Article Authors

Tracy Piersma

Tracy Piersma was an intern at the Institute for Global Engagement for the spring of 2010. She graduated from Hope College with degrees in International Studies and German. In the spring of 2008, Tracy studied abroad in Freiburg, Germany.  She was the Commodore of the Hope College Sailing Team as well as the Parliamentarian and Representative in the Student Congress.

Alain Garay

Alain Garay is Lawyer at the Bar of the Court of Appeal, Paris, and Faculty Member of the Law School, Aix-Marseille III LIDEMS (Laboratory on Law and Social Change). He is also a member of the OSCE Advisory Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

Stanley Carlson-Thies

Dr. Stanley Carlson-Thies is founder and President of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance, a Washington, DC-area nonpartisan think tank that focuses on safeguarding the religious identity and faith-shaped standards and services of faith-based service organizations. Before founding IRFA, he served from 1992-2000 and 2002-2008 as Director of Social Policy Studies at the Center for Public Justice.

He served in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in 2001-2002, and assisted with writing "Unlevel Playing Field: Barriers to Participation by Faith-Based and Community Organizations in Federal Social Service Programs" (August, 2001). Dr. Carlson-Thies currently serves on the Task Force on Reforming the Office, a task force of the President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. He holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Toronto.

Gao Quanxi

Gao Quanxi is a Professor of Law at Beihang University in Beijing, China.

Tahir Mahmood

Tahir Mahmood, Founder-Chair of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at Amity University, is a renowned and widely cited jurist of India specializing in religio-legal studies. He has been Dean of the Delhi University Law Faculty, Chairman of the National Commission for Minorities, and Member of the National Human Rights Commission.

Sophie van Bijsterveld

Sophie van Bijsterveld is Associate Professor on the Faculty of Humanities at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, and a Member of the Dutch Senate. She has published extensively in the fields of (international) human rights protection, constitutional law, and hybrid governance. Her recent books include State and Religion: Regauging a Mutual Relationship [Overheid en godsdienst: Herijking van een onderlinge relatie] (Wolf Legal Publishers, 2008) and The Empty Throne: Democracy and the Rule of Law in Transition (Lemma, 2002).

Silvio Ferrari

Silvio Ferrari is Professor of Law at the University of Milan, Italy, and president of the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies. His publications include Islam and the European Legal System (Ashgate, 2000), co-edited with Anthony Bradney.

Rik Torfs

Dr. Rik Torfs is Professor at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. The author of nearly 350 articles and numerous books dealing with canon law, law, and church and state relationships, he is editor of the European Journal for Church and State Research, is a member of the Board of Directors of the European Consortium for State-Church Research, and is a newspaper columnist and host of his own television program. In 2009 he became a member of the Commission for Intercultural Dialogue (Assises de l'Interculturalité) of the Belgian government. In June 2010 he was elected a member of the Belgian Senate.

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is a friend of the Center for Reconciliation at Duke Divinity School and the author of several books. He is a graduate of Eastern University and Duke Divinity School and an Associate Minister at St. Johns Baptist Church in Durham, NC.

Emmanuel Katongole

Dr. Emmanuel Katongole is associate professor of theology and world Christianity at Duke Divinity School, where he also co-directs the Center for Reconciliation. He is a Catholic priest of the Kampala archdiocese in Uganda.

Karin Christianson

Karin Christianson was a 2010 spring intern at the Institute for Global Engagement and has a B.A. in Political Studies and French from Gordon College. She spent the latter half of her junior year in Aix-en-Provence, France completing an immersion program at the local university. She hopes to work with international development organizations before attending grad school. She was born and raised in Mansfield, MA.

Ellen Richardson

Ellen Richardson graduated from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI, with a B.A. in International Relations with a focus on International Development Studies. She was an undergraduate intern at the Institute for Global Engagement for the spring 2010 semester. She has traveled to Europe and Africa, and in 2008 she completed an independent study with a Nigerian non-profit working to strengthen community support for children and families impacted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. She continues to work with the organization on communications projects.

