Evelyn L. Parker is the Susanna Wesley Centennial Professor of Practical Theology at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University and is a J. William Fulbright Scholar, 2019 -2020, Cape Town, South Africa focusing on the role of religious leaders in preventing and intervening in teen dating violence.

Parker received the Bachelor of Science from Lambuth College, Tennessee, and the Master of Science from Prairie View A&M University. Upon receiving her MSc she served as a research scientist in the department of Human Biological Chemistry and Genetics at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. She attended the two-week Christian Educators Seminar at Perkins School of Theology from 1986 until 1989. The seminars were the impetus for further study in theological education and the transition from a vocation in biological research to one in educational ministry. Parker received the Master of Religious Education and earned her PhD from the Joint Program of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary/Northwestern University in Religious and Theological Studies, with an interdisciplinary emphasis in Christian Education, Womanist approaches to religion and society, and education and public policy. Parker is the author of Between Sisters: Emancipatory Hope Out of Tragic Relationships, (Cascade Books, 2017) and has also published several chapters and journal articles on adolescent spirituality, including “Divine Fortitude : A Reflection on God’s goodness in black female child soldiers,” in Susan Willhauck, ed., Female Child Soldiering: Gender Violence and Feminist Theologies. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2019.

Rosalind I.J. Hackett is Chancellor’s Professor, Professor of Religious Studies, Adjunct Professor in Anthropology, and former Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, at the University of Tennessee, USA.  She studied in the UK (Leeds, London, Aberdeen) and went on to teach and conduct field research in Nigeria.  She has held fellowships at Harvard University and the universities of Notre Dame, Cape Town, and Groningen.

She publishes in the areas of indigenous religions, new religious movements, gender, art, human rights, pluralism, media, and conflict in relation to religion in Africa.  She is currently conducting research on sound and religion.  Her most recent (co-edited) books are New Media and Religious Transformations in Africa (2015) and The Anthropology of Global Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism (2015).  She is Past President and Honorary Life Member of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) and was Vice President of the International Council on Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH). Hackett also serves on the Board of Directors of the African Consortium on Law and Religion Studies (ACLARS). In 2019, Professor Hackett received an Honorary Chieftaincy title, Yeye Meye (Mother Who Knows Our Ways) from the Elerinmo of Erinmoland, HRM Oba (Dr) Michael Odunayo Ajayi, Osun State, Nigeria.

Adriaan van Klinken currently resides in Leeds, UK but is originally from the Netherlands, where he studied Theology and Religious Studies at Utrecht University and completed his Masters in 2006, and PhD in 2011. During his Masters, he spent three months as a visiting student at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and ended up writing his thesis there, so his connection to South Africa began at an early stage of his academic journey, and has developed through many return visits later.

After completing his PhD, he moved to the United Kingdom, where he was first a postdoctoral research fellow at SOAS University of London, and in 2013 was appointed at the University of Leeds. At Leeds, his career began as a Lecturer in African Christianity, later becoming Associate Professor in Religion and African Studies, and since 2020 full professor. He also serves as director of the Leeds University Centre for African Studies, and of the Centre for Religion and Public Life.

Mika Vähäkangas was born in Finland. He holds a doctoral degree in Theology and Masters degrees in both Theology and African Studies, from Helsinki University, Finland. He was also a student at Pontificial Gregorian University, Rome, and Makumira, Tanzania, where he later served as a lecturer in systematic theology. He has also taught Systematic Theology and Mission Studies at Helsinki University and he is currently Professor in Mission Studies and Ecumenics at Lund University (Sweden) since 2009.

Vähäkangas served the International Association for Mission Studies as vice president between 2008-2012 and as president from 2012-2016. He is an adviser to the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission for World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) and consultant to the Lutheran World Federation.

In terms of research, he began by studying the relationship between Ujamaa (Tanzanian socialism) and Lutheran theology for his MTh and continued with a ThD analysing Tanzanian-born Catholic professor Charles Nyamiti’s way of connecting Catholic scholastic traditions with African cultures. These were textual studies. While teaching in Tanzania, he was gradually attracted by empirical studies and today he attempts to balance between textual analyses, empirical research and constructive theology. He has started applying what he has learned in Africa on European religious realities.

Prof Damaris Seleina Parsitau is formerly the Director of the Institute of Women Gender and Development Studies (IWGDS) there. She is also a fellow and alumni of the Brookings Institutions, Centre for Universal Education, Washington DC, USA, formerly, Research Associate at Harvard University’s Women Studies in Religion Programme WSRP, Harvard Divinity School, a fellow of University of Cambridge, UK, and University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

She holds a PhD from Kenyatta University. Prof Parsitau is also the President of the African Association for the Study of Religion in Africa and Its Diaspora (AASR), a feminist and gender scholar with years of experience working in community development. Her doctoral work focused on African Pentecostalism and its civic and gendered engagement. Her more recent research focuses on the intersections between religion, gender and sexuality in Africa with a special focus on women’s bodies, sexual and gender-based violence, masculinities and patriarchal imaginaries in African Pentecostal Churches. She considers this to be a core emerging research focus for her within a contested social, political and religious space. Prof Parsitau is widely published both in regional and international journals and considers herself a multi-disciplinary scholar.

Overall, her research aligns with the strategic goals within the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice’s thematic focus area of Religion and Gender.

Prof Khaled Beydoun is currently the Scholar-in-Residence at Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University. He received his M.Ed magna cum laude at Harvard University and completed his Juris Doctor at the University of California, Los Angeles. His area of specialization is Law, Religion, and Media and his research focuses on Islamophobia and issues related to the lived experiences of Muslims.

Prof Beydoun is ranked among the top 5% most downloaded law scholars on the Social Science Research Network. He is also a world renowned public intellectual and social justice activist.

Overall, his research aligns with the strategic goals within the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice’s thematic focus area of Religion and Politics as well as Religion and Economic Justice.

Rev Dr Michael Battle is currently the Herbert Thompson Professorial Chair of Church and Society, the Director of the Desmond Tutu Center, General Theological Seminary, and President and CEO, Peace Battle Institute, in Raleigh, North Carolina. He holds a PhD from Duke University, USA. Battle’s academic experience includes service as interim dean of Students and Community Life at Episcopal Divinity School, dean for academic affairs, vice president and associate professor of theology at Virginia Theology Seminary; as associate professor of spirituality and black church studies, at Duke University’s Divinity School; and as assistant professor of spiritual and moral theology in the School of Theology at the University of the South.

Battle has published eleven books, including his latest: Desmond Tutu: A Spiritual Biography of South Africa’s Confessor.

Overall, his research aligns with the strategic goals within the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice’s thematic focus area of Religion and Politics, and Reconciliation.

Right Rev Dr Kgabe is currently the Rector and Principal at the College of Transfiguration in Grahamstown and Bishop of the Diocese of Lesotho, Anglican Church of Southern Africa. She holds a PhD from the University of Pretoria.

Her doctoral work focused on the abuse of alcohol by Anglican clergy and the challenges it presented to pastoral care. Kgabe has published both in regional and international publications.

Overall, her research aligns with the strategic goals within the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice’s thematic focus area of Religion and Gender.