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Senior Fellow

Alana Ackerson

D.Min., San Francisco Theological Seminary
M.A., Graduate Theological Union
B.A., Stanford University

Alana is a Senior Fellow for Newbigin House with a focus on spiritual formation. In this role she provides pastoral support for fellows and cohort leaders in the Newbigin Fellowship. An alumna of the Newbigin Fellows Program, she earned a Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction from San Francisco Theological Seminary, where she is currently a doctoral candidate.

Most recently, Alana served as CEO of The Thiel Foundation, where she led the organization’s efforts to support the next-generation of entrepreneurs and to promote radical scientific and technological innovations. She was responsible for setting strategic priorities; overseeing grant-making; operating internal programs focused on education and technological innovation; facilitating relationships with key partners; and developing more effective approaches to venture philanthropy.

Alana is currently Managing Partner and President of Signum Investments. Previously, she served as President and Partner of Cabezon Investment Group, VP of Social Engagement for SoFi, and Director of Clarium Capital.  Alana is a member of the Board of Governors for Opportunity International, sits on the Board for the Association of Women in Alternative Investing and serves on the Leadership Council for the Classy Awards.

Director of Theological Education

Peter Choi

Ph.D., University of Notre Dame
M.Div., Calvin Theological Seminary
B.A., Pomona College

Peter Choi is Director of Academic Programs at Newbigin House of Studies and a pastor at City Church San Francisco. He has taught history of Christianity courses at Calvin Theological Seminary and the University of Notre Dame. Prior to that, he served for seven years as a pastor in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

A historian of eighteenth century North America, Peter’s areas of specialization include transatlantic revival religion, early evangelicalism, and world Christianity. His research has been funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Huntington Library, and the Library Company of Philadelphia.

Selected Publications
• Subverting Faith: Early Evangelicals and the Making of Race (under contract with Oxford University Press).
• George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire (Eerdmans, 2018).
• “The City’s Grace,” in Urban Ministry Reconsidered: Contexts and Considerations (Westminster John Knox Press, 2018).
• “Whitefield, Georgia, and the Quest for Bethesda College,” in George Whitefield: Life, Context, and Legacy (Oxford University Press, 2016).
• “Revival Preacher, Pop Idol, and Revolutionary, Too?” Books & Culture 21.1 (January/February 2014): 17.

Senior Fellow

Chuck DeGroat

Chuck is professor of pastoral care and counseling at Western Theological Seminary (Holland, MI). He is committed to spiritual and emotional formation for the sake of mission. His experience is represented in a fluid combination of pastoral ministry and seminary training for 20 years. He has served several church plants as a teaching pastor and has started two church-based clinical counseling centers.

His academic specialization is in the intersection of psychology and the Bible, represented best in his book Leaving Egypt: Finding God in the Wilderness Places (Square Inch) – a narrative biblical paradigm for understanding counseling, care, mission, and formation.  His next book, The Toughest People to Love (Eerdmans), focuses on caring for the most difficult people leaders encounter.  His third book, Wholeheartedness (Eerdmans), was released in February 2016. He is an ordained minister in the Reformed Church in America, a member of City Classis (the RCA’s urban, missional classis), and he holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology.

Director of Operations

Nic Hughes

Nic is director of operations at Newbigin House. He has spent the past 14 years as a management consultant in a diverse range of industries. His focus has been on creating strategic and operational frameworks that empower executives to implement their vision. He now brings this gift and experience to the Newbigin House team. Nic lives in Portland with his wife and two daughters.

Teaching Fellow

Mihee Kim-Kort

Mihee Kim-Kort is an ordained Presbyterian (PCUSA) minister with degrees in divinity and theology from Princeton Theological Seminary and English Literature and Religious Studies from the University of Colorado in beautiful Boulder. She is a PhD student in Religious Studies at Indiana University interested in American religious history, Asian American literature, Black feminism, queer theory and political theologies.

Currently, she juggles various jobs including being a wife to another Presbyterian minister, raising three children, itinerant preaching and speaking, writing, hanging out with young people, struggling with being an Enneagram 7, rabble-rousing in Bloomington, and liking too many posts on Facebook and admiring people on Twitter and Instagram. Born in Seoul, Korea, she and her parents immigrated here shortly after her birth. Settling in Colorado, she was baptized in a Methodist church before her family joined the local Korean Presbyterian (PCUSA) church. It was here that she learned the faith from an African American, who was a respected Elder and teacher in the church, and from a little old lady that was the wife of the former pastor of the white Presbyterian congregation that shared the building with the church.

