Atara Cohen

Atara Cohen is a native of Riverdale, NY. She graduated from Princeton University with a BA in Religion and a certificate in Judaic Studies. Through her undergraduate studies, she focused on the impact of text on religious experience and submitted a senior thesis entitled “Heavenly Portions and Messianic Distortions: A Tale of Two Talmuds.” Outside of her academic study of religion, she engaged with the interfaith community on campus and was an a leader of the Orthodox community at Hillel. Atara has studied Torah in a variety of settings, including, among others, Midreshet Nishmat, Hadar, and Drisha. During her time at Maharat, she was a Rabbinical Fellow for Human Rights at T’ruah, is a UJA graduate fellow, and is participating in the JOIN for Justice community organizing course fellowship. She has taught Torah as a scholar in residence in multiple communities and is serving as a rabbinic intern at the Columbia-Barnard Hillel.

Lara Haft

Lara Haft is a Jewish educator, activist, and Rabbinical student originally from Rockville, Maryland. They write and teach about queer ritual, sex education, and police/prison abolition from a Jewish perspective. For the past five years, Lara lived in Durham, North Carolina, where they worked as a Jewish educator, leading children services and teaching courses such as “Textual Intimacy: Jewish Approaches to Sex and Relationships” and “Shalom Y’all: Jews in the South.” Lara also organized as part of Demilitarize! Durham2Palestine, an interfaith coalition that successfully ended the practice of training Durham police alongside Israeli Forces. Lara is a first-year Rabbinical student at Hebrew College. They are currently studying in Jerusalem, where they learn Talmud and Arabic by day and organize for demilitarization and open borders by night. Lara’s writings can be found at diaspora6000.com.

Brandon Harris

Rev. Brandon Harris is a College Chaplain, Poet, and Coffee Lover. He serves as the Protestant Chaplain to the Law Center and Main Campus at Georgetown University. Brandon is a graduate of The Lincoln University of Pennsylvania where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Religion. He is a graduate of Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia where he earned a Master of Divinity with certificates in Black Church Studies and Baptist Studies. While at Candler, Rev. Harris was a Robert W. Woodruff Fellow in Theology and Ministry and earned the Frederick Buechner Preaching Award and the Charles Owen Smith Jr award for exceptional promise of service in Baptist ministry. Rev. Harris was Licensed and Ordained a minister of the American Baptist Churches USA and Progressive National Baptist Convention at the Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife and finds joy in exploring cities, coffee, and reading.

Matt Hoffman

Matt Hoffman (he/him) is an Instructor of Philosophy and Religion at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, NC. At WWC, he has taught classes on a variety of topics- religion and environmental justice, interfaith dialogue, and religion and food. Additionally, Matt helped to design and create a new Minor in Interfaith Leadership at the college. Currently, he is working part-time as a pastoral intern (Vicar) in two Lutheran Congregations in North Carolina as he seeks ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). In his free time, Matt is a Cajun food devotee, a community garden green thumb, and an avid board game enthusiast.

Janine Jankovitz Pastor

Janine Jankovitz Pastor is a writer and rabbinical student in her penultimate year at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. She serves as president of the Reconstructionist Student Association and was recently honored with the Ruach Acheret award for her contribution to the spiritual well-being of the community. Her work has been published on and offline including Ritualwell, 929, and The Jewish Literary Journal. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband Steven and their chihuahua Fitzgerald, where Shabbas and Saints football is central to their family life and home.

Andrew Kimble

Andrew Kimble is a graduate student at the Boston University School of Theology pursuing a Master of Divinity degree. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and moved to Atlanta, Georgia, to study philosophy at Morehouse College. After graduating from Morehouse College in 2014, Andrew worked for two years as a conflicts analyst at a law firm. Instead of immediately pursuing a career in law, he decided to explore and research certain topics in religion, spirituality, and ethics.

