Women in the World Conference
Since 1985, the Shaw Center has hosted fan annual spring conference to explore experiences of women’s ministries in the church and society. The conference provides opportunities for women to hear women preach, share testimonies in ministerial and multicultural leadership, and develop networks of support with one another.
Women in the World 2025
Please join us for this year’s Women in the World Conference on October 9, 2025. We have a broad, rich group on speakers which will approach this year’s theme of “Embracing Differences: Community Building in Interfaith Contexts” in a variety of ways. Register for this year’s conference here. Scroll to read more about this year’s speakers and their lecture abstracts.
Meet our 2025 Conference speakers!
Dr. Preeta Banerjee
Dr. Preeta Banerjee is the Associate Director for Spiritual Life at Babson College. She draws on over 25 years experience as a business school professor, corporate executive, life coach and higher education chaplain. She earned a PhD in Strategic Management from the Wharton School; a BS in Computational Biology and Business from Carnegie Mellon; and Graduate Certificate in Interreligious Studies from Hartford International University for Religion and Peace.
“Resources for Centering the Margins”
How can we better navigate spaces–whether in academia, corporate, or faith–that have defaults that don’t appear to include our edges? We will discuss some of those defaults and resources to center what might be left at the margins of these spaces to make them braver and more inclusive.
Rev. Jo Murphy
Rev. Jo is the Executive Director for UU Mass Action and is busy mobilizing and organizing with the many UU Mass Action campaigns. She is also quite busy with her 2 year old daughter, Simone, and doing per diem work as a chaplain at Beth Israel Hospital. She loves liberation, dreaming, the ocean, and a fine roast chicken dinner.
“Exploring Grief Through Interfaith Ritual Community”
In a world where devastation is palpable every day, it is often difficult not to default to despair and fear. Though this despair is ever present, I find there is hope in letting yourself grieve, and I find it even more powerful to grieve in public. There is a need to grieve in private, but what does grief look like in community? What does it mean to communally grieve? Join me in investigating what interfaith spaces have to offer in terms of providing spaces to publicly grieve and how communities benefit and avoid despair.
Rev. Dr. Karen Coleman
The Rev. Dr. Karen Coleman serves as the University Chaplain for Episcopal Ministry. Where she welcomes the daily interactions with students, faculty and staff.
“There is a diversity and range of ideas, cultures, economics, and abilities that makes BU come alive. Some students are a one-time encounter, and others attend our weekly opportunities to connect. Chaplaincy makes a difference in the lives of our students. We are a non-anxious, non-judgmental presence when the world our students inhabit is about moving onto the next thing in their lives. It’s ok not to have the answers or even know the questions when you encounter a chaplain but to believe and have faith or to have faith that I have faith.”
Rev. Karen also serves as an Assisting Priest at Trinity Episcopal Church, Boston. She is also a certified mindfulness instructor and spiritual director. She is a graduate of The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor where she holds a B.A. in Art History and a masters and Doctor of Divinity degree from Episcopal Divinity School. The title of her thesis was “Episcopal Female Leaders of African Heritage: Trailblazers and Colleagues.” Prior to her seminary studies she worked in the higher education and non-profit field as a development professional focusing on major gifts.
“Building an Interfaith Space: from the voice of an African American woman”
A personal look at building interfaith spaces in a large campus community. The intersection of holding faith practices and support while working within the complexities of a community. The journey includes my own faith journey as a Christian Chaplain in helping to support the development of a more multi-faith campus.
Rumni Saha, MDiv., MEd
Rumni Saha considers herself to be a proud Hindu, a fierce Unitarian Universalist, and a Religious Humanist. Rumni received a Master of Divinity degree from Boston University School of Theology in May of 2023. She currently serves as a College Chaplain and the Hindu and the Unitarian Universalist Community Coordinator at Wellesley College. She also works as an Interfaith Chaplain with a small but mighty non-profit org doing community and hospital chaplaincy as well as extensive interfaith work. Rumni also holds a Master of Education degree from Boston University. She has been a long-time Public School Educator, a newspaper columnist, and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. Rumni was welcomed into preliminary fellowship as a Unitarian Universalist minister. She will be ordained on May 30, 2026. Rumni considers India, her home country, as having given her roots and her adopted country, her wings.
“My Roller Coaster (Inter)Faith Journey and Why It Matters”
The session is about embracing all of who we are and navigating intersectional identities. It will be a 10/15 minute personal reflection titled “My Roller Coaster (Inter)Faith Journey and Why It Matters.” It is a deep dive into all of who I am (a Hindu, a Unitarian Universalist, and a humanist, not to mention a Person of Color in a society that is white-centric). It explores my journey and why it is important in a rapidly changing and diverse world.
