This year we launched our Graduate Prize in Public Theology! After reviewing many wonderful submissions, we are proud to announce our first winner Dr. Jennifer Carlier!

Jenn Carlier is a Louisville Institute Post-Doctoral Fellow at Candler School of Theology, where she teaches ethics and theology. Jenn's work focuses on the encounter between lived experience and theology and seeks to retrieve theologies and practices that are liberative for underrepresented communities, especially those struggling with addiction and mental health issues. Her research interests include feminist and queer theologies, the intersection of theology and mental health, and metaphorical theology. She is an active member of Kirkwood United Church of Christ, where she is a youth mentor and an advocate for reducing the stigma around mental health and addiction.

Chauncey Diego Francisco Handy is a PhD student in Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary and a teaching elder—minister of Word and Sacrament—in the PC(USA). He received a M.Div. from Duke Divinity School and a MA in Bible from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Handy’s identity as a Chicano frames his research on the nature of ethnicity and belonging in the book of Deuteronomy. With Latinx concepts of identity, theories of ethnicity, and tools of historical criticism he explores the Pentateuch’s complex relationship to forming ancient Israelite/Jewish ethnicity.

 In his spare time, he enjoys practicing kung fu, cooking new recipes with his wife, Cate for their 16 month old daughter, Clara.