Writer Bios

Caroline served with InterVarsity since 2002 as a campus staff member in northwest Indiana and most recently in central Pennsylvania. She received her bachelor’s degree in English with a focus on creative writing from Purdue University in 2002 and holds a master's degree in clinical mental health counseling from Messiah College. Caroline, her husband, and their three children live in “the sweetest place on earth,” otherwise known as Hershey, Pennsylvania. In her spare time, she likes to read, discover new music, and attempt to train her exuberant Labrador retriever, Pax. Caroline is a clinical mental health counselor and a former associate with Women in the Academy and Professions.

Professor López Turley directs the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University, which brings together data, research, engagement, and action to improve lives. In 2011, she founded the Houston Education Research Consortium (HERC), a research-practice partnership between Rice University and eleven Houston area school districts, representing over 700,000 students. A program of the Kinder Institute, HERC works to improve educational equity by connecting research to policy and practice, working directly with district leaders. She directed HERC from 2011 to 2022, during which she raised over $30M so that school districts would not have to pay for research. She also founded the National Network of Education Research-Practice Partnerships, which connects and supports over 60 partnerships between research institutions and education agencies throughout the country. She is a graduate of Stanford and Harvard and is originally from Laredo, Texas.

Sandra Maria Van Opstal, a second-generation Latina, pastors at Grace and Peace Church and lives on the west-side of Chicago with her husband and two boys. She is a preacher, liturgist and activist reimagining the intersection of worship and justice. Sandra served with Urbana Missions Conference, Chicago Urban Program, and Latino National Leadership Team (LaFe) of InterVarsity. Sandra’s influence has also reached many others through preaching globally on topics such as worship and formation, justice, racial identity and reconciliation. Sandra currently serves as Contact Director for the Justice Conference, is a board member for CCDA and holds a Masters of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Her most recent books include Still Evangelical and The Next Worship.

Sylvie Vanhoozer is a writer, botanical artist, and everyday saint from Provence, France. She lives in Libertyville, Illinois, with her husband, Kevin. They have two grown daughters.

Tirzah Villegas is a painter and creator whose spiritual practices inform her art. Currently a student at Duke Divinity School, Tirzah is focusing on the study of a decolonized Christianity and aesthetic as it pertains to spiritual liberation and liberation practices. Before deciding to attend divinity school, Tirzah had an array of jobs that inform her current theological lens, some of which include bartending, hog farming, youth workforce development, program director for a necessity-driven entrepreneur nonprofit, and interpreting. She is most interested in creating spaces that allow for people across a variety of spiritual disciplines to engage in spiritual practices that offer liberation from imperialist and colonialist structures. You can see more of her work online at Patreon and on Instagram.