Leadership

Nancy Lammers Gross

Nancy Lammers Gross, MDiv, PhD, is the Director of the Joe R. Engle Institute for Preaching and the Arthur Sarell Rudd Professor of Speech Communication in Ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary. She earned both her MDiv and PhD from Princeton Seminary. A member of the Academy of Homiletics, her areas of teaching interest include speech communication with special interest in assisting women to claim their voices, preaching, especially preaching from the Apostle Paul, and worship. An ordained Presbyterian minister, she has served churches in California and New Jersey, holding membership in the Presbytery of the Coastlands.

Jared E. Alcántara

Jared E. Alcántara, PhD, is the Professor of Preaching, holder of the Paul W. Powell Endowed Chair in Preaching, and Director of the Kyle Lake Center for Effective Preaching at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary in Waco, Texas. He earned his BA from Wheaton College, MDiv from Gordon Connell Theological Seminary, ThM from New College, University of Edinburgh, and his PhD from Princeton Seminary. His recent publications include How to Preach Proverbs, Let the Legends Preach, and The Practices of Christian Preaching. Alcántara is a member of the Academy of Homiletics, the Evangelical Homiletics Society, and the Hispanic Theological Initiative. An ordained Baptist minister, he has also served as a youth pastor, associate pastor, and teaching pastor in Illinois, Massachusetts, Oregon, and New Jersey.

William H. Lamar, IV

Michael A. Brothers

Michael A. Brothers, MDiv, ThM, PhD, is the Associate Professor of Speech Communication in Ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary. He earned his MA from Northwestern University, and MDiv, ThM, and PhD from Princeton Seminary. His teaching and research interests include the relationship between performance studies, aesthetics, narrative, and preaching. An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), he served a congregation for seven years in Danville, Kentucky, where he also was the chaplain of Centre College.

Kimberly Wagner

Kimberly Wagner, PhD, serves as the Assistant Professor of Preaching at Princeton Theological Seminary. Her current writing and work focus on preaching and ministry in the midst and wake of trauma, particularly thinking about collective trauma, the role of the preacher, and the resources of our Scriptures and faith to respond to these moments. Though she has served among the Lutherans and was educated among United Methodists, she is an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Michael Dean Morgan

Michael Dean Morgan, MFA, is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Rowan University. He earned his MFA from the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at the University of California at Irvine. Morgan was a founding member of the New York-based multimedia performance ensemble Coyote Rep and is founder and owner of The Dialect Lab of Princeton, a professional speech and dialect company. He was last seen on Broadway in the new musical Amazing Grace, the story of John Newton. Other performance credits include the first and second national tours of Mary Poppins as Mr. Banks; the comic hornbill, Zazu, in The Lion King; and originating the role of Marlin in the world premiere of Disney’s Finding Nemo – The Musical written by the Oscar winning team behind Frozen.

HyeRan Kim-Cragg

HyeRan Kim-Cragg, PhD, is the Principal of Emmanuel College of Victoria University at the University of Toronto, Canada, and holds Timothy Eaton Memorial Church Professorship in Preaching. She also serves on the Executive Committee of the Academy of Homiletics and the editorial boards of the journals Homiletic and International Journal of Homiletics. She earned her MDiv from Hanshin Graduate School of Theology at Hanshin University and her ThD from Emmanuel College at the University of Toronto. Her teaching, writing, and research interests include ecological justice, climate crisis, and homiletics. She is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada.

Hyemin Na

Hyemin Na, PhD, is the Assistant Professor of Worship, Media and Culture and Chapel Elder of Oxnam Chapel at Wesley Theological Seminary. She earned her BA from Harvard College, MDiv from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and PhD from Emory University. Her research focuses on how liturgical practices intersect with media cultures. She has published chapters and articles on themes of Christian media practices in connection to preaching and worship and is currently completing her manuscript for her first monograph, Megachurch Modernities. An ordained Elder in the Northern-Illinois Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, she served in various ministries prior to entering the academy.

Chelsea Yarborough

Rev. Dr. Chelsea Brooke Yarborough is a daughter, friend, sister, aunt, and partner. She is the Associate Director of Leadership Programming at the Association of Theological Schools. Yarborough earned her B.A. from Elon University (2012), her M.Div. from Wake Forest University School of Divinity (2015), and her Ph.D. in Religion from Vanderbilt University (2021), with a focus on Homiletics and Liturgics. Dr. Yarborough is an active member of the Academy of Homiletics, the North American Academy of Liturgy, and the American Academy of Religion.

Her research reimagines preaching and worship by exploring the methodologies that emerge from the rhetorical and ritual practices of Black women throughout history. Dr. Yarborough’s work seeks to challenge normative power structures and traditional paradigms of proclamation, advocating for diverse platforms beyond the pulpit to amplify the voices of preachers. At her core, she is dedicated to empowering individuals—regardless of their platform—to find, embrace, and use their voices to foster well-being and inclusivity, particularly for historically marginalized communities.

Abigail Visco Rusert

Abigail Visco Rusert, is the Associate Dean of Continuing Education at Princeton Theological Seminary, which houses the Joe R. Engle Institute of Preaching. She is an ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and has held a variety of roles in higher education and ministry, including serving as the Director of the Institute for Youth Ministry, an associate pastor, youth director, chaplain, and camp counselor. Abigail is passionate about researching and designing programs that cultivate Christian leaders and transform faith-based communities. She collaborates with faculty to lead and operationalize projects that foster changemaking in the academy and the church. A graduate of Valparaiso University, Princeton Theological Seminary, and a current PhD student at Notre Dame of Maryland University, she is the co-author of the book Delighted: What Teenagers are Teaching the Church About Joy. Abigail serves on the Research Advisory Board of the Springtide Research Institute. Abigail and her husband, Thomas, have three kids—Dorothy, Solveig, and Frank—and live in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, where Abigail serves as a small group leader at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church.