The main purposes of IAPT are of an academic nature. Therefore, one can come to know IAPT by reading publications, conversations with members, and attending conferences (upon invitation). There is, however, also an organizational dimension to it. The executive committee (see below) and by-laws provide insight into IAPT as an organization.

Executive Committee

 

Mai-Anh Le Tran (President)

Mai-Anh Le Tran (she/her) is associate professor of religious education and practical theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary (Evanston, Illinois, USA). Her teaching, research, and service reflect commitments to interdisciplinary, inter-institutional and transnational collaborations. She is past president of the Religious Education Association; past member of the executive committee of the Association of Practical Theology; past member of the advisory committee for faculty development and the editorial sub-committee of the Committee on Race and Ethnicity for the Association of Theological Schools; former public accreditation commissioner for the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education. She is current co-editor of the Horizons in Religious Education book series of the Religious Education Association and served over ten years on the Steering Committee of the Association of Asian North American Theological Educators. Her recent research, teaching, and writing trace practical theological understandings of race, violence, the Vietnamese refugee and diasporic experience, creativity and imagination for transformative religious leadership. An ordained United Methodist elder and theological educator with multiple belongings, she has studied, taught, and engaged in research partnerships with faculties in nearly 20 countries and has contributed to the teaching ministries of local ecclesial and denominational bodies. She is the author of Reset the Heart: Unlearning Violence, Relearning Hope, and is currently taking up photography for the study of arts-based research and activism. https://www.garrett.edu/directories/mai-anh-le-tran/

 

Néstor Medina (Vice-President)

Néstor Medina is a Guatemalan-Canadian Scholar and Associate professor of Religious Ethics and Culture. He engages the field of ethics from contextual, liberationist, intercultural, and Post and Decolonial perspectives. He studies the intersections between people’s cultures, histories, ethnoracial relations, and forms of knowledge in religious and theoethical traditions. He also studies Pentecostalism in the Americas. He was the recipient of a First Book Grant for Minority Scholars (2014) and a Project Grant for Researchers (2018). He is currently working on the ethnoracial relations during colonial Latin America and the influence of religion in those relations. Néstor has extensive experience teaching in various cultural contexts and settings. He has taught for the Atlantic School of Theology, Brite Divinity School, Regent University and Conrad Grebel University College. For the last 12 years, Néstor has participated with the United Church as a part of the People in Partnership program by going to Cuba and teaching at the Seminario Evangélico de Teología (SET). Néstor is also an ordained minister of the United Church of Canada. Néstor is the author of Mestizaje: (Re)Mapping Race, Culture, and Faith in Latina/o Catholicism (Orbis Books 2009) and Christianity, Empire and the Spirit (Brill 2018). He is also the author of numerous book chapters and articles. Besides teaching and researching, He enjoys good food from different cultural backgrounds. https://www.emmanuel.utoronto.ca/about-emmanuel/facultystaff-directory/nestor-medina/

 

Hee-Kyu Heidi Park (Secretary)

Hee-Kyu Heidi Park is Associate Professor of Practical Theology and Pastoral Counseling in the Department of Christian Studies at Ewha Womans University, Seoul. Her scholarship explores the intersections of theology, psychology, and postcolonial cultural critique, with particular attention to collective trauma, spiritual formation, and decolonial methodologies. Drawing from her transnational experience, Park engages the “third space” as a theological vantage point for addressing complex spiritual and cultural realities. Her recent monograph, The Movement of the Heart: Understanding Biblical Engagement for Transformation, examines lay spiritual transformation through Bible reading, using psychological and postcolonial frameworks. Building on this work, her current research develops the theological concept of “spectrality” to explore the spiritual experiences of Korean and Korean American communities shaped by colonization, neoliberalism, Cold War trauma, and the climate crisis. Park is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the founding supervisor of South Korea’s first Queer Christian Counseling Program. She also serves as a consultant and facilitator at the Good Samaritan House for refugees. She sits on the editorial boards of the Journal for Pastoral Theology and Brill’s Theology in Practice series, and has held leadership roles with the Society for Pastoral Theology, the American Academy of Religion, and the International Academy of Practical Theology.

Website: http://www.ewha.ac.kr/ewha/professor/info.do?mode=view&pId=SJZl%2FSgem9ayyqibbALoqA%3D%3D.

On the top of the website, there is a house icon, which is linked to an English-language site: https://sites.google.com/ewha.ac.kr/heekyupark/

 

Theo Pleizier (Treasurer)

Theo Pleizier (PhD) is an associate professor of Practical Theology at the Protestant Theological University, Utrecht, The Netherlands. He teaches practical theology, research methods, pastoral care and counselling and homiletics at BA, MA and PhD levels. He was president of Societas Homiletica (2022-2024) and serves at the board of IAPT as treasurer. He is research fellow at the department of Practical Theology & Missiology of the Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch, South Africa. He is an ordained minister and served two congregations in the Protestant Church of the Netherlands. Among his current research projects are: practical theology & Grounded Theory, homiletics for a digital age, and retrieving the soul for a theology of pastoral care and counselling. His most recent co-authored book is Spiritual Formation in Local Faith Communities (2022).
University profile: Dr. T.T.J. Pleizier – Introduction – Protestant Theological University
Research portal: T.T.J. Pleizier – Protestant Theological University Research Portal

 

Joyce Ann Mercer (Member at Large)

Joyce Ann Mercer is the Horace Bushnell Professor of Christian Nurture and Professor of Practical Theology and Pastoral Care, and Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Yale University Divinity School in New Haven, CT (USA). She has been a member of IAPT since 2007. Her recent research engages practical theological approaches to children and climate emotions, particularly children’s anxiety and grief in the face of climate change. Other ongoing interests include congregational studies and ethnography; conflict transformation practices; practical theological wisdom for addressing collective and historical trauma; theologies of childhood; and pastoral care with persons struggling with mental health issues and addictions. Joyce is the editor-in-chief of the journal Religious Education. She has served on the editorial board of the Brill Theology in Practice series since its inception and coedited one of its volumes, Conundrums in Practical Theology, with Bonnie Miller McLemore. A past president of the Association of Practical Theology (USA), Joyce is also a former chair and current steering committee member of the Practical Theology Unit in the American Academy of Religion. She brings to her academic work her experience as a licensed clinical social worker and as an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Beyond these various professional commitments, Joyce is an avid hiker, and enjoys mystery novels, Bluegrass and Irish traditional music, theater, camping with her faithful canine companion Bear, and spending time with her three young adult children. https://divinity.yale.edu/faculty-and-research/yds-faculty/joyce-mercer

 

Sabrina Müller (Member-at-Large)

Prof. Dr. Sabrina Müller is the Chair of Practical Theology at the University of Bonn, Germany, and also serves as a project leader for the University Research Priority Program “Digital Religion(s)” at the University of Zurich. She co-chairs the Practical Theology Unit of the AAR and serves as a board member of ISERT. Her work focuses on digital, empirical, postcolonial, and feminist theologies, spanning all areas of Practical Theology and church innovation. Müller has authored six monographs (four in English), edited anthologies and journals, and publishes in leading theological journals. With research experience beyond continental Europe, she brings a strong international perspective to her teaching and scholarship. Sabrina greatly enjoys spending time in nature, tending to her self-sufficient garden, and taking long walks with her four dogs. She is also an ordained minister of the Reformed Church of Switzerland.
Website: https://www.etf.uni-bonn.de/de/fakultaet/praktische-theologie-religionspaedagogik/team/sm
Website: https://www.theologie.uzh.ch/de/faecher/praktisch/privatdozierende/mueller/mueller.html