About Us
Our Commitments
Mutual Flourishing
Diversity & Equity
We are committed to diversity and equitable representation across race, gender, educational discipline, denominational background, and geographical location. As an emergent organization, we recognize we have much work to do to fully embody these values. As we grow, we are wholeheartedly committed to intentionally creating a collective that reflects and uplifts the profound diversity, beauty, and wisdom of the human family, earth community, and wider Christian tradition.si
our team
Russ Casenhiser
Founder | Strategy | AnalystWith a long work history in technology, operations and ministry leadership, the Creation Care Collective brings all this work together in wholistic expression of environmental care and practical application for churches.
Work History includes
The Knot,
Crystal Cathedral Ministries,
Bibles by the Case and
Creation Care Collective.
Russ also holds a degree in Economics and an MBA from Pepperdine University.
Becky Casenhiser
Founder | PartnershipsCreates innovative partnerships for multiple industries to best service churches. Prior to the Creation Care Collective, Becky was one of the founders of Bibles by the Case - serving over 120,000 churches for over 20 years, one of the largest distributors of Bibles in the country offering the lowest prices to churches. Becky was also part of the early creators of The Knot.com-the first online wedding resource; known for merging industry, customers, and technology. Becky and Russ have been married for 35 years, have two children Kaley and Cameron, and reside in Serenbe, GA. Becky has her undergraduate degree in Communications/Business, and Masters in Business/Executive MBA from Pepperdine University.
Kaley Casenhiser
Founder | Editor | Social HealingNative to Southern California, Kaley grew up amidst sun-ripe tomatoes, apricot trees, poetic songbirds, and lingering dinners with dear ones. Her trinity of first loves-- tables, stages, and gardens--emerged from this holistic context, and have remained with her ever since. Believing in the power of their symbiosis, she researches, works, and writes about the intersection of ecology, theology, and the arts. The Creation Care Collective was born out of her intersectional research and experience, and she is passionate about helping people connect the dots between ecological stewardship and spiritual praxis. To deepen into this work, she is pursuing a Joint Masters at Yale School of the Environment and the Yale Divinity School.
Advisory Panel
We are grateful for our advisors thus far and we look forward to continuing to grow our panel.
Mary Evelyn Tucker
Co-Director & Co-Founder
Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology
Yale University
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Mary Evelyn Tucker is co-director of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology
where she teaches in an MA program between the School of the Environment and
the Divinity School. With John Grim she organized 10 conferences on World
Religions and Ecology at Harvard. They were series editors for the 10 resulting
volumes from Harvard. She co-edited Confucianism and Ecology, Buddhism and
Ecology, and Hinduism and Ecology. She has authored with John Grim, Ecology
and Religion (Island Press, 2014). They also edited Thomas Berry’s
books including Selected Writings (Orbis 2014). Tucker and Grim published
Thomas Berry: A Biography (Columbia University Press, 2019). With Brian
Thomas Swimme she wrote Journey of the Universe (Yale 2011) and was the
executive producer of the Emmy award winning Journey film that aired on PBS.
She served on the International Earth Charter Drafting Committee and was
a member of the Earth Charter International Council.
Tom McLeish
Co-Director ECLASFRS Professor of Natural Philosophy
University of York
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Tom McLeish is Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Department of Physics at the University of York, England. He is also a member of York’s Centre for Medieval Studies and Humanities Research Centre. His research in ‘soft matter and biological physics’ draws on interdisciplinary collaborations to understand how material properties emerge from molecular structure and dynamics. He leads the UK ‘Physics of Life’ network, and holds a five-year research fellowship on protein physics and evolution. His OUP Very Short Introduction to Soft Matter appears in 2020.
Tom is passionate about radical interdisciplinary thinking, contributing to several national reports on interdisciplinary research. He also works on the framing of science within theology, sociology, history, education and philosophy, leading to the recent books Faith and Wisdom in Science (OUP 2014) and The Poetry and Music of Science (OUP 2019). He co-leads the Ordered Universe project, a large interdisciplinary study of 13th century science. From 2008 to 2014 he served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at Durham University and was from 2015-2020 Chair of the Royal Society’s Education Committee.
Celia Deane-Drummond
Director, Laudato Si’ Research Institute
Campion Hall, Oxford University
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Celia Deane-Drummond was awarded a BA (Hons.)/MA in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University, part II Botany. She gained a doctorate in plant physiology from Reading University, specialising in agricultural botany. She then took up a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, Canada. While in Canada her interest in theology developed and she gained a postgraduate diploma in Christian Studies from Regent College. After leaving Canada she took up another postdoctoral fellowship in the biophysics group of the Botany department at Cambridge University, prior to a lectureship in the Botany department at Durham University. She then left her academic career in science and gained a BA (Hons) in Theology through CNAA at Trinity College, Bristol, followed by a doctorate in systematic theology at Manchester University, specialising in relating ecology to theology. This was followed by a PGCE in Religious Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her first academic position in theology was at Chester University in 1994 where she subsequently founded and was director of the Centre for Religion and the Biosciences.
