Rev. Sofia Betancourt is a Ph.D. Candidate at Yale University in the departments of Religious Ethics and African American Studies. Her work focuses on environmental ethics of liberation in a womanist and Latina feminist frame. She served for four years as the Director of Racial and Ethnic Concerns of the Unitarian Universalist Association, and her ministry centers on work that is empowering and counter-oppressive. Betancourt holds a B.S. from Cornell University with a concentration in ethnobotany, an M.A. and M.Phil from Yale University in religious ethics and African American studies, and an M.Div. from Starr King School for the Ministry.
Dr. Timothy R. Eberhart is Associate Professor of Theology and Ecology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, where he directs the MA in Public Ministry degree and oversees a concentration in Ecological Regeneration. He teaches in the areas of theology and ethics, concentrating on the relation of Christian doctrine to environmental, economic, political, and social change theory. His publications include Rooted and Grounded in Love: Holy Communion for the Whole Creation (Wipf and Stock, 2017), The Economy of Salvation: Essays in Honor of M. Douglas Meeks (Wipf and Stock, 2015), and chapters on mission, ecclesiology, and ecotheology. </h1>
Daniel Joranko is a Lecturer at the Vanderbilt Divinity School and teaches on subjects such as religion and ecology, community development and strategic nonviolence. He coordinates the VDS Riverbend program, which features courses inside prisons made up of one-half VDS students and one-half prisoners. He also serves as the state coordinator for Tennessee Interfaith Power and Light and the coordinator of the United Methodist Tennessee Conference Creation Care Ministry. He is a long-time community organizer including work in Nashville and Chicago.
Dr. Laurel Kearns co-founded the Green Seminary Initiative, and is Professor of Ecology, Society and Religion at Drew Theological School New Jersey, where she has taught about religions, ecology and social justice issues for 25 years. Her research is focused on religious involvement in ecological issues and movements, with a particular interest in environmental justice, climate change, and food. In addition to EcoSpirit: Religions and Philosophies for the Earth, she has contributed chapters to The New Evangelical Social Engagement, Christian Responses to the Journey of the Universe, and the Bloomsbury Handbook on Religion and Nature. She is currently co-editing the religion and nature section of the Brill Religion in North America online resource. Her decades long involvement in religious environmentalism has roots in the island where she was born, Sanibel, Florida.
Dr Elaine Nogueira-Godsey is an Assistant Professor of Theology, Ecology and Race at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio. Her work focuses on the development of decolonial methods of research and teaching in relation to the relationship between ecology, gender, race and religion, with a focus on Third-World contexts. Dr Nogueira-Godsey is the treasurer of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture (ISSRNC), an assistant editor for the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture (JSRNC) and co-chair of the Women’s Caucus AAR/SBL.
Jeremy Posadas is an associate professor of religious studies and core faculty member in gender studies at Austin College (on the rural Texas-Oklahoma border), where he holds the John F. Anderson Chair of Christian Thought. A queer-feminist social ethicist, he has written on anti-work theory, reproductive justice, and Christian rape culture and is currently writing an eco-queer ethics against capitalism. He is a member of the committee that oversees the largest gathering of religion scholars in the world and has twice been selected as a fellow of the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion.
Annika Rieger is a doctoral student in the department of Sociology at Boston College. Her primary areas of research are environmental sociology and political economy. Her current research project utilizes quantitative and computational methods to investigate how transnational corporations contribute, and respond, to climate change.
Joerg Rieger is Distinguished Professor of Theology and Cal Turner Chancellor’s Chair in Wesleyan Studies at the Divinity School and the Graduate Program of Religion at Vanderbilt University. He is also the and the Founding Director of the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. His work addresses the relation of theology and public life, reflecting on the misuse of power in religion, politics, and economics. His most recent book publications include Jesus vs. Caesar: For People Tired of Serving the Wrong God (2018), No Religion but Social Religion: Liberating Wesleyan Theology, with contributions by Paulo Ayres Mattos, Helmut Renders, and José Carlos de Souza (2018), and Unified We are a Force: How Faith and Labor Can Overcome America’s Inequalities (with Rosemarie Henkel-Rieger, 2016).
Terra Schwerin Rowe is Assistant Professor in the University of North Texas Philosophy and Religion Department. Her work focuses on critical and constructive engagements with Western religious traditions from the perspective of environmental and feminist concerns. Her first book, Toward a Better Worldliness: Economy, Ecology and the Protestant Tradition (2017) analyzes the Protestant ecological and economic implications of the Protestant articulation of grace as “free gift.” A current project, Of Modern Extraction: Gender, Religion, and Energy (forthcoming, 2022) focuses on the imbrication of gender and energy constructs (including oil narratives) in predominant Western religious and philosophical traditions.
Dr. Andrew Thompson is assistant professor of theological ethics, School of Theology, The University of the South and director of the Sewanee Ministry Collaborative, and the Alternative Clergy Training at Sewanee (ACTS) Program. Thompson’s research focuses on environmental and social ethics and the work of ethicist H. Richard Niebuhr. His first book, All My Holy Mountain: A Christian Ethical Response to Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining, was published in the fall of 2015 by University Press of Kentucky. He has also written on mission and on religion and place, and has taught ethics, philosophy, and world religions.
Upolu Lumā Vaai is Professor of Theology and Ethics and Principal of the Pacific Theological College in Suva Fiji. He is a member of more than ten international research organisations and journals including the recently established Advisory Board of the Laudato Si’ Research Institute, University of Oxford. He is the Oceania chair of the Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies. He is currently working on several articles, including three book projects: Indigenous Relational Philosophies of Oceania: Rewriting the Story of Development through Oceanic Wisdom (editor); Methodist Revolutions: Evangelical Engagements of Church and World (co-editor with Joerg Rieger); Eco-Relational Theology: Restorying God in the Pacific (author).
Dr. Tim Van Meter is an Associate Professor at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio (MTSO) where he leads ecology and justice specializations in the M.Div. MAPT, D.Min, and co-directs the new Master of Arts in Social Justice (MASJ). He also serves as the Coordinator of Ecological Initiatives, leading work on food security, community responses to climate change, agroecological theology, and social justice. His research interests include: how ecology is taught in theological schools, ecological practices of faith communities, and farmers’ understandings of the sacred in relationship to land and vocation.
George Zachariah serves the Trinity Methodist Theological College, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand as lecturer in Theological Studies. He has also served the faculty of the United Theological College, Bangalore, India and the Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute, Chennai, India. His publications include: Decolonizing Ecotheology: Indigenous and Subaltern Challenges (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, forthcoming, co-editor), The Life, Legacy and Theology of M.M. Thomas (New York: Routledge, 2016, co-editor with Monica Melanchthon) and Alternatives Unincorporated: Earth Ethics from the Grassroots (New York: Routledge, 2014).