Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II
Symposium Panelist
Founding Director
Professor in the Practice of Public Theology and Public Policy
Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, is a Professor in the Practice of Public Theology and Public Policy and Founding Director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. He serves as President and Senior Lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival, Bishop with The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, and has been Pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Goldsboro, NC, for the past 29 years.

He is the author of five books: White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy; We Are Called To Be A Movement; Revive Us Again: Vision and Action in Moral Organizing; The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and The Rise of a New Justice Movement; and Forward Together: A Moral Message For The Nation.

Larycia Hawkins
Symposium Panelist
Professor in the Political Science Department and Director of the Center for the Study of the Underground Railroad at Lincoln University

Hawkins is a scholar, award-winning political science professor, activist, and sought-after speaker and commentator on issues related to the intersections of race, politics, religion, and solidarity. Hawkins earned a BA in History and Sociology from Rice University and her MPA and PhD from the University of Oklahoma. Before joining Lincoln University, she held a joint appointment at the University of Virginia’s Religious Studies and Political Science departments. She was previously an Associate Professor of Political Science at Wheaton College (IL). 

Jon-Paul Lapeña
Symposium Panelist
PhD candidate in New Testament and early Christianity
Yale University

Lapeña work examines how ancient Mediterranean discourses on the body, excess, and moral failure continue to shape modern conversations around health, stigma, and social worth—and, in turn, influence how communities respond to suffering. His dissertation shows how early Christian and Greco-Roman writers constructed enduring moral frames for understanding “addiction,” then traces how temperance-era public-health discourse revived and reframed those traditions. 

Rev. Tony Tian-Ren Lin, PhD
Symposium Moderator
Associate Director and Director of Research
Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School

Tony Tian-Ren Lin is the Associate Director and Director of Research of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. Before joining Yale he was the Program Director for the Leadership Development initiative at Trinity Church, NYC. Tony is a cultural sociologist whose scholarship focuses on the intersection of religion, immigration, race, and ethnicity. He is the author of Prosperity Gospel Latinos and Their American Dream (University of North Carolina Press, 2020). He was previously a Research Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia where he held numerous academic and administrative positions. His work has been featured in The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, LatinoUSA, WNYC, and other media outlets.

Lin was born in Taiwan and grew up in Argentina. He holds a bachelor degree from Boston University, a Master of Divinity and Master of Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a Master and Doctor of Philosophy in sociology from the University of Virginia. Lin has held appointments at the University of Virginia and New York Theological Seminary. He is an ordained Presbyterian minister who served congregations in New Jersey, Virginia, and New York. He is currently the interim pastor at Iglesia Presbiteriana El Buen Vecino in El Barrio, New York.  

Dr. Nancy MacLean
Symposium Panelist
William H. Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy Emerita
Duke University

Nancy MacLean is an award-winning scholar of the twentieth-century U.S., whose most recent book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, has been described by Publishers Weekly as “a thoroughly researched and gripping narrative… [and] a feat of American intellectual and political history.”

An award-winning teacher and committed graduate student mentor, she offers courses on twentieth and twenty-first century America, social movements, and public policy history.

Eugene Nam
Symposium Panelist
Counsel, Everytown for Gun Safety
Asylum Attorney and consultant, the Episcopal Church
Legal Advisor, the Interfaith Center of New York

Eugene is a human rights lawyer and faith worker currently living in New York. Eugene is an attorney at Everytown for Gun Safety, where they litigate against unlawful gun industry business practices and help defend local gun safety laws from legal challenges. Eugene also works as an asylum lawyer and consultant for the Episcopal Church, as well as a legal advisor to Interfaith Center of New York, helping mobilize and support faith communities in their efforts to serve as sanctuaries for asylum-seekers and vulnerable immigrants. Eugene is a joint-degree graduate of Harvard Law School (J.D.) and Harvard Divinity School (M.Div.) and Emory University (Religion/Sociology), as well as a FASPE Law Fellow, '19. 

Karissa Thacker
Symposium Panelist
Office of Religious Life
Columbia University

With a deep background in organizational psychology and a master of divinity in social ethics, Karissa serves on the religious life team at Columbia University. Her current focus is in on multifaith programming, pastoral care, evolving concepts of pluralism and spirituality among people who do not identify with a specific religious tradition. Karissa is the author of The Art of Authenticity (Wiley 2016) which frames out a broad view of leadership development based on  Aristotle’s view of a life centered on the pursuit of meaning versus happiness. Karissa holds a doctorate in clinical psychology and is a Kripalu certified yoga teacher. 

