Berkley Center

Agnes R. M. Abuom, who passed away in June 2023, was the moderator of the World Council of Churches' Central Committee from 2013 to 2022—the first African and first female to do so. She represented the Anglican Church of Kenya on the World Council of Churches' governing bodies; in 2017 she was awarded the Lambeth Cross for Ecumenism by the archbishop of Canterbury. She received her master's degree and doctorate from the University of Uppsala.

R. Scott Appleby is the Marilyn Keough Dean of the Keough School of Global Affairs and a professor of history at the University of Notre Dame. He co-directs, with Ebrahim Moosa and Atalia Omer, the Contending Modernities project, which explores the interaction among Catholic, Muslim, and secular forces in the modern world. Appleby is a graduate of Notre Dame and has both his master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago.

Dr. Benedict D’Rozario worked for Caritas Bangladesh from 1987 through 2016, serving as the executive director from 2005 until his retirement in June 2016. D'Rozario serves as the chair of Caritas Internationalis Committee for Institutional Development and Capacity Strengthening. He is also a member of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life. D'Rozario serves on the government of Bangladesh's National Steering Committee for Rural Development Policy and is a member of the Humanitarian Advisory Council of Caritas Internationalis in Rome. D’Rozario obtained his second M.Sc. from the University of Portland and his Ph.D. from the University of Bath. The title of his Ph.D. thesis is Factors Influencing the Growth of Sustainable People’s Organization at the Grassroot Level: The Case of Caritas DEEDS and Sangathan in Bangladesh.

Thomas Lawo is a senior advisor at the German Society for International Cooperation (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), attached to the secretariat of the International Partnership for Religion and Sustainable Development in Bonn, Germany. He has worked in development cooperation full time since 1978. Through this, he has served as a country and resident representative for the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, general secretary of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes and executive director of its international secretariat, research fellow at the Asian and Pacific Development Centre in Kuala Lumpur, and associate fellow at the Institute for Development Studies, among other roles.

Katherine Marshall, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, leads the center’s work on religion and global development. She is also a professor of the practice of development, conflict, and religion in the Walsh School of Foreign Service, teaching diverse courses on the ethics of development work and mentoring students at many levels. She helped to create and now serves as the executive director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue, an NGO that works to enhance bridges between different sectors and institutions. In September 2022, she was appointed as a member of the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Marshall has five decades of experience on a variety of development issues in Africa, Latin America, East Asia, and the Middle East, particularly those facing the world’s poorest countries; one way she shares her expertise is through her blog Faith in Action. She was a World Bank officer from 1971 to 2006, and she led the World Bank’s faith and ethics initiative between 2000 and 2006. Marshall is a member of the Working Group on Child Rights and Family Values and the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, both part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Miguel von Hoegen is an economist who has served twice as the secretary of planning and once as vice-minister of urban and rural development in Guatemala. At Rafael Landivar University, he has been dean of the School of Economic Sciences, director of the Economics and Social Research Institute, head of the university seminar in social market economics, professor of economics and statistics, and a member of the Board of Trustees. He has written 50 publications in the fields of economics, social development, and community participation in local policies. He has an undergraduate degree from Rafael Landivar University and master's degrees from the University of New Mexico and from McMaster University.