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The PhD Program at Princeton Theological Seminary has long been a catalyst for scholarship that bridges rigorous academic inquiry with deep commitment to the flourishing of church and world. Our alumni lead with distinction everywhere from the theological academy to the public square. Their work sustains the vitality of ancient Christian traditions even as it informs conversations about how we can best grapple with the urgent problems of today.
Their vocations embody the Seminary’s larger mission: forming leaders for the church and the world. From classrooms and congregations to publishing houses and public platforms, they exemplify the enduring impact of theological scholarship rooted in faith, critical thought, and global engagement.
Rev. Dr. Frank M. Yamada (M.Div.; Ph.D. Old Testament, 2005) has been Executive Director of The Association of Theological Schools since July 2017. An active biblical scholar, Dr. Yamada has authored and edited books and articles on cross-cultural and feminist hermeneutics. He is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, where he has served as a chair and as a steering committee member of the Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics Group, the Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible Section, and the Committee for Underrepresented Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession. In addition, he was a member of the Ethnic Chinese Biblical Colloquium and the American Academy of Religion, and he was the cochair for the Managing Board of the Asian Pacific Americans and Religion Research Initiative annual conference. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, USA and has written and spoken on the future of the church and theological education.
Rev. Dr. Prathia Hall Wynn’s (M.Div., 1982; Th.M., 1984; Ph.D. History and Ecumenics, 1997 magna cum laude) life was an integration of religion and politics. By her own accounts she had a deep passion for justice and exercised a “freedom faith.” Dr. Hall was an ardent activist during the 1960s civil rights movement, including serving as the first woman field organizer within the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, where she added to the demand for voting rights. Her doctoral dissertation was on the “Religious and Social Consciousness of African-American Baptist Women.” In 1962, at a prayer vigil attended by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., she led the group in prayer and repeated the phrase, “I Have A Dream.” Dr. Hall later acknowledged that King asked her permission to use the phrase in his sermons leading up to his famous “I Have a Dream Speech” at the March on Washington a year later. Dr. Hall was a womanist theologian, a social ethics professor, and one of the first women ordained in the American Baptist Association.
Dr. Richard A. Grounds (Ph.D. Theology, 1995) has worked with Yuchi Elders to create new young speakers over the last 25 years, and currently serves as Executive Director of the Yuchi Language Project. Previously, he taught at St. Olaf College and in the Anthropology Department at the University of Tulsa. Dr. Grounds has presented on Indigenous language issues at many universities and colleges and has long promoted Indigenous language issues at the American Academy of Religion, the World Council of Churches, the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and the U.S. Department of Education. Dr. Grounds’ recent works include a chapter on Yuchi language revitalization in the face of intellectual colonialism (in Indigenous Languages and the Promise of Archives, University of Nebraska Press, 2021) and a chapter co-written with his daughter “Yuchi: Family Language without A Language Family,” in Bringing Our Languages Home, ed. By Leanne Hinton (2013). Dr. Grounds received the Humanities in Education Award from the Oklahoma Humanities Council for 2013.
Dr. Nathaniel Van Yperen (M.Div.; Th.M.; Ph.D. Religion and Society, 2013) currently serves as chair of the Religion Department at The Pennington School in Pennington, NJ. After six years of undergraduate and graduate teaching in Minnesota, Dr. Van Yperen moved back to New Jersey and into independent school education. At Pennington, Dr. Van Yperen teaches courses in religion, ethics, and literature in the upper school. He has led backpacking expeditions with Pennington students to the St. Regis Canoe Wilderness in the Adirondacks and the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico. He is the author of numerous creative nonfiction essays, academic essays, and a book on ecological ethics, Gratitude for the Wild: Christian Ethics in the Wilderness.
