Writer Bios

We couldn't offer The Well to our readers without the generous contributions of our writers. Read through their bios to learn from their stories and click through for links to the articles they have written. If you are interested in writing for The Well, explore our Writer's Guidelines.

Bonnie Smith Whitehouse

Bonnie Smith Whitehouse, PhD, is a writer and professor who studies storytelling, creativity, contemplation, and wonder. She is the author of Nautilus Award winner Afoot and Lighthearted: A Journal for Mindful Walking and Kickstart Creativity: 50 Prompted Cards to Spark Inspiration. A lifelong Episcopalian, she has spent the last twenty years as a lay leader of St. Augustine’s Episcopal Chapel at Vanderbilt University. Bonnie is professor of English and director of the honors program at Belmont University, and she lives in Nashville with her family.

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Bethany Williams

Bethany Williams is a teacher, encourager, advocate, writer, and consultant. After teaching high school English, she focused on her four young children at home while volunteering as a Court Appointed Family Mediator and Court Appointed Special Advocate and also finishing her Masters of Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary with an emphasis in Children at Risk. She is happily a Methodist clergy spouse, adoptive and biological mom, and treasures a little knack for eliciting laughter in church small groups.

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Jessica Hooten Wilson

Jessica Hooten Wilson (PhD, Baylor University) is the inaugural Visiting Scholar of Liberal Arts at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. She previously taught at the University of Dallas. She is the author of The Scandal of Holiness, Giving the Devil His Due: Demonic Authority in the Fiction of Flannery O'Connor and Fyodor Dostoevsky (winner of a 2018 Christianity Today Book of the Year Award), and two books on Walker Percy. She is also the coeditor of Learning the Good Life and Solzhenitsyn and American Culture. Wilson speaks around the world on topics as varied as Russian novelists, Catholic thinkers, and Christian ways of reading. (Photo Credit: Andrea Barnett)

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Chief Financial Officer DeeDee Wilson is joining InterVarsity from Operation Mobilization USA (OM) where she was the CFO. Prior to OM, DeeDee served in leadership roles in Fortune 500 companies, including as the CFO of Nike Europe, and was named one of CFO Magazine’s “Top 25 Women CFOs to Watch.” DeeDee is passionate about Christ’s mission on campus. She has been a member of InterVarsity’s Women’s Advisory Council and her daughter serves as a campus staff minister with InterVarsity in New England.

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Maria Liu Wong (EdD, Teachers College, Columbia University) is provost of City Seminary of New York, and codirects a major national initiative there, Ministry in the City HUB. She is the coauthor of Stay in the City: How Christian Faith is Flourishing in an Urban World. (Photo credit: Julia Hembree Smith)

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Karen H. Kim Yeary

Karen is an Associate Professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. She received her PhD from Cornell University and was a W.K. Kellogg Community Based Health Scholar at the University of North Carolina School at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health. Her research interests are in minority health, translational research, community-based participatory research, and psychosocial aspects of health. She uses a community-based participatory approach to translate evidence-based behavioral interventions so they are appropriate for underserved groups.

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A native of Taiwan, Tiffany was born and raised in a Christian family as a pastor’s kid. She moved to Madison, WI, in 2010 for a PhD in sociology, but ended up leaving with a master’s degree and and additional master’s degree in music (collaborative piano). She will move to Bloomington, Indiana, after getting married in the summer of 2014, where her husband will pursue a doctoral degree in orchestral conducting. Besides music, she enjoys chatting with friends over coffee, baking desserts, and grocery window shopping.

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Jayme Yeo has a PhD in English from Rice University and joined the English department of Belmont University in 2013. She specializes in seventeenth-century British devotional poetry, early modern political culture, and affect. Her current book project explores the affective and political dimensions of religious experience in early modern poetry. She teaches classes on British literature and academic writing, including one class that integrates poetry with community service and political activism.

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Laura Meitzner Yoder

Laura Meitzner Yoder directs the Program in Human Needs and Global Resources and is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Wheaton College, IL. Her educational background includes a BA in Biology from Messiah College, an MPS in International Agriculture and Rural Development from Cornell University, and a PhD in Forestry and Environmental Studies from Yale University. She enjoys being in mountain forests, learning languages, and eating Asian food and tropical fruits.

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Jana is an Associate Professor of Voice and the Voice Area Coordinator in the School of Music at Kennesaw State University. Jana, a soprano, received her undergraduate vocal training at Baylor University, and holds two degrees; a BMEd and a BM in Vocal Pedagogy as well as a Masters of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Louisiana. A native Louisianan, Jana now lives in Kennesaw, Georgia with her dog Buster.

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Nancy Wang Yuen

Nancy Wang Yuen (PhD, University of California) is a sociologist and pop culture expert. She is the author of Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism and serves as an associate professor of sociology at Biola University. She has appeared on PBS, NPR, NBC Nightly News, BBC World TV, Dr. Phil, New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. She is a guest writer at Newsweek, Elle, HuffPost, and Self. Follow Nancy on Twitter @nancywyuen and visit her website at nancywyuen.com.

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Anne Zaki has long been working to integrate her faith and her passion for social justice. She also has dedicated much of her time teaching seminary students about preaching, worship, spiritual formation, psychology, and communication.

Born in Cairo, Egypt, Anne was selected by the government at age 16 to attend an international school in Canada dedicated to peace and international understanding. Ever since, she has been cultivating a global perspective on life and faith, having served churches and church-related institutions in the U.S. and Canada for 13 years. In September 2011, nine months after the Arab Spring, Anne returned to Egypt with her family, where she has spent the last five years teaching. She has also spoken at gatherings like Missio Nexus, the Global Consultation on Music and Missions (GCoMM), and the Lausanne Movement’s Younger Leaders Gathering (YLG).

Anne has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology from Calvin College, a master’s in social psychology from the American University in Cairo, and an MDiv from Calvin Theological Seminary. She is currently pursuing a PhD in preaching from Fuller Theological Seminary and serving as Assistant Professor at The Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo.

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Jen Zamzow is a philosopher, a writer, and a mom to two little boys. She explores how we can overcome obstacles to our thinking and decision making so that we can live more meaningful, intentional, and connected lives. Jen lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and teaches ethics online for UCLA and Concordia University Irvine. She blogs about religion, politics, and parenting at jenzamzow.com.

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Dr. Effat Zeidan serves as Assistant Professor of General Education and Program Director of General Education at California Baptist University.

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Amy White Ziegler

Amy earned degrees in English from Seattle Pacific University, Western Washington University, and the University of Tennessee. After teaching college composition and literature for several years at a Christian university, she worked as an editor for a research center in Washington, DC. Amy has published academic articles and is currently working on her first book — a memoir about not meeting her husband until age 35 and revising the conception of God she had grown up with.

Amy lives with her husband and eight-year-old daughter in the suburbs of Chattanooga, Tennessee. She leads church groups and field trips, organizes play dates and closets, and makes as much time for reading and writing as this season of motherhood allows. Amy is passionate about encouraging others to actively engage with God to shape God's ongoing creativity in their lives.

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After spending several years as a writer with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Abigail Zimmer will begin working on her MFA in poetry at Columbia College Chicago. She likes Old English, the sassy blues of Janis Joplin, and futzing with cameras. She blogs on art and good people at offthefrontporch.wordpress.com.

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