Colleen Derr serves as president of Wesley Seminary and previously served as associate professor of congregational formation. Her academic interests include spiritual formation, children and family ministry, intergenerational formation, and formation in community. Derr has led Wesley Seminary to 30 consecutive months of enrollment growth that includes a highly diverse student population consisting of 25% Spanish-language students, 53% students of color living in 42 different countries, and identifying with 65 denominations. Under her leadership, Wesley continues to push the innovative boundaries in theological education.

Derr is an ordained minister in The Wesleyan Church, served in denominational leadership and local church Christian education for more than 30 years, and has taught in public and private schools. Her latest publications include An Oak Tree of Exposition published by Wesleyan Publishing House, 2022, and Renewing Communication: Spirit-Shaped Approaches for Children, Youth, and Families published by IVP Academic, 2020.

Alfredo Hernández has been rector/president of St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary since 2020. He previously served the school in various roles including faculty member, vice rector, academic dean, dean of pastoral formation, director of institutional research and effectiveness, and director of nonresident students. A priest of the Diocese of Palm Beach since his ordination in 1992, Hernández’s pastoral ministry has included service as parochial vicar of St. Helen Parish in Vero Beach, Florida, from 1992 to 1995, and as pastor of St. Juliana Parish in West Palm Beach from 1999 to 2013. He earned an MA in theology and an MDiv from St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, an STL in dogmatic (systematic) theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome, Italy), and a PhD in pastoral studies from North-West University (Potchefstroom, South Africa).

Amy Kardash has been the president of In Trust Center for Theological Schools since 2017, serving as director of programs for eight years prior. She oversees and directs all the In Trust Center’s work in resourcing over 230 seminaries, theological schools, and affiliate organizations. In 2012 she helped launch Resource Consulting, offering a new way of connecting leaders in theological education with resources they need to make transformative changes at their institutions. In addition to Resource Consulting, she oversees the organization’s work in In Trust magazine and in building learning communities via focused initiatives and through In Trust Center’s popular webinar series, which she initiated in 2011. Before joining In Trust Center, Kardash enjoyed a ten-year career in corporate banking and marketing at PNC Bank and Wilmington Trust Company. She holds both a BS in marketing and management and an MBA from the University of Delaware.

Vergel L. Lattimore III serves as president and professor of pastoral psychology and counseling at Hood Theological Seminary. He is professor emeritus of pastoral care and counseling and former director of the MA in counseling ministries at Methodist Theological School in Ohio. Lattimore served as director of counseling at Addiction and Psychological Services at the Syracuse Community Health Center, Inc. He also previously worked as a core staff pastoral counselor/area coordinator at Onondaga Pastoral Counseling Center and as assistant dean in the Office of Minority Affairs at Duke University. Lattimore is a published poet in Beyond the Stars. He is an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. He was the first African American chaplain to attain the rank of Brigadier General in the US Air Force and the Air National Guard. He is a clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy; a licensed independent marriage and family therapist; a member of Atrium Healthcare System, Professional Advisory Group; and a psychotherapist member of ACPE, Inc.

Chris A. Meinzer, senior director and COO for The Association of Theological Schools (ATS), is a CPA with more than 25 years of experience in the nonprofit sector. Since joining the ATS staff in 1999, he has provided oversight of ATS financial and business affairs as well as the ATS institutional database—a repository of institutional, enrollment, personnel, financial, and development data provided by ATS members. Meinzer has done extensive analysis and research of this data and presented his findings in a variety of settings to administrators and boards of theological schools.

In addition, he has provided counsel to ATS member schools on issues of finances, organizational planning, and strategic thinking. Through discussions with theological schools and their leadership, Meinzer has encouraged reflection on intergenerational stewardship and its impact on both academics and economics within these schools. He has designed and implemented a revision of the ATS Strategic Information Report, a useful strategic tool that provides ATS member schools with peer and industry data on a variety of market fundamentals.

Meinzer holds an accounting degree from The Pennsylvania State University and a Master of Divinity degree from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

Kerry Robinson is executive partner for Global and National Initiatives at Leadership Roundtable and executive director of the Opus Prize Foundation. She has been with Leadership Roundtable since its inception, serving first as its founding executive director for 11 years, then as its global ambassador for four years, and now as executive partner for global and national initiatives. Robinson is a trustee of the Raskob Foundation for Catholic Activities and a member of Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities. She has been an advisor to grant making foundations, charitable nonprofits, and family philanthropies since 1990. Robinson has served on many boards, committees, and task forces. She is currently the co-chair of the Faith and Giving Task Force for the Generosity Commission, and she serves on the boards of Albertus Magnus College, Saint Thomas More Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale University, the Hartford Bishops Foundation, and the International Catholic Migration Commission. 

Robinson is the prize-winning author of Imagining Abundance: Fundraising, Philanthropy and a Spiritual Call to Service and is the founding editor of The Catholic Funding Guide: A Directory of Resources for Catholic Activities. Robinson has contributed chapters to five books, including “Leadership” in A Pope Francis Lexicon, edited by Cindy Wooden and Joshua McElwee. She has been a columnist for Chicago Catholic since 2017 and has a blog on spirituality called Love in Ordinary Time. 