From 2011-2018 she was Chair of the European Forum for the Study of Religion and the Environment (EFSRE) which she helped found in 2006. In 2011 she joined the Faculty of Theology at the University of Notre Dame as full Professor in Theology and in 2015 became inaugural director of the Center for Theology, Science and Human Flourishing. She became Visiting Professor in Theology and Science at Durham University in 2012.
Séverine Deneulin
Research Fellow and Director of Integral Human Development Laudato Si’ Research Institute
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Séverine Deneulin is responsible for the Integral Human Development research programme of the Laudato Si’ Research Institute. The programme aims to bring spiritual and theological traditions into dialogue with the social sciences on matters of global socio-economic development and sustainability. It understands ‘integral human development’ as a perspective on global development which integrates economic, ecological, political, social, spiritual, cultural and other dimensions.
Deneulin specializes in international development ethics and the works of economist and philosopher Amartya Sen and his ‘capability approach’ to development. Her research examines how the Catholic social tradition and the capability approach to development can mutually enrich each other to inform development policy and practice. Her research expertise is in Latin America, and she has had extensive academic collaboration with universities in the region, among others, Argentina, Chile, El Salvador and Peru. She also teaches a postgraduate course on international development ethics at the University of Bethlehem in Palestine.
Deneulin works part-time for the LSRI, and part-time for the University of Bath where she is an Associate Professor in International Development in the Department of Social and Policy Sciences.
Linda Jones
Head of TheologyCAFOD, Catholic Agency for Overseas Development
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Linda Jones is Head of Theology at CAFOD, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development. She is on the Board of Grassroots, an ecumenical network committed to interfaith dialogue, and is Chair of Trustees of Phoenix Bereavement Support, a child bereavement charity. She is interested in how theology, creativity and imagination can best contribute towards bringing about positive change in favour of the poorest and most disadvantaged people amongst us.
Her main interests are in bringing the practical concerns of international emergency and development work into dialogue with theology. She also works to encourage creative and imaginative responses to seemingly intractable issues. She holds a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Cardiff University & a Master’s in Theology & Adult Education.
Rose Hayden-Smith
The Victory GardenerAuthor, Historian & Food Systems Expert
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I believe gardens lead us places. They’re an engaging first step towards operating more sustainably, uniting our communities and joining up the thinking between policy areas such as food, education and health. Now more than ever, I feel it’s imperative that our national gardening past be reimagined to inform an increasingly uncertain future.
I’m skilled in creating compelling narratives around food, farming and gardens - often but not exclusively in the digital realm. My book Sowing the Seeds of Victory: American Gardening Programs of WW1 was published in 2014, and my work has been referenced in publications including the Huffington Post, Civil Eats and The New York Times.
I’m also the founding editor and brand strategist behind the UC Food Observer - a popular and respected blog borne out of the University of California’s Global Food Initiative. I worked at the University of California for 30+ years, earning a BA, two MAs and a PhD in US History during my time there. In 2020, I was honored to be awarded emeritus status.
Notable career highlights for me include directing Ventura County’s 4-H and Master Gardener programs, being the first woman to serve as director of the UC’s Agricultural Extension office in my community and being tapped to lead a statewide initiative in sustainable food systems for UC. I’ve also been a W.K. Kellogg Foundation fellow, and in 2011 I was named one of the White House Project’s most influential women in sustainable food systems.
Anna Thurston
Yale University, Forum on Religion and EcologyLiaison United Nations (UNEP) Faith for Earth
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Anna Thurston is the liaison between the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology and the Faith for Earth Initiative led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). As a Research Associate for the Forum, her work also centers on furthering global access to the field by developing curriculum and facilitating the development of Yale/Coursera Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in Religion and Ecology. In 2019, Anna received two master’s degrees: a Master of Environmental Management from Yale School of the Environment (then Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies), and a Master of Arts in Religion and Visual Arts from Yale Divinity School. In tandem with her joint degree in Religion and Ecology, Anna also obtained a certificate from Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music where she researched ritual performance in relation to environmental ethics. While in her graduate programs, Anna organized the Religion and Ecology Colloquium at Yale, chaired Yale’s third Graduate Conference in Religion and Ecology, and was a Teaching Fellow for six courses on the intersection of environmental history and religious thought. Currently, Anna serves on the Board of Directors for the Norwalk Tree Alliance, a nonprofit that provides environmental education to public schools and advocates for tree canopy health in Norwalk, Connecticut.
Michael Schuck
Co-DirectorInternational Jesuit Ecology Project
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Dr. Schuck holds a doctoral degree in ethics and society from the University of Chicago Divinity School, two master’s degrees in religious studies and political science from the University of Chicago, and a bachelor’s degree in history from St. Louis University.
Dr. Schuck 's research and teaching focuses on Roman Catholic social thought, theological and philosophical ethics, environmental ethics and spirituality, and Indigenous studies. He has contributed many published articles for book chapters, journals, encyclopedia, including his books That They be One: Social Teaching of the Papal Encyclicals, 1740-1989 (Georgetown University Press, 1998) and Democracy, Culture and Catholicism, with John Crowley Buck (Fordham University Press, 2015).
Professor, Department of Theology and Institute of Environmental Sustainability Loyola University Chicago
Co-Director, International Jesuit Ecology Project
Founding Director, The Joan and Bill Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage