Sharde’ N. Chapman is a second-year doctoral student in African American Religion at Rice University. In 2010 she was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in Religious Studies from Rhodes College. While studying at Rhodes she studied Medieval and Renaissance Art History in Western Europe at Lincoln College, Oxford University. In 2009 she presented a paper titled “The Disintegration of Black Love,” which examined portrayals of romantic relationships in hip-hop culture at the Associated Colleges of the South (ACS) Gender Conference. Her undergraduate thesis work centered on the marginalization of women in the Black Church.  After graduating from Rhodes, Sharde’ went on to Union Presbyterian Seminary (formerly Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education) where she received her Master of Divinity degree in 2013. While at Union she was awarded the 2012 Independent Presbyterian Church Scholarship for Excellence in Service. She also had a paper published in the proceedings “Calling For the Order of the Day: Theological Education for the 21th Century Plural, Global, and Urbanized Society” in 2011.  Sharde’s research interests include mysticism, Womanism, and the influence of social location on religious experience.

De’Anna Monique Daniels is a doctoral student in the African American Religion concentration at Rice University. De’Anna earned her B.A. in Religious Studies from Alma College in Alma, Michigan. In 2013, she earned a Master of Divinity and in 2014 a Master of Theology, from Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. In 2015, she earned a Master of Arts in American Studies, with a graduate certificate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. While studying at Lehigh University, she received a Strohl Grant and Award for Research Excellence in Humanities and Social Sciences. De’Anna is the 2019-20 Civic Humanist Fellow in Arts and Cultural Heritage through Rice’s Humanities Research Center. Current research interests include Black religion, the intersections gender, sexuality, Black speculative fiction and horror, visual culture, and art. She is also interested in critical race theory and cultural studies.

Mark DeYoung is a doctoral student in the African American Religions concentration at Rice University. After earning his BA in Music Theory/Ethnomusicology (2009), Mark went on to Anderson University School of Theology, where he received an MTS with a professional distinction in Theology and Ethics. Mark was the 2016-17 Civic Humanist Fellow in Arts and Cultural Heritage through Rice’s Humanities Research Center and was also awarded a certificate in critical and cultural theory through Rice’s 3CT program. Current research interests include critical race theory, post-apocalyptic and speculative fictions, theories of media and technology, and questions of theory and method in religious and cultural studies.

Hassan Xavier Henderson-Lott is a first-year doctoral student in the African-American Religion concentration in the Department of Religion at Rice University. Hassan earned his B.A. in Religion from Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia. In 2019 he earned a Master of Divinity, with a concentration in Christian Social Ethics from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. While at Union, Hassan was a graduate research fellow at the Center on African American Religion, Sexual Politics, and Social Justice at Columbia University. Hassan’s research interests include comparative literary studies, film, queer, disability studies and black feminist discourse. He is also interested in critical race theory, rhetoric, and cultural studies.