Dr. Fatima Jebari
Fatima Jebari is an Assistant Professor of Finance at Wheaton College. She received her Ph.D. in Financial Economics from the University of New Orleans. Her scholarship addresses the question of “whether and how money is put at the service of society” from various angles. She analyzes how various financial institutions may either promote or obstruct fairness and equity within economic systems. Additionally, she investigates the interplay between religion and economic practices, emphasizing the influence of faith and moral values on financial systems. Her research on corporate lobbying reveals the mechanisms and factors behind the purchase of political influence and its effects. At Wheaton, she teaches courses in Investments, Corporate Finance, and Sustainable Finance.
“Lessons from Early Islam for Interfaith Collaboration Today”
We often speak of interfaith engagement as a contemporary strategy for collaboration across differences. But the early period of Islam’s founding was a rich site of interfaith community. This talk takes the multireligious setting of Medina as a case study of inclusive community and the embrace of difference, and the Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him, as an exemplar of community building. Join us for a thought-provoking talk inspired by the example of Prophet Muhammad, PBUH, and the founding of his first community in Medina. Discover practical insights, historical perspectives, and stories of how faith and respect can bring people together for the good of all humanity.
Dr. Amanda Napior
Amanda Napior, MDiv, PhD, is a religious studies scholar-practitioner writing a critical prison ethnography and working in higher ed as a community builder in Religious and Spiritual Life. Amanda’s book is an ethnography about the lived and historical connections between incarceration and preoccupations with personal transformation in the United States—applied scholarship that has enabled her to work with previously incarcerated and otherwise directly impacted community leaders in Massachusetts. As a practitioner at Wheaton College in Norton, MA, Amanda supports social justice education, community dialogue, and collaboration among myriad religious and cultural groups. Amanda is passionate about creating inclusive and collaborative learning spaces through reflexivity, ritual, and play and leans on her training in ethnography, conflict mediation, and feminist, antiracist pedagogy to foster curiosity and connection. Amanda draws inspiration from the long history of religiously-motivated movements for collective liberation, led most often by directly-impacted people, and from Unitarian Universalist tradition. Amanda holds a doctorate in religious studies and a certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Boston University, an MDiv from Harvard Divinity School, and a BA in religion from the University of California at Santa Barbara.
“From Below and Within: Critical Grounded Practice in Multireligious Community-Building”
I would describe my approach to multireligious community building in my small, liberal arts setting as both “critical” and “grounded.” First, some notes on context: due to an absence of established activity within my area when I began my role, my focus has primarily been on intrafaith programming, rather than interfaith programming. Individual groups on campus–clubs or less formal cohorts–often struggle to nurture their own sense of belonging, which gives intergroup collaboration little energy to draw from. I am working to generate a basic threshold of activity which will not only nurture communities on campus but which can grow in the interfaith direction. Second, my approach has drawn intimately from my learning as a critical religious ethnographer (in a prison). Grounded theory is an approach to knowledge creation in ethnography and involves prioritizing what is happening “on the ground” over and above theoretical models one brings to the field. But grounded theory can also translate (metaphorically, at least) into an approach to community-building that stays attentive to the desires, disappointments, talents, and energies already present in the community, in order to help build it. In tandem with an ethical attention the workings of white supremacy and a commitment to solidarity with the underserved and overburdened, this “grounded” approach is also a critical one, attentive to gaps that require changes to process/policy and to silences or dynamics that often require naming.
Women in the World 2024
Recordings of our 2024 conference “Am I Enough?” held on April 10 can be viewed here: Dr. Elise Ji Young Choe, Deborah J. Hamilton, and the conference panel. Read more about our distinguished speakers and their talks here!
Women in the World 2022
Our 2022 Conference features three distinguished speakers Dean G. Sujin Pak, Rev. Laura Everett and Rev. Dr. Laurel E. Scott.
Watch our Women in the Conference Live-stream here
Women in the World 2021
Our 2021 Conference features Rev. Dr. Daisy Machado and Dr. Mayra Picos-Lee, who are two distinguished scholars in Latina Feminist Theology. Click here to view the recording of our conference! Access Password: ^7s%lr$7
Past Conferences
Topics vary each year, but conversation is always plentiful. This past year, we celebrated our 30th Anniversary, and had the opportunity to look back at the incredible speakers, participants, and questions found each year at the conference. When it first began in 1985, the conference was offered to provide female seminary students the opportunity to hear women preach for the first time and explore what it meant to be both a woman and a clergy member. Currently the conference serves to explore issues that pertain to women around the world, such as economic injustice, power dynamics, immigration, self-care among others. It is also a space for women to network with one another and gain encouragement and support in ministry and life. We are so thankful to all of you that continue to participate and share your experiences with us!