Amy Patterson

Dr. Amy Patterson is Associate Professor of Political Science at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her research interests include the role of the African church in politics, particularly on issues like AIDS, development, and poverty. She is the author of The Politics of AIDS in Africa (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006) and editor of The African State and the AIDS Crisis (Ashgate, 2005). Dr. Patterson graduated magna cum laude from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas with a bachelor of arts in political science and international affairs. She completed her Ph.D. at Indiana University with a major in political science and a minor in African studies. She joined the political science department faculty at Calvin College in 2001 after teaching at Anderson University and Elmhurst College.

Stephanie Wheatley

Stephanie Wheatley is the Global Outreach Coordinator at the Duke Center for Reconciliation. Her work focuses on the Great Lakes Initiative, an outreach program of the Center for Reconciliation in East Africa. Prior to that, she spent time in the region studying the political and ecclesial responses to the Rwandan genocide. She is a graduate of Wheaton College, where she earned a B.A. in political science with emphasis on human needs and global resources. Stephanie is currently pursuing an M.A. in counseling from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, particularly focusing on therapeutic responses to traumatic violence.

Jason Byassee

Dr. Jason Byassee is an executive director of Leadership Education at Duke Divinity School, and writes at www.faithandleadership.com. He also serves as a contributing editor to Christian Century, where he was an assistant editor from 2004-2008. He is an ordained elder in the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church. He is author of Reading Augustine: A Guide to Confessions (Cascade, 2006), An Introduction to the Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Cascade, 2007) and Praise Seeking Understanding: Reading the Psalms with Augustine (Eerdmans, 2007). He has a master of divinity and doctorate from Duke University.

Robert Press

Dr. Robert M. Press is an Assistant Professor of Political Science, International Development, and International Affairs at the University of Southern Mississippi. His publications include The New Africa: Dispatches from a Changing Continent (University Press of Florida, 1999) and Peaceful Resistance: Advancing Human Rights and Democratic Freedoms (Ashgate, 2006). He was a Fulbright scholar teaching and doing research in Sierra Leone in 2008-2009.

Lutiniko Landu Miguel Pedro

Dr. Lutiniko Landu Miguel Pedro is a Mennonite pastor at Antioquia and teaches at Instituto Biblico e de Missiologia em Angola (IBMA). He previously served as General Secretary of the Inter-Mennonite Conference in Angola. He has a Ph.D. in Missiology from the University of Pretoria.

Elias Opongo

Elias O. Opongo, S.J. is a Jesuit priest, a conflict analyst and peace practitioner, and immediate former director of Jesuit Hakimani Centre in Nairobi. He is a Ph.D. candidate in peace and conflict studies at University of Bradford and holds a Master's degree in International Peace Studies from University of Notre Dame, Indiana. He has taught conflict transformation in a number of academic institutions in Eastern Africa and the United States and has published three books: Peace Weavers: Methodologies of Peace Building in Africa (Paulines Publications, 2008); Faith Doing Justice: A Manual for Social Analysis, Catholic Social Teachings and Social Justice (Paulines Publications Africa, 2007); and Making Choices for Peace: Aid Agencies in Field Diplomacy (Paulines Publications Africa, 2006).

Matthews Ojo

Dr. Matthews A. Ojo is a Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. His research focuses on African Christianity, with special interest in the dynamics of Pentecostal and charismatic movements in Africa and indigenous Protestant missions from Africa. His recent work has examined the media and religion in Nigeria, religion and politics in Nigeria, and religion and migration in West Africa. His most recent book is The End-Time Army: Charismatic Movements in Modern Nigeria (Africa World Press, 2006).

Nyansako-ni-Nku

The Rt. Rev. Nyansako-ni-Nku served as President of the All Africa Conference of Churches from 2003-2008, having also provided ecumenical leadership as a member of the World Council of Churches' Central Committee and its Faith and Order Commission. In addition, he served as Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Cameroon from 1999-2009 and, previously, as the denomination's General Secretary. His publications include Cry Justice! The Church in a Changing Cameroon (Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, 1993), which he edited.