Meet Our Summit Speakers
Lama Rod Owens
Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner
Gopal Patel
Hilary Giovale
Dr. Melanie Harris
Click on a bio picture or scroll down to learn more about each of our speakers.
Keynote Session
“In so much of my work over the years, l've focused more and more on climate change. I began to understand that for change to happen, we have to return back to the land, but to get back to the land, we have to return back to our bodies,
So much of this work is really the work of grieving. We have to, in a way, grieve our way back to the earth, to the land.”
-Lama Rod Owens
Photo Credit: Mark Tioxon
Meet Keynote Speaker Lama Rod Owens
Lama Rod Owens is a Black Buddhist Southern Queen. An international influencer with a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School. Author of The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors and Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger and co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation, his teachings center on freedom, self-expression, and radical self-care.
A leading voice in a new generation of Buddhist teachers with over 11 years of experience, Lama Rod activates the intersections of his identity to create a platform that’s very natural, engaging, and inclusive. Applauded for his mastery in balancing weighty topics with a sense of lightness, the Queen has been featured by various national and international news outlets.
Highly sought after for talks, retreats, and workshops, his mission is showing you how to heal and free yourself. Wanna keep tabs on what Lama Rod is doing next? Be sure to sign up for his email list here. Stay tuned to his website here for upcoming offerings and click here for bookings and other requests.
Session 4
“The Paradigm of Colonial Control is at the root of climate change. It is hurting all of us, because we are all connected.”
-Hilary Giovale in Kinship and Climate Justice
Meet Session 4 Speaker Hilary Giovale
Hilary Giovale is a mother, writer, and community organizer who lives in Flagstaff, Arizona. A ninth-generation American settler, she is descended from Celtic, Germanic, Nordic, and Indigenous peoples of Ancient Europe. As an active reparationist, Hilary is guided by relationships, love, and intuition. She divests from whiteness and bridges divides with truth, healing, apology, and forgiveness. Hilary seeks to follow Indigenous and Black leadership in support of human rights, environmental justice, and equitable futures. She is the author of Becoming a Good Relative: Calling White Settlers toward Truth, Healing, and Repair (Green Writers Press).
To learn more about her work, visit goodrelative.com.
Session 5
“Perhaps the greatest songs I’ve ever heard sung in the garden were African American spirituals, which made me feel a divine ancestral presence all around. Floating freely in the divine tones of music coming from within my own soul, I danced from flowerbed to flowerbed, admiring and singing the spirituals and sacred songs I learned in church.”
-Dr. Melanie Harris in Ecowomanism: African American Women and Earth-Honoring Faiths
Meet Session 5 Speaker Dr. Melanie Harris
Dr. Melanie L. Harris is Professor of Black Feminist and Womanist Theologies jointly appointed with African American Studies at Wake Forest University. She also serves as the Director of Food, Health and Ecological Well Being at Wake Forest University. A graduate of the Harvard Leadership Program, her administrative leadership focuses on the areas of inclusive excellence, equity and access in higher education, and ethical leadership. Dr. Harris’ scholarship critically examines intersections between race, religion, gender and environmental ethics. She is the author of many scholarly articles and books including Gifts of Virtue: Alice Walker and Womanist Ethics (Palgrave), Ecowomanism: African American Women and Earth Honoring Faiths (Orbis) and co-editor of Faith, Feminism, and Scholarship: The Next Generation (Palgrave) as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters.
Dr. Harris is a former broadcast journalist who worked as a news producer for ABC, CBS, and NBC affiliates. A community leader whose passion for education is linked to a commitment to social justice, she has also served as an educational consultant with the Ford Foundation, the Forum for Theological Exploration, and the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, Lilly Endowment Inc. She is on the executive board of the Society for the Study of Black Religion and has served on the Board of Directors of KERA-TV/Radio, the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Christian Ethics. Dr. Harris has been awarded several prestigious awards and academic fellowships including the AddRan College of Liberal Arts Administration Fellowship and GreenFaith Fellowship. Dr. Harris earned her PhD and M.A. degrees from Union Theological Seminary in The City of New York, an M. Div. from Iliff School of Theology and a B.A. from Spelman College.
