature in the medieval and early modern Western Mediterranean. She completed her dissertation at Emory University in 2016. She has published articles on mysticism and violence, the historiographical concept of convivencia (the coexistence of Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Islamic Spain), and has a forthcoming article on the hagiographical account of a sixteenth-century Muslim saint of Christian and Jewish ancestry. She regularly teaches "Introduction to the Study of Islam," and other courses that focus on literature, history, and culture in the Muslim West. Before focusing on the study of Islam, Dr. Ceballos earned a BA in French and Comparative Literature and an MA in French from Bryn Mawr College and worked as an English as a Second Language instructor for refugees in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Dr. Daniel Ramírez is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religion, School of Arts and Humanities, Claremont Graduate University. He received his BA in Political Science at Yale College before going on to receive his MA and PhD from Duke University in American Religious History. His research interests lie primarily in American religious history and Latinx American religious history both within and outside the United States. Ramírez has taught a vast range of courses within these broad fields, including American Evangelicalisms and Fundamentalisms; Religion, Migration, and Transnationalism; History of the Hispanic Heterodox: Latina/o Religious History; Religious Pathways of the Borderlands; and Film and Religious History, among others. During Ramírez’s career, he has published numerous book chapters and articles, most often on Latin American religious history, traditions, and challenges. His book, Migrating Faith: Pentecostalism in the United States and Mexico in the Twentieth Century (UNC Press, 2015), begins in Los Angeles in 1906 with the eruption of the Azusa Street Revival and follows the trajectory of the Pentecostal phenomenon in the United States and Mexico throughout the century.

Stephen R. Di Trolio Coakley is a PhD student at Princeton Theological Seminary in the Department of History and Ecumenics (world Christianity and history of religions). He worked and taught in Buenos Aires, Argentina before moving to Princeton, New Jersey. His research interests include Pentecostalism, Latin American history, political theology, and decolonial theory. Di Trolio Coakley is currently a Louisville Institute Fellow.

Dr. Elizabeth Tamez Méndez is Founder and Executive Director of New Gereration3, an international organization dedicated to training leaders, conducting research, and providing consulting services. She is a specialist in multicultural youth development and strategic planning, has 25 years of diverse ministerial experience, is ordained in the Baptist church, and holds a PhD in Leadership. Part of her work includes teaching youth development courses at various universities and seminaries, fulfilling speaking commitments, and publishing in articles, blogs, and edited books. She was awarded Emory University's "Nuestra Herencia Honorary Recognition" award for paving the way in the work with the Hispanic/Latinx community and the church. Originally from Mexico, she is passionate about developing young leaders! Contact her at elizabeth.tamez@ng3web.org.

Dr. Melissa Pagán is Assistant Professor and Director of Graduate Religious Studies at Mount Saint Mary’s University. Dr. Pagán is a lay Catholic decolonial feminist ethicist. She holds a PhD in Religion, Ethics, and Society from Emory University. Her areas of research include analyses of the logics of global coloniality in the increasing militarization of both physical and ideological borders between persons and issues of race, gender, and sexuality in Catholic Social Thought. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS) and as a co-convener of the Latina/o Theology Consultation of the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA).

Dr. Jeremy Cruz is Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics at St. John’s University in Queens, NY. He earned his BA in history from the University of California, Riverside, then studied at Loyola Marymount University and the Weston Jesuit School of Theology, before earning an MDiv and PhD in Theological Ethics from Boston College. Dr. Cruz has also gained insight into the role of religion in society by working as a faith-based community organizer, and as a lay ecclesial minister in his native California. He joined the St. John’s University faculty in 2014 and teaches courses in ethics and theology, as well as the capstone course for the undergraduate minor in Social Justice: Theory and Practice in the Vincentian Tradition. His current research focuses on justice for farmworkers and moral theories of social equality. As a practitioner of moral advocacy, Dr. Cruz volunteers with religious communities as they advocate for the rights and well-being of U.S. farmworkers.