Hanna Larracas

Hanna Larracas is a second-year Master of Divinity student at Boston University School of Theology with a concentration in Religion in the Academy. She currently serves as the Graduate Assistant in the School of Theology Interreligious Office of Spiritual Life which coordinates inclusive spiritual practices and events for seminary students. Prior to arriving in Boston, Hanna completed a Bachelor of Arts in Theology, Latin American Studies, and Biblical Studies at Southeastern University in Lakeland, FL. At Southeastern, she worked as the Senior Student Editor for the College of Religion’s academic blog (www.ecclesiam.com) that connects scholars, theologians, and students with the church and its leaders on topics/issues to which Christians are called to respond; today, her involvement continues with Ecclēsiam as the Contributing Editor. Hanna is committed to the formative process of education and has taught at a variety of institutions – as a teaching assistant of Church History and Christian Theology at Southeastern University, a teacher for Parker Street Ministries serving many underprivileged neighborhoods in Lakeland, and a biology teacher in Lighthouse Homeschool Cooperative where she explored the intersection of science and theology with high school students. She is an active member in Marsh Chapel, leading worship with the Contemporary Worship Band, and in her home congregation Reunion Christian Church in Somerville, MA. Hanna also serves as a Resident Assistant for Residence Life where she fosters community life in residential spaces for undergraduate students.

Maika Llaneza

Maika Llaneza is a 1.5 generation Filipina American whose interests include Filipina American Theology, Babaylans (spiritual, indigenous Philippine community), and folklore monsters-Folk Catholicism in the Philippines. She considers herself agnostic and spiritual who loves learning about the spiritual practices of her ancestors along with various faiths. She is passionate about immigration and LGBTQ+ rights, dismantling skin color hierarchy, and working towards social justice. She has worked with students with disabilities for over 14 years as an Education Specialist in the K-12 setting and is now in Assistive Technology at the university level. Maika earned her BA in Global Studies, MS in Special Education, and is one Capstone Seminar from an MA in English. She is also currently pursuing an MA in Theology in the Institute for Spirituality and Social Justice Program at Xavier University in Cincinnati, OH. She is a writer, book hoarder, and monster fanatic.

Angie Mendoza

Angie is a writer, dancer, climber, dreamer, and spiritual seeker. She was raised Catholic, tried Evangelical Christianity for a year, and found her home as an interfaith hippie and Progressive Christian, borderline Secular Humanist. She works at the University of Southern California’s Department of Sociology, from where she earned a double B.A. in NGO’s and Social Change and Social Sciences (with an emphasis in Psychology). She will begin a Master of Science in Social Entrepreneurship program at the Marshall School of Business in July 2019 to continue pursuing her dreams in social justice and social change. She spoke about her spiritual journey alongside Deepak Chopra in May 2017 and has published two articles: “Why Jesus Wants Everyone to Part the Waters of Evangelical Christianity” and “How Living with an Open Heart Can Redefine Your Understanding of God.” You can access her work at https://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/angie-mendoza and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A6Ig_euAtJE (start at 49:57).

Sam Needham

Sam Needham was born and raised in West Lafayette, Indiana. After studying religious studies and history at Purdue University, he earned a Master of Theological Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Sam then worked in United Methodist campus ministry at Kansas State University, and, feeling a call to ministry, went on to earn an MDiv at Boston University School of Theology. Sam was commissioned to the ministry in 2015 and served a United Methodist parish in Northern Indiana until 2018, when he was ordained and appointed to begin a PhD in Systematic Theology at the University of Toronto. Sam is married to the outstanding theologian and teacher Sarah Miller, and they live with her family outside of Toronto, Ontario.

Skyler Oberst

Skyler began working with civic leaders to create a more pluralistic community after witnessing hate crimes in the region. A millennial interfaith expert, Skyler has spoken internationally, including the G20 Interfaith Forum on the next generation of interfaith leadership as well as at the White House on the power of interfaith on college campuses. He has contributed to the Millennial Values project at the Berkeley Center at Georgetown University and has been a research associate mapping out religious landscape of the Inland Northwest at the Pluralism Project at Harvard University. He currently serves as an ambassador and a Next Generation Leader to the Parliament of World’s Religions. Skyler currently works in the Pacific Northwest to promote religious literacy and interfaith engagement through his groundbreaking interactive video-series “Meet the Neighbors” which uses a unique mix of social media and community events to foster collaboration and community building.

