Jeremy Begbie is Thomas A. Langford Distinguished Professor in Theology at Duke Divinity
School and McDonald Agape Director and founder of Duke Initiatives in Theology and the
Arts. He teaches systematic theology, specializing in the interface between theology and
the arts. His particular interest is the interplay between music and theology.
Educated largely in Scotland, before studying theology at Aberdeen and Cambridge, he read
music and philosophy at Edinburgh University. Holding piano performing and teaching
qualifications, he is also an oboist, and a Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music.
He is author of numerous books, including A Peculiar Orthodoxy: Reflections on Theology
and the Arts, Redeeming Transcendence in the Arts: Bearing Witness to the Triune God,
Theology, Music and Time, Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music, and
Music, Modernity, and God.

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Peter Q. Blair is on the faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education where he co-directs the Project on Workforce. He serves as a faculty research fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and the principal investigator of the BE-Lab — a research group with partners from Harvard University, Clemson University, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His group’s research focuses on the link between the future of work and the future of education, labor market discrimination, occupational licensing, and residential segregation.

Blair received his Ph.D. in applied economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, his M.Sc. in theoretical physics from Harvard University, and his B.Sc. in physics and mathematics from Duke University. He is the youngest of his parents’ seven sons, and got his start understanding markets by selling fruit and vegetables in the Bahamas in the Nassau Straw Market with his brothers.

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Andy Crouch is partner for theology and culture at Praxis, a venture-building ecosystem advancing redemptive entrepreneurship. His writing explores faith, culture, and the image of God in the domains of technology, power, leadership, and the arts. He is the author of five books (plus another with his daughter, Amy Crouch): The Life We're Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World, The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place, Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing, Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power, and Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling.

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Christine Emba is a writer at The Atlantic, and a former Op-Ed columnist and editor at The Washington Post, where she focused on ideas and society. She is also the author of Rethinking Sex: A Provocation, on the failures and potential of sexual ethics in a post- #MeToo world. Before coming to The Post in 2015, Christine was the Hilton Kramer Fellow in Criticism at the New Criterion and a deputy editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit, focusing on technology and innovation. Christine holds an A.B. in public and international affairs from Princeton University and lives in Washington, DC.

Australian violinist Sarita Kwok has distinguished herself as a charismatic and powerful performer whose passion for performing is matched only by her commitment to education, cultural leadership and academic innovation.

Frequently sought after as a chamber musician and soloist, Kwok is a founding member of the Arabella String Quartet, an ensemble that rapidly developed a reputation for its remarkable artistry. Their first recording, "In the Moment" (Naxos, 2017), was praised by The Strad magazine as “an artfully balanced mix of rarities … this is a fine disc, the Arabella digging deep to produce performances of great intensity and poise”. The quartet’s most recent recording of Six Concertante Quartets by Chevalier de Saint-Georges (Naxos, 2022) has also garnered extensive praise. BBC Music Magazine reported "there’s certainly no lack of prowess in these delightful performances ... This is wonderful advocacy of enchanting music".

Kwok has appeared on concert series and festivals throughout the United States including the Embassy Series (Washington, DC), Flagler Museum Series (Florida), Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music, Rockport Chamber Music Festival and in performances at Weill and Zankel recital halls at Carnegie Hall. Abroad she has performed at the Aldeburgh festival, Aix-en-Provence festival, at Sapporo’s Kitara Hall (Japan), Villa Medici (Italy), the Théâtre du Jeu de Paume, and Salle Olivier Messaien (France), Melbourne Concert Hall and Sydney Opera House (Australia). She is an artist member of the Boston-based Mistral Music and also performs as a substitute player with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops during their regular season at Symphony Hall and at Tanglewood. A persuasive advocate of contemporary music, Kwok recorded Ezra Laderman’s last three string quartets with the Alianza Quartet for Albany Records to critical acclaim. More recently, her recording on Starkland records of Martin Bresnick’s Josephine the Singer for solo violin was described by Gramophone as “gorgeously executed”.

For eight years, Kwok served as Director of the undergraduate lessons program at Yale School of Music while concurrently serving on the faculty of the Yale Department of Music. She is the inaugural recipient of the Adams Endowed Chair in Music at Gordon College, Wenham, MA, and since 2014 has been Chair of the Department of Music and Professor of Music. A respected pedagogue, Kwok has given masterclasses at institutions such as the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, Longy School of Music at Bard College, MIT, Credo Festival Oberlin, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Additionally she has presented at the American String Teacher Association National Conference (2022 and 2023) on topics of diversity, inclusion and equity in violin studio teaching.

