Opening Panelists' Bio

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Grace Yia-Hei Kao

Grace Kao [pronounced like “Gow”] is Professor of Ethics and the inaugural Bishop Roy Sano Chair in Pacific and Asian American Theology at Claremont School of Theology. Her most recent book, My Body, Their Baby: A Progressive Christian Vision for Surrogacy, was named a 2024 Outstanding Academic Title by Choice. Her other publications include Grounding Human Rights in a Pluralist World (2011), Asian American Christian Ethics (2015, co-edited with Ilsup Ahn), and Encountering the Sacred: Feminist Reflections on Women’s Lives (2018, co-edited with Rebecca Todd Peters).

After earning a BA and MA from Stanford University and a PhD from Harvard University, Dr. Kao has been writing, teaching, and speaking on assorted topics in feminism, progressive Christianity, human rights and animal relations, and Asian America. An active member of the guild, she is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Society of Christian Ethics and currently serves on the managing boards of the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI) and Pacific, Asian and North American Asian Women in Theology and Ministry (PANAAWTM).

Dr. Kao has won 5 teaching awards across her 20-year career and is also the first Asian American women to have been tenured and then promoted to full professor at her institution. She identifies as a lay Presbyterian woman and lives in Orange County, California with her husband, two biracial teenage sons, and one pandemic cat.

Haruko Nawata Ward

Haruko Nawata Ward is a Professor Emerita of Church History of Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA. She is also an honorably retired minister of Word and Sacrament of the Presbyterian Church, USA. After retiring from teaching in December 2023, Haruko continues to research and write on histories of the Age of Reformations and the intersections of theologies, religions, cultures, societies, and human movements across the early modern world, from Asian women-centered perspectives.

She is currently working on the questions of female martyrs in the Jesuit Japan mission and translation and gender in hagiography. She is the author of Women Religious Leaders in Japan’s Christian Century, 1549-1650 (Ashgate 2009) and many essays, including the recent journal article “Kirishitan Women in Bondage Defying Persecution in Japan, 1625-1630,” Ler História 84 (2024), and two PANAAWTM initiated contributions such as “Dislocated: Early Modern Christian Women in Asia and Asian American Women in

the U.S.,” in Asian and Asian American Women in Theology and Religion: Embodying Knowledge, edited by Kwok Pui Lan for the series Asian Christianity in the Diaspora, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, and “Crumb-Gathering Wisdom Calls Out for Pacific Asian and North American Asian Women Historians,” in Leading Wisdom: Asian and Asian North American Women Leaders, edited by Su Yon Pak and Jung Ha Kim, Westminster John Knox Press, 2017. Although she often jokes about preferring to talk to the dead people from the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries, she enjoys and appreciates interacting with friends, especially the alive and well PANAAWTM companions over three decades.

Septemmy Eucharistia Lakawa

Septemmy E. Lakawa is the former, and the first female, President of Jakarta Theological Seminary in Indonesia (2019-2023) and Associate Professor of Mission Studies, Feminist Theology, and Trauma Theology. She earned her Th.D. in Mission Studies at Boston University School of Theology. She is the 2023 distinguished alumna of Boston University School of Theology. She has published book, book chapters, and articles on interreligious dialogue and trauma, Christian mission, blue theology, and interreligious aesthetics of healing in the aftermath of religious communal violence. She has worked with several local congregations and her seminary to develop poetic and meditative dance as a form of doing Christian theological aesthetics in a multireligious context. 

Breana van Velzen

The Rev. Breana van Velzen is an ordained Baptist minister. Breana holds a Master of Divinity (M.Div) from Duke Divinity School, a Master of Social Work (M.S.W) from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and a Bachelor in English Education with Secondary Licensure and a Minor in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington.  Breana is a certified spiritual director and a non-profit consultant experienced in non-profit leadership, diversity, equity, and inclusion change-making, and theo-ethical praxis for parachurch ministry and faith-based institutions. In addition to the role of Executive Director for Durham Congregations in Action (DCIA), Breana serves on the board of Innovative Space for Asian American Christianity and is part of Baptist Women in Ministry NC and the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham (RCND).

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HyeLim Yoon

Hye Lim Yoon (she/her) is a Ph.D. candidate in Theological Studies at Emmanuel College, University of Toronto. She was born and raised in Cheongju, South Korea. She earned a BA in Theology from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, and an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary as a Fulbright Graduate Scholarship recipient. Her doctoral research focuses on “Boundary-Crossing Preaching,” a term she coined to describe the cross-cultural preaching of Korean women preachers in predominantly white, English-speaking congregations. In her free time, Hye Lim enjoys training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, growing edible plants, and playing ukulele.

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Hannah Injamuri

Hannah GS Injamuri is a PhD candidate in Christian Education and Congregational Studies at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, IL. Having her roots in Hyderabad, South India, her working dissertation examines Dalit feminist perspectives and their role in fostering inclusive theological curricula in the Indian context. Her study seeks to uplift invisibilized narratives to emulate hope within Indian theological education.