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.

 

Emery Silva first fell in love with writing, then Jesus, then her sorority, and eventually InterVarsity’s mission to students. She planted Greek InterVarsity at Northwestern University in Chicagoland and enjoyed serving students for 16 years while juggling three kids and a husband. After a stint of MPD coaching, she became the Associate Director of MPD. Outside of InterVarsity, you can find her cooking up a storm for friends and family, biking by the lake, or taking the kids to the library, again.

Pamela first discovered her love for teaching as a tutor, seeking to demystify accounting for fellow students. In preparation for a career in higher education, she completed a Master's in Accounting & Master's in Business Administration from Kent State University and earned the designation of CPA. She worked as an internal auditor at Banc One Corporation and taught accounting at Kent State University, Hiram College, Baldwin Wallace University, and Wayne College before finding her home at Cuyahoga Community College, a college that shares her passion and dedication to excellence in teaching.

Ritu (rid'-thoo) Singh is a New Jersey native and the daughter of North Indian natives - specifically from Bengali, Punjabi, and Uttar Pradeshi descent. She has been on staff for 11 years overseeing staff directors, staff, and students in Greater Boston where she attended pharmacy school as a student. In her time in college, she stumbled upon InterVarsity and a calling that has led to both a costly and beautiful life. Currently still residing in Boston, Massachusetts, she is planned to oversee all Focused Ministries in New England and continues to serve as a leader in the SAIV movement. 

Most of her free time has been spent with good friends eating good food and FaceTiming with her cute and maniacal niece. She has travelled a lot and is hoping to visit many more places on her bucket list in the future. 

Jay Sivits (1952-2019) served with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship for 35 years. She was the National Co-Director of Spiritual Formation & Prayer, which included being the Chaplain to the Leadership Team for the Graduate and Faculty Ministry Team of IVCF. Jay was also a Registered Nurse and a dear friend to many.

Juliet Skuldt is a writer and editor living near Chicago. She has her MFA from Eastern Washington University and was formerly managing editor at The University of Wisconsin Press. She has taught art, writing, and Latin, as well as started an after-school arts program for elementary school children in her community. She founded and organizes Christian Advocacy now, a ministry to engage Christians around issues of human rights and persecution. Her fiction was shortlisted in the Fractured Lit Winter 2022 Fast Flash Challenge and has appeared in Every Day Fiction, SmokeLong Quarterly, The Wisconsin Academy Review, among others. Her faith writing has appeared in (in)courge and Open the Bible.

Sarah Wynia Smith completed her PhD in physiology at UW-Madison in 2009. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, studying nitric oxide signaling. In her spare time she enjoys spending as much time as possible with her husband Brian and son Jackson, exploring California, and playing the trumpet.

Alison Marie Smith works for Greek InterVarsity at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. She ​and her husband, Sean, moved to Utah four years ago from the great state of Michigan. She loves reading, running, making meals for her students, and sharing adventures with her husband.

Dr. Gordon Smith is the President of Ambrose University and Seminary in Calgary, Alberta, where he also serves as Professor of Systematic and Spiritual Theology. He has been with Ambrose since the summer of 2012. He is also a Teaching Fellow at Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia. Gordon Smith’s areas of particular interest are the nature of conversion and religious experience, spiritual discernment and effective decision-making, the sacraments, and the question of calling and vocation. Dr. Smith has published several books reflecting his wide range of interests from topics such as Institutional Intelligence: How to Build an Effective Organization to Welcome Holy Spirit: A Theological and Experiential Introduction. He is an ordained minister of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Gordon Smith grew up in Ecuador and has also lived for a decade in the Philippines. He is married to Joella who is an artist and gardener, and they have two married sons and six grandchildren.

Emily Smith is an assistant professor in the department of emergency medicine/surgery at Duke University and at the Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI). During the COVID-19 pandemic, she also became known as the Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist through her social media outlets which reached over 3-4 million people per month during 2020-2021.

Before joining the faculty at Duke University, Dr. Smith spent four years at Baylor University in the department of public health and was a research scholar at DGHI for two years. Dr. Smith received her PhD in epidemiology from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill and a MSPH from the University of South Carolina.

Emily has been married to her pastor-husband for twenty years and they have two fantastic children and one spoiled golden retriever. On any normal day, you can find her outside gardening, reading in the hammock with a good cup of coffee, or trying to become a bird-watcher.

