Education

• University of Virginia - PhD Religious Studies (Modern and Contemporary Religious Thought – in progress), Graduate Certificate in American Studies
• Yale Divinity School - MDiv
• Miami University - BA Music and Social Justice Studies (Religious Studies and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies minors)

Research Interests

Decoloniality; Philippine and Filipino American studies; eschatology; Christian liberation theologies; post-Vatican II Roman Catholic theologies; memory, narrative, and ancestrality; art and aesthetics; gender and sexuality studies; Asian American studies, critique and postcritique.

Teaching Experience

• Religion, Ethics, and Healthcare, Lead GTA, Fall 2024
• Introduction to Asian American Studies, GTA, Spring 2024
• New Testament and Early Christianity, GTA, Fall 2023
• Spiritual But Not Religious: Spirituality in America, GTA, Spring 2023
• Elements of Christian Thought, GTA, Fall 2022

Publications

• “Religious Nationalism: Narratives, Conflict, and Peacebuilding.” Co-authored with Prithvi Iyer. Educational module for the Contending Modernities blog, based at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Published August 14, 2024.
• “The Politics of the Gender, Sexuality, and Religion Nexus: Perspectives from the Margins.” Co-authored with Nicola Chehade. Educational module for the Contending Modernities blog, based at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Published April 1, 2024.
• Review of Susan Bigelow Reynolds, People Get Ready: Ritual, Solidarity, and Lived Ecclesiology in Catholic Roxbury. Reading Religion: A Publication of the American Academy of Religion. Date of Review: January 31, 2024.
• “Religion in Modernity Glossary: A Religious Studies Masterclass.” Teaching resource for the Contending Modernities blog, based at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Published January 19, 2024.
• “Religious Studies and Theology: Decolonial Perspectives in/on the Disciplines.” Educational module for the Contending Modernities blog, based at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Published September 13, 2023.
• “On ‘Myths of Origin’ and the ‘True Origin’: Tillich’s Socialist Decision and Decolonial Concerns.” In the Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, edited by Verna Marina Ehret, vol. 49, no. 1-2 (Spring/Summer 2023): 21-24.
• “Beyond Grand Narratives: Towards an Archipelagic Approach to the Philippine Quincentennial.” In “Why We Can’t Wait”: Racism and the Church, edited by Catherine Punsalan-Manlimos, Elisabeth T. Vasko, and Tracy Sayuki Tiemeier. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2023.

Conference Papers

• "Decolonial Memory, Queer Utopianism, and the Art of Lee Paje: Alternative Histories as Eschatological Interventions." Accepted for presentation at the American Academy of Religion Annual Conference on November 25, 2024.
• "Memory, Homeplaces, and the (After)Lives of Queer Feminist Ancestors." Presented at the "After-Life" Graduate Religious Studies Conference at Brown University on April 6, 2024.
• "Decolonial Feminism and the Imagination of the (Pre)Colonial Past: Gloria Anzaldúa and Marcella Althaus-Reid on Religion and Memory." Presented at the American Academy of Religion Annual Conference on November 21, 2023.
• "Beyond Colonial Visibility and Imperial Forgetting: Approaching the Philippines’ Pasts through Gina Apostol’s Insurrecto.” Presented at the Southeast Regional Conference of the American Academy of Religion on March 13, 2022.
• "Justice and the United Methodist Church: A Queer Response to a Global Denomination’s Crisis.” Presented at the American Academy of Religion Annual Conference on December 1, 2020.

Selected Fellowships, Grants, and Awards

• Dean’s Doctoral Fellowship, UVA (2021-2026)
• Doctoral Fellowship, Louisville Institute (2023-2025)
• Marquand Scholarship, Yale Divinity School (2018-2021)
• Council on Southeast Asia Studies Grant, Yale University (Summer 2020)

Languages 

• Filipino (Tagalog): Reading Proficiency, Intermediate Speaking Level
• Spanish: Reading Proficiency