2022 ECO Speakers

Elizabeth Conde-Frazier

Coordinator of Relations with Entities of Theological Education, Asociación para la Educación Teológica Hispana

Evangelina Morales

Spanish teacher and Diversity coordinator for Prestonwood Christian Academy

Carla Roland

Rector, The Church of St. Matthew & St. Timothy, NYC; Affiliated Professor of Church History at General Seminary

María Del Socorro Castañeda

Co-Founder & Chief Education Officer Becoming Mujeres, California

Before being Coordinator of Relations with Theological Entities, Elizabeth served as dean and vice president of education at Esperanza College of Eastern University in Philadelphia, PA. She has over ten years of experience as an ordained pastor and formerly served as a bilingual teacher in the New York City school system. The Rev. Dr. Conde-Frazier holds a Ph.D. from Boston College and a Master of Divinity degree from Palmer Seminary.

Evangelina Morales holds a Masters of Education from Concordia University. She has published articles on the topic of diversity and working with children. Evangelina works with instructional design and is currently a Spanish teacher and Diversity coordinator for Prestonwood Christian Academy.

The Rev. Dr. Carla E. Roland Guzmán is the Affiliated Professor of Church History at General Seminary. Roland has served the Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew and Saint Timothy in Manhattan since 2004; as senior pastor since 2007. Saint Matthew and Saint Timothy is an outreach- and community-focused congregation composed of committed persons that are monolingual and bilingual, multi-racial and multi-cultural, aging, diverse in terms of sexuality and gender identity, and mostly of limited financial means. Roland is an Episcopal Church Foundation fellow. She received a Pastoral-Study grant from the Louisville Institute.

Dr. María Del Socorro Castañeda is Co-Founder & Chief Education Officer, with her teenage daughter Lupita, of Becoming Mujeres. A firm that helps Latina teens and their female caregivers to translate cultural expectations into opportunities. Dr. Castañeda is a sociologist and ethnographer. She holds a B.S. in sociology from Santa Clara University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Castañeda is a Ford Foundation Fellow and award-winning author of “Our Lady of Everyday Life: La Virgen de Guadalupe and the Catholic Imagination of Mexican Women in America,” published by Oxford University Press, 2018. Before co-founding Becoming Mujeres, she was Assistant Professor at Santa Clara University in the Religious Studies Department.

Dr. Margarita Benitez

Executive Director of Fundación Puertorriqueña de. las Humanidades

Dr. Christopher Tirres

Associate Professor of Religious Studies, DePaul University

Dr. Héctor M. Varela-Rios

Assistant Professor of Theology at Villanova University

Dr. Benitez holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy and graduates with degrees in Hispanic Studies from Vassar College (BA), Middlebury College (MA), and Columbia University (Ph.D.). At the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), Dr. Benítez was a professor of literature and humanities and chancellor of UPR’s Cayey Campus, and acting chancellor of UPR’s Humacao campus. In 2018, she returned to Puerto Rico after being appointed executive director of the Puerto Rico Endowment for the Humanities, the first woman to lead the nonprofit organization.

Christopher Tirres is the Vincent de Paul Professor of Religious Studies and the Inaugural Endowed Professor of Diplomacy and Interreligious Engagement at DePaul University. He is the author of The Aesthetics and Ethics of Faith: A Dialogue Between Liberationist and Pragmatic Thought (Oxford University Press, 2014). He has published and presented widely in the areas of religious studies, philosophy, theology, feminism and education. Dr. Tirres is an award-winning teacher and the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships.

Growing up in a Methodist church in Puerto Rico, Héctor was always intrigued by lived religion: religiosity beyond doctrine, ministries, or worship—religion within ‘real life.’ This interest, along with his day-to-day experiences with laborers in construction for over two decades, led him to the materiality of the Christian religion and how it catalyzes a more-concrete “theology from below,” coming from and spreading through faith communities. Through research and education, and working among Christians and lo cotidiano, Héctor hopes to contribute to the study of religious expressions and their entanglements with culture and society in general.