Steering Committee

Raimundo César Barreto, Jr., PhD ’06, is an associate professor of World Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary. He earned a PhD in religion and society from Princeton Theological Seminary, and holds an MDiv degree from McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University, and a bachelor’s degree from Seminário Teológico Batista do Norte do Brasil. Prior to coming to Princeton, he taught at Seminário Teológico Batista do Nordeste and Faculdade Batista Brasileira in his native Brazil and served as director of freedom and justice at the Baptist World Alliance (BWA). He remains involved in ecumenical and interfaith work, contributing in different capacities with the American Baptist Churches USA, the Baptist World Alliance, and the National Council of Churches USA. His teaching and research span different disciplines, including World Christianity, ecumenics, Latin American and Latine religions, intercultural theologies, interfaith relations, and liberation and decolonial theologies.

Adriana Nieto is a daughter of Denver’s dust. Her ancestors have migrated up and down the path from El Paso, Texas to Denver, Colorado for generations. She was born in El Paso, Texas with maternal roots in Las Cruces, New Mexico and paternal roots throughout New Mexico. Adriana Nieto is currently the Chair & Associate Professor of Chicana/o Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She has been faculty in the Chicana/o Studies department for over 15 years, first as an adjunct, then full time tenure track beginning in fall of 2009. She earned her BA with a double major in Women Studies and Latin American Studies, and MA from the University of New Mexico in Latin American Studies with concentrations in Borderlands History and Gender Studies. She earned her PhD in the Joint Doctoral Program in Religious and Theological Studies at the Iliff School of Theology and University of Denver in 2009.

Her teaching and research interests include Latina spiritualities and practices; mental health among Xicanas in early 20th Century New Mexico; women of color feminisms; Chicana Protestants in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands; oral history; and most recently water in the ‘West’, with special interest in acequia culture and practices in southern Colorado . She strives to integrate the demands of teaching, mentorship and scholarship while also being a mother, partner and healthy muxer.

Born and raised in Brownsville, Texas, Felipe Hinojosa received his Ph.D. from the University of Houston in 2009 and joined the faculty at Texas A&M that same year. On August 2023, he was appointed the Inaugural Jackson Family Chair in Latin America studies.  His research areas include Chicana/o and Latinx Studies, American Religion, Race and Ethnicity, and Social Movements. In addition to serving as Director of the Carlos H. Cantu Hispanic Education & Opportunity Endowment, Prof. Hinojosa serves as editor for the interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, and online moderated forum Latinx Talk. His work has appeared in Zócalo Public Square, Western Historical Quarterly, American Catholic Studies, Mennonite Quarterly Review, and in multiple edited collections on Latinx Studies. Dr. Hinojosa’s first book, Latino Mennonites: Civil Rights, Faith, and Evangelical Culture (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014) was awarded the 2015 Américo Paredes Book Award for the best book in Mexican American and Latina/o Studies by the Center for Mexican American Studies at South Texas College. His book, Apostles of Change: Latino Radical Politics, Church Occupations, and the Fight to Save the Barrio (University of Texas Press, 2021) is set in four major cities (Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Houston) where in 1969 and 1970 Latine radicals clashed with religious leaders as they occupied churches to protest urban renewal, poverty, police brutality, and racism.

Ahida Calderón Pilarski is Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and Chair of the Theology Department at Saint Anselm College. She serves on the Board of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS), and in the Society of Biblical Literature’s “Latino/a and Latin American Biblical Hermeneutics” section and in the “Committee for Underrepresented Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession” (CUREMP). Pilarski has edited or co-edited Judges (Wisdom Commentary Series [WCS], 2018), 2 Kings (WCS, 2019), By Bread Alone: Reading the Bible Through the Eyes of the Hungry (Fortress, 2014), Pentateuco: Introducción al Antiguo Testamento/La Biblia Hebrea en Perspectiva Latinoamericana (Verbo Divino, 2014), and has published many papers on the prophets, Latine and Latin American hermeneutics, and feminist interpretation.