Yara González-Justiniano

Yara González-Justiniano (2014 & 2019, MDiv & PhD) is Assistant Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture with emphasis in Latinx Studies at Vanderbilt University. She is also affiliated faculty of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies.

She received a PhD in Theological Studies with concentration in church and society from Boston University School of Theology, where she also received her Master of Divinity. At the University of Puerto Rico, Dr. González-Justiniano earned a BA in Audiovisual Communications with a concentration on film; she also double majored in theater and modern languages. Her educational journey of interdisciplinarity inform the ways in which she approaches theological studies. She is also currently under care in the ordination process with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the New England region.

Her most recent publication Centering Hope as a Sustainable Decolonial Practice: Esperanza en Práctica (2022), wrestles with answering the question of what does hope look like amid socioeconomic crises. Her interdisciplinary approach to this inquiry grounds itself in ethnographic research in hopes of finding practices that enable a hope that can sustain the collective.