Robinson served as the director of development for Saint Thomas More Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale University and led a $75 million dollar fundraising drive to expand and endow the Chapel's ministry and to construct a Catholic student center. Robinson co-founded ESTEEM, a national Catholic young adult leadership formation program, with Yale Catholic Chaplain, Bob Beloin, and Leadership Roundtable Founder, Geoff Boisi. 

Robinson received an MAR degree from Yale Divinity School, concentrating in ethics. She is the recipient of numerous honorary doctorates and distinguished awards and has also been the inaugural speaker for several organizations’ events.

Cory Scheer founded TrustCentric Consulting, an organizational development firm, in January 2021. He has worked with small businesses, corporations, nonprofit organizations, academic institutions, municipalities, and ministries to provide support and direction on how to ensure people, practices, and policies become more trustworthy so that key performance indicators improve. TrustCentric helps leaders, teams, and organizations by using reliable data to define reality, implementing a trust-building framework, and walking alongside clients to develop strategies for success. TrustCentric provides services including organizational assessments (quantitative and qualitative), executive leader and team coaching, structure of trust cohorts for individuals or teams, strategic planning retreats, keynote/seminar speaking, and ongoing organizational development support. Scheer recently co-authored “The National Survey on Brand and Trust” with BrandCertain. In addition to more than 20 years in leadership roles in various sectors, including his current role as a pastor of strategic development, Scheer obtained an Executive MBA from Rockhurst University and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis from the University of Missouri.

Gordon T. Smith is the president of Ambrose University. He also serves as professor of systematic and spiritual theology at Ambrose Seminary of Ambrose University. An ordained minister with the Christian and Missionary Alliance, he is also the author of a number of books, including Evangelical, Sacramental and Pentecostal: Why The Church Should be all Three (IVPress, 2017), Institutional Intelligence (IVP 2017), and Welcome Holy Spirit: A Theological and Experiential Introduction (IVPress, 2021).

Jennifer Wiseman is an astrophysicist, author, and speaker. She studies the process of star and planet formation in the galaxy using radio, optical, and infrared telescopes. She is also interested in national science policy and public science engagement. She served as a Congressional Science Fellow for the American Physical Society and is the director emeritus of the program of Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER) for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Wiseman studied physics at MIT, co-discovering comet Wiseman-Skiff in 1987, and continued in astronomy with her doctoral research at Harvard. She has worked with several international observatories and is currently a senior astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Wiseman is a Fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation, a network of Christians in Science. She frequently gives public talks on the excitement of scientific discovery.

Frank M. Yamada began as executive director of The Association of Theological Schools in July 2017. He oversees the work of both the Association and the Commission on Accrediting. Prior to ATS, he joined the McCormick faculty in 2008 as associate professor of Hebrew Bible and director of the Center for Asian American Ministries. In 2011, he was elected as McCormick’s tenth president—the first Asian American to lead a Presbyterian Church (USA) seminary. His tenure there was marked by increasing diversity in McCormick’s student body and creative engagement with the shifting realities of theological education. Yamada previously had taught Hebrew Bible/Old Testament for nine years at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois.

An active biblical scholar, Yamada has authored and edited books and articles on cross-cultural and feminist hermeneutics. He is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, where he has served as a chair and as a steering committee member of the Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics Group, the Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible Section, and the Committee for Underrepresented Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession. In addition, he was a member of the Ethnic Chinese Biblical Colloquium and the American Academy of Religion, and he was the cochair for the Managing Board of the Asian Pacific Americans and Religion Research Initiative annual conference.

A graduate of Southern California College, Yamada earned his Master of Divinity and Doctor of Philosophy from Princeton Theological Seminary. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, USA and has written and spoken on the future of the church and theological education.

Mary H. Young joined the ATS staff in June 2017 as director of leadership education. She was responsible for planning and implementing leadership education programs for administrators in ATS member schools, including conferences and workshops for academic officers, development personnel, financial officers, and student personnel administrators as well as the programs for Women in Leadership (WIL) and the Committee on Race and Ethnicity (CORE). As director of CORE and WIL programs, she will continue to oversee the work for those two initiatives on a part-time basis for the 2022–2023 academic year.

Young came to ATS after 23 years in service to Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology of Virginia Union University in Richmond, Virginia, most recently as assistant professor of Christian education, and director of the Master of Arts in Christian Education program. She also led the seminary in institutional effectiveness, accreditation preparedness, data collection, grant reporting, and program evaluation. Having guided the seminary in discussions around online learning, she also completed a Wabash Center program on online teaching for theological faculty.

Ordained in The American Baptist Churches, Young has served as minister of education at several churches in the Richmond area and written church school curricula for the denomination. She brings to ATS her experience as a pastoral leader, workshop facilitator, and consultant in Christian education for churches and other organizations.

Her publications include sermons in Preaching Funerals in the Black Church: Bringing Perspective to Pain (Dr. Peter M. Wherry, author/editor, Judson Press, 2013), and Those Preachin Women, Volume 4 (Dr. Ella P. Mitchell, editor, Judson Press, 2004). She is coauthor of “Small Investments Yield Big Rewards: How One Seminary's Faculty, Staff, and Students are Working Together to Put a Dent in the Debt Crisis," an article in the Theological Education journal. Forthcoming publications include “Religious Education and Communities of Learning: Inspiring Religious, Social, and Public Political Activism" in From Lament to Public Advocacy: Black Religious Education and Public Theology.

A graduate of Virginia Union University in mathematics, Young earned her MDiv from Virginia Union and her EdD from Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education.