Education Team

Education Team

Senior Scholar for Continuing and Professional Education

Lucinda Mosher is a prolific author and editor with expertise in interreligious studies, chaplaincy, and Christian-Muslim concerns—and much experience as a keynoter and workshop leader. As senior scholar, she serves as Continuing and Professional Education’s faculty liaison. She also directs HIU’s MA in Interreligious Studies program. She holds a doctorate in Theology from the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church.

Continuing and Professional Education Fellow

Vanessa Avery is Executive Director of Sharing Sacred Spaces, Lecturer in Interreligious Engagement at Yale Divinity School, a Hartford International Executive and Professional Education Fellow, and former Senior Associate in Diversity with Cambridge Hill Partners.  

Director of Field Education

Aida Mansoor is the Director of Field Education at Hartford International.  She also serves in the community and works with the Muslim Coalition of Connecticut and the Islamic Association of Greater Hartford.

Academic Dean; Associate Professor of Jewish Studies

An observant Jewish scholar, Dr. Grant values studying and teaching the Hebrew Bible from a historical-critical perspective and also as it is interpreted and lived out by faith communities. She is currently working on the concept of hate in the Hebrew Bible and has published a Divine Anger in the Hebrew Bible, which explores varying expressions of God’s anger across major biblical collections.

Professor of Islamic Studies and Interreligious Studies, Holder of the Imam Ali Chair in Shia Studies and Dialogue Among Islamic Schools of Thought

Hossein Kamaly holds the Imam Ali Chair in Shia Studies and Dialogue Among Islamic Schools of Thought at Hartford International University. Before obtaining his Ph.D. (2004) and MA (2001), both in history from Columbia University, he had earned an MSc degree in Mathematics, Statistics, and Operations Research from New York University. 

Continuing and Professional Education Fellow

Chaplain Jawad Bayat, an ACPE Certified Educator, is Manager of Clinical Pastoral Education at St. Mary Medical Center. He holds an MA in Islamic Studies and a Graduate Certificate in Islamic Chaplaincy from Hartford International University for Religion and Peace, and a Doctor of Ministry from Ecumenical Theological Seminary

Continuing and Professional Education Fellow

Preeta Banerjee, Ph D is the Hindu Chaplain at Tufts University and a spiritual companion who draws on a broad and deep range of experience, having spent 20 years in academia, coaching and consulting as an advocate, educator, researcher, and author.

Faculty Associate in Muslim Pastoral Theology, Co-Director of MA in Chaplaincy, Director of Islamic Chaplaincy program

A 2011 graduate of Hartford International University’s Islamic Chaplaincy Program, Bilal Ansari holds a DMin from Pacific School of Religion, earning distinction for his dissertation, “Shepherding as Islamic Pastoral Theology: Case Studies in American Muslim Chaplaincy.” As a chaplain, he has served on two military bases in San Diego, CA; in the State of Connecticut corrections system; and for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Faculty Associate in Qur'anic Studies

Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Suheil Laher memorized the Qur’an by the age of fourteen. He holds an MA in Religious Studies from Boston University and a PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Harvard University He has found this academic study to be a valuable part of his personal growth toward a better understanding of the rich tradition of Islam, the place of religion in the modern world, and the danger of the shallow rhetoric of extremists.

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