Rev. Shanea D. Leonard, B.A., M.Div., is a pastor, teacher, consultant, community activist and 21st-century abolitionist. Shanea has been a minister of Word & Sacrament for over 13 years in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). They currently carry out their justice mandate as the Associate for Gender & Racial Justice for the PC(USA). In their role, Shanea is working to dismantle racism, homophobia, white supremacy and various forms of discrimination by helping to move the denomination into a more inclusive and intersectional reality. A native of Philadelphia, they received their B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh and M.Div. from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary with a concentration in urban ministry. Shanea was the founder and organizing pastor of JUDAH Fellowship, the western Pennsylvania region’s only predominantly Black affirming faith community and served for many years as a leading faith and justice voice in that region.

Rev. Aisha Brooks-Johnson began her role as executive presbyter of the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta in 2018. Serving 84 congregations and encouraging 26 new worshipping communities, she is honored and overjoyed to serve as an encourager to the congregations and leaders within a presbytery filled with a deep cultural diversity and a vast theological landscape. A native of Philadelphia, Aisha spent significant time as youth director at Wayne Presbyterian Church before obtaining a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in 2005. After serving various other churches in the Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York area, she returned to Wayne Presbyterian in 2013. While serving as the mission pastor for Wayne, she started The Common Place, a faith-based arts and education center and New Worshiping Community in Southwest Philadelphia.

Rev. Dr. Ralph C. Basui Watkins, MFA, D.Min., Ph.D., is the Peachtree Professor of Evangelism and Church Growth at Columbia Theological Seminary. His work focuses on building bridges between young adults and the church in order to develop future leaders for the 21st-century church who work for justice. As a scholar, professional photographer, documentarian, pastor, sought-after speaker and workshop leader, Ralph seeks to help the churches live into the new networked world. He is known for being a leader in teaching with digital media. With over 20 years of pastoral, teaching and administrative experience, Ralph is an active teaching scholar with over 250 publications and conference presentations to his credit — and is coauthor (with Justin West) of “The Future of the African American Church” (Judson Press, 2014).

Elder Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri served as co-moderator (along with the Rev. Cindy Kohlmann) of the 223rd General Assembly (2018) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). An educator and Presbyterian ruling elder, she has served the PC(USA) at session, presbytery, synod and General Assembly levels — she was moderator of the Presbytery of Tropical Florida in 2017. Vilmarie holds a B.A. in education (ESL) and an M.Ed. in curriculum and teaching and has taught English and English as a Second Language to teenage and adult students from all over the world. She is currently a member of the presbytery’s Leadership Council, a member of the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation Board and conference administrator of a CREDO team, a program of the Board of Pensions.

Dr. Leanne Van Dyk is the president of Columbia Theological Seminary, where she began serving in July 2015. Prior to that, Leanne taught at Western Theological Seminary — and at San Francisco Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. She holds degrees from Calvin College (BA), Western Michigan University (MA), Calvin Theological Seminary (M.Div.) and Princeton Theological Seminary, where she earned her Ph.D. in systematic theology, magna cum laude. Her other professional experience includes serving as a member of the Board of Commissioners of the Association of Theological Schools; as a member of the Committee on Theological Education for the PC(USA); and on various projects, including the Re-Forming Ministry project, with the Office of Theology and Worship in the PC(USA). She also was a member of the PC(USA) Catechism Committee, which completed its work in 1998 — and has published several books, including “A More Profound Alleluia: Theology and Worship in Harmony” (Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005), for which she was also editor.