Christiana Zenner is Associate Professor of Theology, Science and Ethics in the Department of Theology at Fordham University, where she is affiliated faculty in Environmental Studies and American Studies. Her research into emerging and established fresh water ethics as well as Anthropocene conceptualizations intersects with ecological theory, religious ecologies, developments in the earth sciences, and the ecological turn in Catholic social teaching. In all of her work, she strives to grapple with the deep patterns—both conceptual and institutional—that shape perception of cultural-religious moralities and frames of ecological-ethical perception; to demonstrate rigorous and responsible multidisciplinary approaches to contemporary eco-social realities, especially those pertaining to fresh water justice and climate change; and to articulate constructive, anti-colonial, intersectional feminist ways forward. 

Corey D. B. Walker is an acclaimed scholar, academic leader, and public intellectual committed to a broad and inclusive vision of human flourishing. He serves as Dean of Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Wake Forest Professor of the Humanities, and Inaugural Director of the Program in African American Studies where he brings visionary leadership and a deep commitment to the transformative power of education, ethical engagement, and critical scholarship. In recognition of his scholarly excellence, Dean Walker was named the 2023-2024 Phi Beta Kappa Frank M. Updike Memorial Scholar, becoming the first Wake Forest University professor selected as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar. For the spring of 2026, Williams College has named Dean Walker the Sterling A. Brown ’22 Distinguished Visiting Professor of Africana Studies.

Davíd Carrasco (Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America) is a Mexican American historian of religions with particular interest in Mesoamerican cities as symbols, and the Mexican-American borderlands. His studies with historians of religions at the University of Chicago inspired him to work on the question, "where is your sacred place," on the challenges of postcolonial ethnography and theory, and on the practices and symbolic nature of ritual violence in comparative perspective. Working with Mexican archaeologists, he has carried out research in the excavations and archives associated with the sites of Teotihuacan and Mexico-Tenochtitlan resulting in Religions of Mesoamerica, City of Sacrifice, and Quetzalcoatl and the Irony of Empire. 

Dr. Emilie M. Townes, an American Baptist clergywoman, is a native of Durham, North Carolina. She holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Religion in Society and Personality from Northwestern University. She is  the Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Religion & Black Studies at Boston University

Oren Lyons, serves as the Onondaga Nation Turtle Clan Faithkeeper and as a member Chief of the Onondaga Council of Chiefs and the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

Oren holds the title of Professor Emeritus at SUNY Buffalo, has an honorary Doctor of Law Degree from his Alma Mater, Syracuse University where Lyons Hall is named in his honor. Chief Lyons is an All-American Lacrosse Hall of Famer and Honorary Chairman of the Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse Team. He is an accomplished artist, environmentalist, and author.

Oren is a leading voice at the UN Permanent Forum on Human Rights for Indigenous Peoples, serves on the Executive Committee of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders for Human Survival, serves on the Board for Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, as Principal of One Bowl Productions, and honorary board member for 4 The Future Foundation.

Holly A. Rine, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of History at Le Moyne College. Her research explores intercultural contact in the Hudson River Valley in the 17th century and connects various events in the Hudson Valley such as the Peach War of 1655 and the Esopus Wars of 1658 and 1663 with events removed from the region, such as Bacon’s Rebellion, Metacom’s War and the Third Anglo­Dutch War in the 1670s. By making these connections, she demonstrates how seemingly localized struggles for power had far reaching consequences including the creation of a new diplomatic landscape of European and Indian affairs that was centered at Albany . In her interpretations of these cross­ cultural experiences, she maintain a focus on the active roles and motivations of the various American Indian groups who helped to shape the experiences and development of 17th century North America.

Jake Haiwhagai’i (He speaks with strong voice) Edwards, Onondaga Eel Clan, lives on the Onondaga Nation Territory. He maintains the continuity of the Longhouse oral teachings. The Onondaga govern and teach within an oral tradition that is over a thousand years old. Jake is the 11th child in a family of twelve children. He grew up among his elders of the Onondaga Nation learning and sharing the messages from the original instructions, passing on history and knowledge of the natural world.

Prof. Hill Fletcher grew up in a Chicago suburb and attended the University of Illinois as an undergraduate, majoring in English. After a year with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, she attended Harvard Divinity School, earning her MTS in 1996 and ThD in 2001. She joined the Fordham faculty in 2001.

Prof. Hill Fletcher teaches at the intersection of Systematic Theology and issues of
diversity (religious diversity, Christian cultural diversity, race, and gender). Her research and teaching explore the role of theological thinking in shaping public discourse, including both activism and legislation. Prof. Hill Fletcher is a board member of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, a multi-generational, multi-religious a multi-racial grassroots organization working for social change.

Kimberly Carfore is an adjunct professor of environmental studies and theology and religious studies. Her research interests include gendered experiences of divinity and embodied theology, nature spiritualities, ancestral skills, and wilderness experience.

Dr. Raymond Carr is an Assistant Professor of theology and ethics in the Religion and Philosophy Division at Pepperdine University. His research interests are theologically ecumenical, historically sensitive, and radically inclusive. Dr. Carr received his Ph.D. from Graduate Theological Union in Systematic and Philosophical Theology. He teaches courses on the theology of Martin Luther, Theology Born of Struggle, and the Old Testament in Context. He is currently working on a theological aesthetics, Theology in the Mode of Monk: Barth and Cone on Revelation and Freedom, which combines together his research interests and uses the music of Thelonious Monk as a form of parabolic suggestiveness.

Dr. Richard J. Callahan, Jr., is interested in the intersections of religion, cultures of work, natural resource extraction, and comparative studies of religions and globalization. He received his PhD in Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his MA in Folklore and Folklife Studies at Western Kentucky University. Dr. Callahan is the author of Work and Faith in the Kentucky Coal Fields: Subject to Dust, and editor of New Territories, New Perspectives: The Religious Impact of the Louisiana Purchase and The Bloomsbury Reader in the Study of Religion and Popular Culture. His latest research explores a religious history of the nineteenth-century American whaling industry and its global networks of exchange in the spaces of the ocean. 

Teresa L. Smallwood is Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs and The James Franklin Kelly and Hope Eyster Kelly Associate Professor of Public Theology at United Lutheran Seminary.

Yuria Celidwen is a senior fellow at the Othering and Belonging Institute, and a native of Indigenous Nahua and Maya descent, born into a family of mystics, healers, poets, and explorers from the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico.

She teaches Indigenous epistemologies and spirituality and her work pioneered the Indigenous contemplative experience within contemplative studies. In addition, she leads workshops on prosocial practices (such as mindfulness, compassion, kindness, gratitude, etc.) from an Indigenous perspective. She emphasizes cultivating a sense of reverence and ecological belonging, raising awareness of social and environmental justice and community-engaged practices, revitalizing Indigenous languages, traditional medicine, clean energy, and conservation.