Felicia Song is Associate Professor and Chair of the Sociology and Anthropology Department at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. Having trained in History, Communication Studies and Sociology from Yale, Northwestern, and University of Virginia, and taught at Louisiana State University’s Manship School for Mass Communication, her research is oriented around the rapidly evolving digital technology industry and how the adoption of social media and digital devices fundamentally alters the landscapes of family, community, and organizational life. In addition to her book, Virtual Communities: Bowling Alone, Online Together (Peter Lang 2009), she has conducted research on expectant women’s online information-seeking habits and the evolution of “mommy bloggers” as social media professionals. Currently, she is working on a book project that explores how our contemporary digital habits form us and our imaginations about personhood, time, and place. When she is not working, she enjoys children’s chapter books, searching local consignment shops, and watching The Great British Baking Show with her husband and two children. 

Sarah Conrad Sours is Assistant Professor of Religion at Huntingdon College and a Licensed Local Pastor in the United Methodist Church. She is working on a book on academic integrity, and another on autonomy and bioethics.

Debbie Splaingard has an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and a Masters in Organizational Communication from Marquette University. Over the years, she has been a medical grant writer, owner of a personnel consulting business, church staff member, wife, mom and grandmother. She is currently a research associate at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and a campus volunteer with InterVarsity Graduate and Faculty Ministries at Ohio State University.

Suzanne Stabile is a highly sought-after speaker, teacher, and internationally recognized Enneagram master teacher who has taught thousands of people over the last thirty years. She is the author of The Path Between Us, and coauthor, with Ian Morgan Cron, of The Road Back to You. She is also the creator and host of The Enneagram Journey podcast.

Along with her husband, Rev. Joseph Stabile, she is cofounder of Life in the Trinity Ministry, a nonprofit, nondenominational ministry committed to the spiritual growth and formation of adults. Their ministry home, the Micah Center, is located in Dallas, Texas. They have many audio resources available, including The Enneagram Journey curriculum.

Suzanne has spoken at hundreds of colleges, churches, and conferences across America, and also teaches in the Baylor Health Care System. She has taught at Richard Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation and has taught with Father Rohr to an international audience in Assisi, Italy.

An editor, writer, and avid library-goer Elisa Fryling Stanford lives with her husband and two daughters in Colorado. She is the author of Ordinary Losses: Naming the Graces That Shape Us. To read Elisa’s blog on why we read stories, go to conversationsjournal.com/2012/05/a-god-of-stories/.

Margot Starbuck, a writer and speaker, is the author of the spiritual memoir The Girl in the Orange Dress: Searching for a Father Who Does Not Fail (InterVarsity Press, 2009) and Unsqueezed (InterVarsity Press, 2010). Her writing has also appeared in Radiant, Neue, Rev!, and Today’s Christian Woman. Margot lives with her family in Durham, NC. You can learn more about Margot at her website.

Sharri Bockheim Steen is a full-time mother and a part-time freelance medical writer for the pharmaceutical industry. She lives near Princeton, New Jersey, with her husband and two children. Sharri earned her BS in biology from Calvin College and her PhD in molecular biology from Baylor College of Medicine and did a post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University. When Sharri finds a spare minute, she jogs, reads, or writes. She kept a blog of her experiences with breast cancer at http://burnishingbrightens.blogspot.com/

Rebecca Brewster Stevenson writes in Durham, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband and children. She taught English in private and public schools before becoming a mother, and then homeschooled her children for several years. After earning her Masters degree in Liberal Studies from Duke University, she returned to teaching full-time, this time as a founding member of the high school faculty at Trinity School of Durham and Chapel Hill. There she helped to shape the humanities department, writing curriculum for ninth, tenth, and twelfth grade humanities and English classes. In 2012 she left teaching to pursue writing full-time, and is author of the critically acclaimed novel Healing Maddie Brees. She is a speaker and a regular teacher at The Well, a women's Bible study at Chapel Hill Bible Church. She recently released her second book, Wait: Thoughts and Practice in Waiting on God. 

Travis Stevick received his PhD in Theology from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland in 2015. He is an ordained elder in the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. He lives in Northern Iowa with his wife and two children.

Karen Stiller is a freelance writer and an editor with Faith Today magazine. She is managing editor of Evangelicals Around the World: a global handbook for the 21st century (Thomas Nelson, 2015); and co-author of two books about the Canadian Church (Going Missional and Shifting Stats: Shaking the Church). She’s also an MFA student.

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