Nick Rodriguez

Nick Rodriguez is a first-year Master of Divinity graduate student at the Boston University School of Theology and a Ministry Assistant for Outreach and Engagement at Boston University’s Marsh Chapel. During his undergraduate studies, also at Boston University, Nick was a Marsh Associate intern at Marsh Chapel, the President of SojournBU, and the Vice-President of EpiscopalBU. In spiritual life, he stood within the different margins of Christian traditions as a student leader and interfaced in interreligious dialogue with members of other religious traditions, finding a lot of personal meaning in the theologies of Christian Existentialism. As a graduate student, he hopes to discover new and exciting ways to engage in ministry at Boston University and hear the different stories his fellow terriers are telling with their lives. He also hopes to continue working with the different inclusive cultural and religious communities in Boston University and provide outreach to the student body and space for engagement between students and Marsh Chapel.

Monica Sanford

Rev. Monica Sanford is the assistant director for Spirituality and Religious Life (SRL) in the Schmitt Interfaith Center at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Rev. Sanford is an ordained Buddhist lay minister in a Chan Buddhist Lineage. She holds a PhD in Practical Theology from Claremont School of Theology (2018), a MDiv in Buddhist Chaplaincy from University of the West (2013), a BS in Design from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln (2007), and a certificate in irony from the Academy for Subverting Parental Expectations (perpetual). At RIT, serves the needs of a diverse student and staff population, coordinates the work of over a dozen campus chaplains, provides pastoral care, researches the particular challenges of campus chaplaincy and Buddhist chaplaincy, and presents regularly at U.S. and international conferences. Originally from Nebraska, Rev. Sanford has lived in Colorado, California, upstate New York, and travels regularly. She has blogged since 2006, chronicling her own journey into Buddhism, first via Buddhist in Nebraska, then into becoming a Buddhist chaplain at Dharma Cowgirl. Her scholarly work can be found on her profile at Academia.edu. On any given day, Rev. Sanford can be found attending a Catholic mass, Jewish seder, Zen meditation, or Muslim prayer, taking long walks with her dog (sun, rain, or snow), geeking out about scifi, fantasy, science, or space, buying more academic books than she’ll ever have time to read, or napping (mostly napping).

Narges Shafeghati

Narges Shafeghati is a poet, pluralist, and dreamer. An Iranian-German daughter of artists and change-makers-at-heart she enjoyed a Muslim upbringing, Catholic education, and has since been more deeply pursuing Jewish learning.

She holds a B.A. in Expressive Arts in Social Transformation from Medical School Hamburg where she focused on applied arts in processes for change and healing. Her passion for poetry in activism lead her abroad to intern in Arts Management at Split This Rock, a Washington, D.C.-based poetry education non-profit that fosters a national network of socially engaged poets, offers vibrant youth programs, and campaigns that integrate poetry into movements for social change.

Researching on the role of arts education from an entrepreneurial perspective she published her senior thesis on Social Entrepreneurship engaging the arts in HPB University Press under the title Social Artrepreneurship – a term she coined in this context.

A Master of Theological Studies candidate, she currently studies the intersection of faith, spiritual practice, arts, and activism at Boston University, Harvard, and Hebrew College. She keeps a plant-based home and leads a trilingual, Abrahamic-pluralist life.

Demarius Walker

“If I can hear the sound of the genuine in me and you can hear the sound of the genuine in you, I can go down in me and come up in you because the sound of the genuine makes the same music.” This quote by Howard Thurman provides a good summary of how I engage life. I work hard to listen and to create space for people to listen and be listened to. I am a 28-year-old cisgender straight male from a working class family in Atlanta, GA. In high school I traveled around the country debating, and I participated in mock trial and experienced a lot of success. In college I studied political science and philosophy and spent a lot of time as an activist. I have participated in various protest and organizing meetings since then but have stepped away from the activist scene because I found it so imbued with hate. Now I am primarily interested in reconciliation and community building. In the last few years I’ve lived in several intentional communities and worked for several nonprofit organizations while discerning a call to ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church tradition.