Benjamin Tolchin, MD
Symposium Panelist
Director, Yale New Haven Health System Center for Clinical Ethics
Interim Director, Yale Program for Biomedical Ethics
Associate Professor of Neurology, Yale School of Medicine

Dr. Tolchin is the Director of the Yale New Haven Health System Center for Clinical Ethics, Interim Director of the Yale Program for Biomedical Ethics, and Associate Professor of Neurology at Yale School of Medicine. He completed medical school at Harvard University, neurology residency at Columbia University Medical Center, and fellowships in medical ethics, clinical neurophysiology, and epilepsy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Tolchin’s research has been recognized with Young Investigator Awards from the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society and the American Epilepsy Society, the Rebecca Goldberg Kaufman Honor from the American Epilepsy Society (AES), the Emerging Leaders Fellowship from the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), the OHER Award for Yale Research Excellence, and the Epilepsia Clinical Science Prize from the International League Against Epilepsy. Dr. Tolchin is Past President of the New England Epilepsy Society, and a Fellow of the AAN and of the AES. He serves on the AAN's Quality Committee.

Kenneth Townsend
Symposium Panelist
Executive Director of Leadership and Character in the Professional Schools, University Professor, and Teaching Professor in the School of Law
Wake Forest University

Kenneth Townsend is the Executive Director of Leadership and Character in the Professional Schools, University Professor, and Teaching Professor in the School of Law at Wake Forest University. At Wake Forest Kenneth oversees the Program for Leadership and Character in the Professional Schools, where he works especially closely with the Schools of Law and Medicine, and he teaches courses related to law, leadership, and ethics. His recent publications have focused on character-based approaches to the professional identity formation of lawyers. Beyond Wake Forest, Kenneth speaks frequently to universities, lawyers, and professional associations about the importance of character-based leadership. A recipient of the Truman Scholarship for Public Service and the Rhodes Scholarship, he earned a BA from Millsaps College, an MPhil from the University of Oxford, and a JD and MAR from Yale University. He lives in Winston-Salem, NC with his wife and three children and spends most of his free time coaching youth sports.

Thorsten Wagner
Symposium Speaker
Principal Scholar
FASPE

Thorsten Wagner is the Principal Scholar at FASPE and has been involved with the organization since its beginnings in 2009. He is a German historian, who grew up in Denmark and completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Tübingen, Germany, and his graduate work at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Technische Universität Berlin, and the Freie Universität Berlin, earning his MA from the TU Berlin in 1998. Living in Berlin for about two decades, Thorsten worked as a research fellow at the Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and started teaching at the Humboldt University in Berlin. From 2010-2019, he held a permanent position as Associate Professor at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad/University of Copenhagen.

Having authored numerous academic publications in the fields of Modern German and European Jewish History, antisemitism, Holocaust studies, cultures of memory, and Israeli history and society, he also worked as the historical consultant for the acclaimed documentary “Germans and Jews”, dealing with contemporary Germany, its relationship to its Nazi past and the reemergence of Jewish life.

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
Symposium Moderator
Assistant Director for Partnerships and Fellowships and Lecturer
Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School

Mr. Wilson-Hartgrove is an author, preacher, and community-builder who has worked with faith-rooted movements for social change for more than two decades. He is the founder of School for Conversion, a popular education center in Durham, North Carolina, and co-founder of the Rutba House, a house of hospitality in Durham’s Walltown neighborhood.  

Mr. Wilson-Hartgrove is the author of more than a dozen books, including the daily prayer guide, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, New Monasticism, The Wisdom of Stability, Reconstructing the Gospel, and Revolution of Values. He is a regular preacher and teacher in churches across the US and Canada and a member of the Red Letter Christian Communicators network.

John Witt
Symposium Panelist
Author
The Radical Fund
Allen H. Duffy Class of 1960 Professor of Law
Yale Law School

John Fabian Witt is the Allen H. Duffy class of 1960 professor of law at Yale Law School and a professor in the Yale history department. He is the author of a number of books, including Lincoln’s Code, which was awarded the Bancroft Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The New Republic, among other publications. He lives with his family in Connecticut where he tends an orchard, watches baseball, and fishes in the Long Island Sound.