HTI Alumni

Alfredo García Garza is a researcher of religious experience, spirituality, and healing in the aftermath of violence. He completed a PhD in the Study of Religion at Harvard University (2025). Initiated as an existential anthropologist and historian of religion, he uses a phenomenological approach to investigate everyday human existence across the U.S- México border. For Alfredo, this means using the ethnographic method to empathetically examine the struggles for existence of his interlocutors—within their own vision of the universe. As an in-depth empirical engagement, his ethnographic work includes situating shared Mexican experiences within the longue durée of conquest in the Río Grande borderlands. It also acknowledges the divine presences that intervene in their lives and enable them to act, responsibly and decisively, in the aftermath of terror and loss. His current book project explores transnational practices of spiritual healing as a viable autonomous response to critical illness and social crisis caused by state-sanctioned violence. Alfredo earned a Master of Arts in the Study of Religion from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University (2025), a Master of Divinity with a focus on Christianity & interfaith spiritual care from Harvard Divinity School (2018), a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Texas A&M University (2015). He currently serves as a steering committee member in the Religions, Medicines, and Healing unit of the American Academy of Religion.