Kwok received the Doctor of Musical Arts and Artist diploma degrees from the Yale School of Music, where she was a student of Syoko Aki and the Tokyo String Quartet. She performs on a violin from 1736 by Italian maker Johannes Florenus Guidantus and a bow by Joseph Arthur Vigneron.

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Esau McCaulley, PhD is an author and The Jonathan Blanchard Associate Professor of New Testament and Public Theology at Wheaton College. His writing and speaking focus on New Testament Exegesis, African American Biblical Interpretation, and Public Theology. He has authored numerous books including, Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope, which won numerous awards including Christianity Today’s Book of the Year. Esau also served as the editor of New Testament in Color: A Multi-Ethnic Commentary on the New Testament. On the popular level, Esau’s recent memoir, How Far to the Promised Land, was named by Amazon as a top five non-fiction book of 2023. He has also penned works for children, including Josey Johnson’s Hair and the Holy Spirit and Andy Johnson and the March for Justice. Esau is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. His writings have also appeared in places such as The Atlantic, Washington Post, and Christianity Today.

Warren Kinghorn is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center; Esther Colliflower Associate Professor of the Practice of Pastoral and Moral Theology at Duke Divinity School; co-director of the Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative at Duke Divinity School; and a staff psychiatrist at the Durham VA Medical Center. His work centers on the role of religious communities in caring for persons with mental health problems and on ways in which Christians engage practices of modern health care. He is author of Wayfaring: A Christian Approach to Mental Health Care (Eerdmans, 2024) and co-author with Abraham Nussbaum of Prescribing Together: A Relational Guide to Psychopharmacology (American Psychiatric Association Publishing 2021).

Karin Öberg is Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University. Her specialty is astrochemistry and her research aims to uncover how chemical processes affect the outcome of planet formation, especially the chemical habitability of nascent planets. Her research group approaches this question through laboratory experiments, simulating the exotic chemistry that gives rise to chemical complexity in space, through astrochemical modeling, and through astronomical observations of molecules in planet-forming disks around young stars. Dr. Öberg left Sweden for Caltech in 2001, where she graduated with a B.Sc. in chemistry in 2005. Four years later she obtained a Ph.D. in astronomy, with a thesis focused on laboratory astrochemistry. In 2009 she moved to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics with a Hubble fellowship, focusing on millimeter observations of protoplanetary disks. In 2013 she became an assistant professor in astronomy, was promoted and named the Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor in Astronomy in 2016, and promoted to full professor in 2017. Dr. Öberg’s research in astrochemistry has been recognized with a Sloan fellowship, a Packard fellowship. the AAS Newton Lacy Pierce Award, and a Simons fellowship.

Fr. Timothy Danaher, O.P. is the Director and Chaplain at Aquinas House, the Catholic Student Center at Dartmouth College. He grew up in Steubenville, OH, where he attended Franciscan University, studying American Literature and Theology. He is a Dominican friar and was ordained in 2018 in Washington D.C. after graduate studies and ministry focused on hospital and Hispanic settings. Before arriving at AQ, he served for three years at St. Patrick’s Church in Philadelphia, PA. He hosts an occasional podcast with two other Dominicans called Friars and Film.

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Jess Ray is a singer-songwriter-producer from Raleigh, North Carolina. Her particular musical brand, affectionately dubbed “friendly folk,” is an enchanting blend of indie pop vibes and lyric-driven sensibility. Jess’ decade-long musical journey has weaved in and out of Christian spaces, mainstream circles, from house concerts to historic venues like the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, and from solo shows to sharing the stage with her heroes. Her music, much like herself, occupies two worlds effortlessly. Intensely spiritual yet deeply real, her songs soar with joy and hope without ignoring the reality of our human struggle.

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Molly Worthen is an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a freelance journalist. She received her PhD from Yale University. Her research focuses on North American religious and intellectual history. Her forthcoming book is Spellbound: How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Trump (Random House, 2025). Previous books include Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism (Oxford 2014). She has also created courses for Audible and The Great Courses on the history of global Christianity since the Reformation and on charismatic leaders in American history.

Worthen writes regularly about religion, politics, and higher education for the New York Times and has also written for the New Yorker, Slate, the Atlantic, and other publications.

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Peter serves as the Director of the Augustine Collective and Veritas Institute at The Veritas Forum, helping to support student publications at universities across the country. While attending Dartmouth College, he was the third editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth Apologia, one of the first publications in the Augustine Collective network. After graduating, Peter served as a writer and an editor at The American Interest, a magazine of politics and culture in Washington, DC. He then joined Thomistic Institute, an academic institute in DC, where he was the Campus Program Coordinator. Peter occasionally writes on a freelance basis, and he tweets at @PeterAWBlair.

