Education Team

Katy has long been interested in raising awareness through education and training to create environments where individuals can show up as their full selves. Prior to leading HIU’s Executive and Professional Education, she led a Dementia Friendly America Community Initiative in CT. 

​

​

​

​

​

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.

​

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.  

​

​

​

​

​

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.

​

​

​

​

​

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.

​

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. 

​

Dr. Timur R. Yuskaev is Associate Professor of Contemporary Islam and Editor of The Muslim World journal.  His book, Speaking Qur’an: the Emergence of an American Sacred Text, examines contemporary written and oral interpretations of the Qur’an.  

​

​

​

​

​

Chaplain Jawad Bayat, an ACPE Certified Educator, is Manager of Pastoral Care and Clinical Pastoral Education at Penn Medicine Princeton House Behavioral Health (Princeton, NJ), where he is the primary chaplain for inpatients, provides outpatient coverage, and supports staff members. 

​

​

​

​

​

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.

​

​

​

​

​

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.

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.

​

​