Roberto Che Espinoza, Ph.D., was born to a Mexican woman and Anglo father in the piney woods of East Texas, where he first learned that the red clay between his toes was called ‘dirt’. He locates himself in the entangled history of violence, colonialism, and war. Roberto Che is born of Mestizaje histories and he holds both colonizer and Indigenous histories in his material, creaturely body.

He has always been compelled by the big ideas:

Why are we here?

What does it mean to be human?

Is there a God?

How do we come to know truth, goodness, and beauty?

Roberto Che is on The Way, having completed his undergraduate degree in theology, leadership, and biblical languages at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas. He then left his native land of Northern Mexico (the Republic of Texas) for the Midwest, relocating to Chicago. For the next three years, he attended Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary after his professors urged him to study with Dr. Nancy Elizabeth Bedford, a Latin American theologian. In Chicago, Roberto Che found belonging in radical queer and Marxist communities.

Following seminary, Roberto Che worked for three years with victims of domestic violence, and then with the Illinois State Attorney General’s Office. This work deepened the native Texan’s understanding of the importance of theology, as both an anchor and a path forward in our lives, and he felt the call to do further study. With a clear understanding that he would use knowledge as fuel for social change, he entered the University of Denver’s Iliff School of Theology, in Colorado, to pursue a Ph.D. in Activist Theology, immersing in the fields of intellectual activism, religion and social change, from a theological, ethical and philosophical perspective. 

It was during this time that he fell in love with words, noticing how phrases can come to life and seem to dance on a page. Though trained as a Constructive Philosophical Theologian and Philosophical Ethicist, he now identifies as a writer, devoted to the craft of nurturing the search for Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Roberto Che values both the complexities of philosophical thinking and writing while also holding closely to the simplicities of life, like supporting local farmers and nurturing the ecologies of relations in which he is entangled.

Knowing that he wanted to live theology as a daily practice and enact another possible world, Roberto Che recently returned to the ‘ivory tower’ and earned a Doctor of Ministry degree at Drew Theological School in Madison, NJ. Electing the Courageous Leadership Track, Roberto Che learned more concretely how to practice theology at the end of empire. He is proud to have been supervised by Dr. Catherine Keller as he worked on developing a Trans/Christology for local communities.

Roberto Che lives in the entangled forests of New York’s Southern Tier, with Erin, his wife, who is a dance educator, movement artist, and somatic facilitator. They make their home with their four cats, Frida, Diego, Karl Marx, and Ernesto Che Guevara who are his best teachers, as he nestles back into the natural world, complete with the red clay into which he was born, which calls him home. 

Jeff Koetje, M.D., a graduate of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, is currently Director of Business and Strategy for Pre-Health Programs in Kaplan Test Prep’s national office, where he has also served as a director of Kaplan Partner Solutions, a higher education consulting team within Kaplan Test Prep, which supports diversity, enrichment, and education equity programs. Since discovering that his interests were less related to clinical medicine or biomedical research, and more related to the systems of education through which future professionals are developed, he has worked in various capacities in the “interstitia” of formal education. In 2012 – 2016, Dr. Koetje served as Director of Education and Experiences for the American Medical Student Association (AMSA), in which capacity he developed national programming and educational opportunities related to the social mission of medical education. He’s currently serving AMSA as a member of the AMSA Foundation Board of Directors. Dr. Koetje is motivated in his personal and professional life by a deep commitment to anti-racist, intersectional feminist, and queer advocacy for structural transformation in the (pre/medical) educational context.

Erin Law (they/them) has a background in dance, somatics, bodywork and cultural studies. Their call and vocation is to facilitate educational spaces rooted in creative embodied practice that supports people and communities who are ready and willing to recover from supremacy culture and lean into collective liberation. Erin facilitates and engages in practices, analysis, advocacy, and activism to contribute to the transformation and alchemy of systemic oppression/supremacy culture, toward the blossoming of a more resilient and whole humanity. Erin is indebted to their family, and all of their teachers, students, and colleagues who have challenged and inspired them.