Ashley Byrd is the Director of Forums and leads the effort to support campus partners to design and host forums that model discourse about life’s biggest questions across different worldviews characterized by intellectual humility and rigor. Previously, Ashley served as Regional Director for Veritas, where he coached planning teams in New York and New Jersey.

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As a graduate of Columbia University, he developed a love for the campus that led him to serve students and faculty there as a Religious Life Advisor through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship for 17 years. Ashley currently lives with his wife Carly and his daughters in Kailua, Hawaii.

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Charlie holds an A.B. in Classical Archaeology from Dartmouth College, where he was editor-in-chief of the Dartmouth Apologia, and a J.D. from the University of Tennessee College of Law. He was a founding editor of Fare Forward. He currently serves as executive director of the Wheelock Society, a network of Christian alumni fostering the integration of faith, reason, and vocation at Dartmouth.

Timothy serves as Forums Program Manager for The Veritas Forum. Before joining Veritas, he has pastored college students at Rice University, served as a worship leader and church musician, and directed operations for the Credo Festival. He holds a BMus in Viola Performance from Rice University and an MTS in Bible from Duke Divinity School.

Timothy and his wife Sophia now live near Ann Arbor, MI. They spend their free time cycling and kayaking around Southeast Michigan, reading (preferably with large mugs of tea or coffee in hand), and playing with their two cats, Clive and Staples.

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Haley serves as the Director of Operations & Strategic Initiatives, where she facilitates strategic collaborative projects and works to implement the cohesion of Veritas Forum's operational systems. She brings experience as a Higher Education administrator and a consultant for nonprofit organizations. Haley holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and a MS in Nonprofit Management from Columbia University. She lives on Cape Cod with her husband and rescue dog Koda.

Seth Freeman most recently joined New York University Stern School of Business in 2007.

Professor Freeman's expertise is in conflict management and negotiation, and he teaches a variety of courses on the subject at Stern. He has also taught at programs around the world including Sun Yat-Sen University's EMBA program in Guanzhou, China, and Bordeaux School of Management in France. He also teaches at Columbia University.

He has an active training and consulting practice and has trained leaders at the United Nations, at leading law firms, Fortune 500 companies, church groups, and non-profits. He also regularly teaches at Stern Executive Education.

Professor Freeman is the creator and presenter of the Great Courses™ The Art of Negotiating the Best Deal. His columns and interviews have been published in the New York Times, Time magazine, the Washington Post, Fortune, Bloomberg TV, USA Today, and other major media.

His research focuses on ‘building golden bridges’- ways that, by design, help wary people together find harmony and prosperity.

Prior to his academic career, he practiced corporate and securities law with large firms in New York. His work in private practice included transactions involving initial public offerings, corporate restructurings and aircraft financing. A trained mediator, Professor Freeman has also served as a mediator for the Queens Mediation Center.

Professor Freeman received his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and his B.A. in Economics from Cornell University.

Justin recently completed his dissertation from Yale University’s Department of Religious Studies, where he studies virtue ethics and political theory. He is currently a researcher in bioethics at Columbia University Medical School.

Moriah serves as Program Manager for the Augustine Collective at the Veritas Forum. Prior to joining Veritas, she was assistant editor at First Things, a journal of religion and public life in New York City. She holds a BA in English from Baylor University and an MAR in Religion and Literature from Yale Divinity School. Moriah currently lives in New Haven, Connecticut, where in her free time she enjoys kayaking in Connecticut’s many waterways.

Vivian serves as Forums Program Coordinator for the Veritas Forum. An Oklahoma native, Vivian studied English and Environmental Science at Vanderbilt University before earning her Masters in Theology at Duke Divinity School, where she focused on theology and the arts. Prior to Duke, she lived in Colorado and worked for the Aspen Institute and the Global Warming Mitigation Project. In her free time she loves reading Flannery O’Connor, cooking Thai food, and planning her next backpacking trip. She currently lives in Durham, North Carolina with her husband.

Teal is University Engagement Director and Director of Student Development, Forums, for The Veritas Forum, jumping into Forum planning and student engagement with great excitement. After earning her BA in English at the University of Mary Washington, Teal earned her MA in Religion from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Teal spent a rewarding five years as a Ministry Fellow at Harvard University with Christian Union before joining the team. She lives with her husband Jeff north of Boston where they are always on the hunt for delicious coffee and new running routes.

Ana serves as Forums Program Coordinator for The Veritas Forum. Before joining the Veritas team, she worked in the administrative office of her local church. Her background also includes experience in campus ministry and freelance publication design. Ana received her Bachelor’s degree in the History of Science with a secondary in Comparative Religion from Harvard University. She currently lives north of Boston with her husband, Cam, and their son. Together, they love cooking, playing board games, and hiking Colorado’s tallest peaks.