She loves all things Church, and believes in what God is doing in and through it despite the huge failings and egos that plague the all-too-human institution. But, because it was born out of the margins where God’s spirit has always moved and been present she is doing everything she can to see it and help others to feel it, too.

Senior Fellow

Daniel Kirk

Ph.D., Duke University

Daniel is a New Testament scholar whose work takes place at the intersection of history, biblical interpretation, and real life.

Daniel’s most recent book, A Man Attested by God: The Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, was awarded “Best Book Related to the New Testament” in the 2017 Biblical Archaeology Society book awards.

His other works include Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? and before that, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God.

Senior Fellow

Liz Lin

Ph.D., Fuller Theological Seminary
B.A., University of Michigan

Liz is a Senior Fellow at Newbigin House of Studies and a writer and speaker on the topics of race and culture. She has a PhD in clinical psychology, as well as master’s degrees in psychology and theology, from Fuller Theological Seminary. Previously, she taught in Fuller’s Graduate School of Psychology and worked in high school ministry. She is also the co-founder of Progressive Asian American Christians, an online community of 5,000 people with local meetups in 17 cities, a podcast, an annual conference, and a 9-month fellowship program.

Teaching Fellow

Julie Rodgers

Julie is a Teaching Fellow at Newbigin House of Studies and a writer and speaker on faith and sexuality. She has a Masters in English from the University of Dallas and she’s written about topics related to LGBTQ Christians in The New York Times and Washington Post, among other publications. Previously, Julie served in the Chaplain’s Office at Wheaton College and worked in high school ministry in West Dallas. She loves long runs, heartbreaking books, and sharing life with her wife, Amanda, in Washington, DC.

Senior Fellow

Shirin Shafaie

Ph.D., SOAS, University of London

Dr Shirin Shafaie studied Philosophy (BA) and Philosophy of Art (MA) in Iran, and Middle East Politics (MSc), and Film and TV (MA) in the UK. She completed her doctoral research on ‘Contemporary Iranian War Narratives: A Dialectical Discourse Analysis’ at SOAS, University of London, where she has taught Middle East Politics to post-graduate students. She is a research fellow at the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies (CMCS) in Oxford where she has worked as a member of the research group on ‘Reading the Bible in the Context of Islam’ and is currently writing a monograph on ‘Reading Gen. 37- 50 in conversation with Shia Islam’ focusing on topics such as Genealogy, Nation-Building, Dream and Interpretation, Seduction, Imprisonment, Leadership, amongst others. Shirin is also the founder and director of Visual Academics Ltd., an independent film production and training organisation that helps academics to use video as part of their research to increase impact and improve public engagement.

Executive Director

Scot Sherman

Ph.D., University of Wales
Th.M., Princeton Theological Seminary
M.Div., Westminster Theological Seminary

Scot Sherman is the Executive Director of the Newbigin House of Studies, a center for graduate theological education and spiritual formation based in San Francisco. He oversees the Newbigin Fellowship, a nine-month intensive training program that seeks to provide a framework for wise integration of faith, work, and life, and hosts the speaker series Conversations For the Common Good.

Scot’s doctoral dissertation focused on the early ecumenical influence of the British missionary-theologian Lesslie Newbigin, a pioneer in thinking through the challenges facing churches in the contemporary West. He is currently working on his first book, an exploration of the ideas of the French philosopher and social theorist René Girard.

Scot lives with his wife, Catherine, and they have four sons. He loves opera, detective fiction, playing the piano, and goes wine tasting as often as possible.

Senior Fellow

Paul Weston

Ph.D., Kings College London

Paul teaches mission studies at Ridley Hall, Cambridge and in the Cambridge Federation, and is the Director of the Newbigin Centre for Gospel and Western Culture in Cambridge, England.

As a teacher he aims to excite students with the breath-taking wonder of God’s good news and to explore how this can be understood and communicated in today’s world. Along the way he looks to uncover the unexamined assumptions of our contemporary (increasingly secularised) culture in the West, exploring how they came to be, and how they might be addressed in the light of the good news. Over the years Paul has taught a number of courses in this area (both here and abroad), and he enjoys the way in which it brings together a number of disciplines, including theology, history, philosophy, sociology and cultural studies.

As Director of the Newbigin Centre for Gospel and Western Culture, Paul oversees research students working for Masters and Doctoral degrees in association with the Centre, and in partnership with the Newbigin House of Studies in San Francisco, hosts the annual ‘Lesslie Newbigin Summer Institute’ at Trinity Hall Cambridge, with attendees from the States, Europe, and Asia.