Rev. Dr. Renita J. Weems (Ph.D. Old Testament, 1989) has been an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church since 1985. She currently serves as the Chief Academic Officer and Dean of Gammon Theological Seminary. A proud Atlanta native, Dr. Weems attended Atlanta public schools before earning her Ph.D. in Old Testament Studies from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1989, becoming the first African-American woman to achieve this distinction. Dr. Weems has had an illustrious academic career, including roles as a Professor of Humanities at Spelman College in Atlanta and as a Professor of the Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, where she taught for over two decades. Her teaching experience also extends to Howard University Divinity School and Memphis Theological Seminary. As a biblical scholar, minister, and author, she brings a wealth of experience and insight into modern faith, biblical texts, and spirituality.
Dr. David W. Congdon (M.Div.; Ph.D. Systematic Theology, 2014) is an author, speaker, and scholar working in the area of theology and culture. He is currently the Senior Editor at the University Press of Kansas, where he oversees the publishing program in politics, law, history, and religion. He is also a lecturer in religious studies at the University of Kansas, where he teaches interdisciplinary courses on Christian nationalism, American utopianism, and other topics. Academically, he maintains an active research and publishing program. His latest book is Who Is a True Christian? Contesting Religious Identity in American Culture, published in April 2024 by Cambridge University Press. His other works include The Mission of Demythologizing: Rudolf Bultmann’s Dialectical Theology, Rudolf Bultmann: A Companion to His Theology, The God Who Saves: A Dogmatic Sketch, and Varieties of Christian Universalism: Exploring Four Views. He is also the coeditor, with W. Travis McMaken, of the Studies in Dialectical Theology at Lexington Books.
Recipient of the Princeton Seminary Distinguished Alumni/ae Award in 2010, Dr. Anna May Say Pa (Ph.D. Old Testament, 1989) was born into an ethnic minority Christian family in Myanmar (then Burma). In 1962, just as she was completing her university education, a military coup gained power and drove all foreigners, especially Christian missionaries, out of the country and prohibited the study of English. She enrolled in a two-year master’s degree program in religious education at the Myanmar Institute of Theology (MIT), and upon graduation she began a fifteen-year stint as lecturer in biblical studies, serving as dean for five of those years. In 1979 she arrived at Princeton Seminary. After earning her Ph.D. she returned to MIT, where she served as principal (president) until her retirement in 2006. Say Pa has held leadership posts in many national and international Baptist and ecumenical organizations, among them World Vision Myanmar, the Central Committee of the Christian Conference of Asia, and the World Council of Churches, and in particular led numerous women’s advocacy commissions. She served as editor of several theological journals in Myanmar and founded a feminist journal, Dee Hline Than (Sound of Waves), now published in both Burmese and English. She is currently based in the United States to provide academic leadership for Burmese immigrant religious education programs sponsored by the American Baptist Churches U.S.A. and the Karen Baptist Convention, U.S.A.
Dr. Hyun-Sook Kim (Ph.D. Practical Theology, 1999) is Professor of Christian Education at the United Graduate School of Theology at Yonsei University. Dr. Kim, the first female professor appointed to the School of Theology, has published widely on shared-authority models of education based on caring and shared understanding, in which authority is used by endeavoring to share power and in which teachers and students participate in learning as partners.
Dr. Allan Cole (Ph.D. Practical Theology, 2001) serves as Dean of the Steve Hicks School, and as the Bert Kruger Smith Centennial Professor in Social Work at University of Texas at Austin. He also serves in leadership at Dell Medical School, as Deputy for Health Humanities and Technology, and as Courtesy Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Cole created the Moritz Center for Societal Impact (CSI) in 2023 to align interdisciplinary efforts in research and scholarship, curriculum and instruction, and community partnerships to solve critical social problems and change lives. He is the creator and moderator of PD Wise, a hub for sharing personal stories, experiences, and wisdom gained from living with Parkinson’s. Dr. Cole is author of or editor of 15 books and dozens of chapters, articles and reviews as a nationally recognized authority on chronic illness, health humanities, bereavement, and the study of spirituality and religion in social work.
