2025 HSP Exchange
Theme: Latina Church
Host: Rev. Dr. Daisy L. Machado
The HSP Exchange Presents | “Daisy’s Feminista Chats on Church and Latina Leadership”
Tuesday, January 28th, 2024 | Rev. Elizabeth Ríos
Tuesday, February 25th | Rev. Altagracia Pérez Bullard
Tuesday, March 25th | Rev. Dr. Yara González-Justiniano
Tuesday, April 29th | Dr. Teresa Maya
Tuesday, May 27th, 2025 | Rev. Leslie Díaz-Pérez
Tuesday, June 24 (In-Person), 2025 | TBD
General Format:
- 30 Minute Lecture
- 30 Minute Q&A with Dr. Machado
- 30 Minute Q&A with students
- Live Stream
Speakers

Rev. Dr. Altagracia Perez-Bullard
The Rev. Dr. Altagracia Perez-Bullard in the Director of Contextual Ministry and Assistant Professor of Practical Theology at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria. She brings a critical multiracial, multicultural lens to the work of leadership development, especially in urban/congregational contexts. Born in NYC, of Puerto Rican & Dominican parents, she has been in ministry for 40 years, 30 as an Episcopal Priest.

Rev. Dr. Elizabeth “Liz” Rios
Rev. Dr. Elizabeth “Liz” Rios is a Lower East Side Manhattan-raised Afro-Boricua who founded Passion2Plant, one of the few known national church planting networks founded and led by a woman, to teach global majority planters to start holistic, justice-focused churches. She is a spiritual daughter of NYC’s respected institutions, Primitive Christian Church (PCC) and the Latino Pastoral Action Center (LPAC). Dr. Rios also directs the Púlpito Fellows program at Urban Strategies, a compelling preaching initiative funded by Lilly Endowment. The program empowers Latina/o faith leaders to harness technology and social media as transformative tools for ministry by recognizing the digital pulpit as a fertile space for sowing seeds of faith; the program equips fellows to share gospel-centered, justice-oriented messages with digital audiences. Dr. Rios has served as a nonprofit executive, higher education administrator, and pastor. She has also served on several national boards, most recently joining Sojourners, an ecumenical Christian media and advocacy organization that works toward social and racial justice. She teaches, preaches, and writes about women in ministry, workplace culture, civic engagement, and church planting.

Rev. Dr. Yara González-Justiniano
Rev. Dr. Yara González-Justiniano is Assistant Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture with emphasis in Latinx Studies at Vanderbilt University. She is also affiliated faculty of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies. Her most recent book Centering Hope as a Sustainable Decolonial Practice: Esperanza en Práctica (2022), restless with answering the question of what does hope look like amid socioeconomic crisis. Her interdisciplinary approach to this inquiry grounds itself in ethnographic research in hopes of finding practices that enable a hope that can sustain the collective. Her research and teaching interests include Latinx theologies, Latin American Liberation theology, ecclesiology and pastoral theologies, memory studies, postcolonial and decolonial theory, popular culture and film, and popular religion and theologies of hope. She is also ordained minister of the Church (Disciples of Christ) in the Tennessee region.

Dr. Teresa Maya
Sister Teresa Maya is a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word of San Antonio, Texas. Sister Teresa has had a lifelong love for learning that can probably be traced back to her youth when she was taught by the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose. Through her ministry of education, she continued to share this love as a teacher, history professor and administrator. She has a passion for the formation for ministry in every area. Sister Tere believes that formation is one of the best ways to prepare for the future. Sister Teresa earned her BA at Yale, her MA at the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley and her PhD in El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City.

Rev. Dr. Leslie Diaz-Perez
The Rev. Dr. Leslie Diaz-Perez is the Director of the Center for the Study of Latin@ Theology and Ministry. A native of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Dr. Diaz-Perez applies her passion in the fields of education and training, missions, and ministry. A double alumna of McCormick, Dr. Diaz-Perez earned both her Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry degrees from the seminary. In July of 2017 Dr. Diaz-Perez assumed full duties as the new director of the center, which contributes to the theological and ministerial formation of Latin@s and non-Latin@s working in Hispanic ministries and theological education by planning courses, conferences, and lectures with other McCormick centers and other institutions in the Chicago area. Together with her husband Rev. Obed Perez, she is part of the pastoral team at Resurrected Life Church in the Hermosa neighborhood of Chicago.