Dr. Angela HummelAngela Hummel will be offering plenary sessions on Star Island.
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Dr. Angela Hummel is an interdisciplinary artist and art theologian who uses creative expression to explore ideas about God and spirituality in new ways. Theology methodologies are usually based on argumentation and discursive reasoning. Art Theology, grounded in Expressionism and cognitive sciences, promotes the idea that divine love is a reality that expands our ideas of love, rather than seeking to be “right”. She suggests a new method for thinking about questions and ideas about Love through Art Theology. Through art making, Art Theology can question how the discipline of theology has both accentuated and erased the lines of violence and marginalization. Angela’s interactive workshop will invite participants to make theology by making art and reflecting on the meanings that lines and colors hold. Choosing from a variety of materials (pastels, paints, colored pencils, markers, colored paper, etc.) we will reflect on our own understanding of the world through color. As the art making process unfolds, participants will consider theological questions such as what divine love is and how it relates to violence or to the creation of margins. Whether we do or do not believe in God, or agree about ideas about God, this workshop opens dialogues that lead to connection and expands our ideas about Love. Dr. Angela Hummel has presented at the American Academy of Religion, is a recipient of an Episcopal Church Roanridge grant, has been a TEDx speaker, is a Visiting Professor at Vancouver School of Theology, and adjunct professor at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design and Front Range Community College in Colorado. She has an MFA in creative writing, an MA in Theology, over 15 years of experience in ministry, and a doctorate from Iliff school of Theology. |
Rev. Cameron TrimbleCameron Trimble will be leading group sessions, using Futurist methodologies, on Star Island.
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Rev. Cameron Trimble is a futurist, spiritual strategist, and systems architect working at the leading edge of religious innovation, global justice, and transformational leadership. She is a certified futurist and global consultant in Futures Literacy, helping institutions, congregations, and communities anticipate change and co-create preferred futures grounded in compassion, courage, and collective intelligence. Trimble serves as CEO of Convergence, a pioneering organization supporting hundreds of congregations and denominational bodies through strategic planning, consulting, digital learning, and leadership development. Through Futures Labs, scenario work, and systems-scale interventions, she equips spiritual communities to move beyond legacy survival into regenerative, mission-aligned transformation. She is the Chair of the Board of Stop the Traffik USA, an international NGO that uses technology and intelligence-led prevention to disrupt human trafficking networks around the world. In collaboration with partners such as Homeland Security, MI5, IBM, and the United Nations, Stop the Traffik builds data tools and early warning systems to prevent exploitation and create safer futures for vulnerable populations. Rev. Trimble serves as Professor of Transformational Leadership at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace, where she teaches in the Doctor of Ministry program. Her academic work integrates spiritual formation, organizational foresight, systems thinking, and mysticism — helping leaders cultivate resilience and vision in an age of polycrisis.An ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, she has pastored four congregations in the Atlanta area and served as a national denominational leader. Her work bridges deep theological grounding with practical strategy, always inviting leaders to hold complexity with clarity and act from a place of grounded hope. She is also a commercial pilot, an author of several books, and a sought-after keynote speaker who frequently collaborates with thought leaders such as Margaret Wheatley, Matthew Fox, and Brian McLaren, and has spoken across the U.S., U.K., and international networks on the future of religion, ethics, and collective leadership. Her work is animated by a single conviction: We are not here to predict the future — but to participate in its transformation. Public Contact Information: http://www.camerontrimble.com https://www.pilotingfaith.org https://www.linkedin.com/in/camerontrimble/ Presentation
Worlds in the Making: Imagining Futures in a Turbulent Time Across this six-day journey during the IRAS conference, participants will be invited into a Futures Lab: a collective act of imagination in which we explore the worlds we are currently living toward, the worlds we long for, and the worlds we may yet learn how to bring into being. The future does not arrive neutrally. It is shaped by the stories we tell ourselves about what is possible, inevitable, worth defending, and can or cannot change. These narratives form the invisible architecture of our institutions and theologies, our scientific priorities and ethical commitments. They guide what we fund, what we resist, what we mourn, and what we dare to hope. We are living through a moment when inherited maps are failing. Climate instability, democratic erosion, technological acceleration, spiritual disorientation, and institutional fragility converge in ways that strain our moral and imaginative capacities. In such times, the dangers include not only collapse or conflict, but imaginative paralysis. Futures work interrupts that paralysis:
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Dr. Rengin B. FiratRengin Firat will be offering plenary sessions on Star Island.
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Dr. Rengin B. Firat is a Professor at Antioch University’s Graduate School of Leadership and Change. A scholar-practitioner who combines critical race theories with inclusive leadership and organizational change studies, she takes an innovative empirical approach that is community-based and interdisciplinary, integrating sociology with neurosciences. Her teaching and research areas include the role of moral emotions and cognition in social behaviors, racial biases in the brain and how to overcome them, organizational culture and diversity, and the effects of emerging technologies (like AI) on social organizations. Dr. Firat's methodological expertise is primarily focused on quantitative methods including survey and experiment design, instrumentation, sampling, complex data modeling (e.g., hierarchical modeling, structural equation models), functional brain imaging (fMRI) and other biometric data systems (EDA, ECG, etc.). She has led several research projects collecting fMRI and survey data, nationally and internationally, and has received funding from the Social Science Research Council and the U.S. Department of Defense. Her research publications have appeared in journals including American Behavioral Scientist, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Social Science Research, Perspectives on Psychological Science, and Journal of Health and Social Behavior. She is co-editor of the forthcoming Handbook of Neurosociology (Springer Press) and has a forthcoming book entitled The Racialized Brain: The Neurosociology of Race and Racism (Polity Press). Dr. Firat holds an MA and PhD from the Sociology Dept. at the University of Iowa and a BA in Sociology from Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey. She previously served as a professor in R1 research universities (University of California, Riverside and Georgia State University), held a post-doctoral Researcher position at the Evolution, Cognition and Culture Laboratory at University of Lyon, France, and was a senior researcher in a top global HR consulting firm, Korn Ferry. Currently based out of Atlanta, Georgia, she co-chairs the board of a local food justice non-profit, Slow Food Atlanta, in addition to her work as researcher and professor. Presentation
The Racialized Brain: Neurosociology, Morality, and Group Conflict Why does race remain such a powerful force in social conflict and political divisions, despite widespread commitments to equality and colorblind ideals? Drawing on her recent book, The Racialized Brain, Dr. Rengin Firat argues that racialization is not only a social ideology but a neurosociological process which emerges from the interaction between brain, culture, and institutions. The brain perceives race through a dual process: as a category, a fast and automatic way of sorting people; and as a group, a moralized boundary tied to belonging, threat, and deservingness. It is this second process that makes race especially consequential: once racial categories are interpreted as group boundaries, they shape moral emotions and social judgments about who is trusted, who is feared, who is blamed, and whose suffering is recognized. Institutions such as schools, media, policing, labor markets, and law embed racial meanings into everyday experience, training the brain to associate race with group-based moral narratives. Against this backdrop, this presentation offers not only a neurosociological account of why racial conflict persists, but also pathways for disrupting racialized cognition. Rather than focusing solely on attitude change, Dr. Firat emphasizes a framework grounded in the brain’s capacity for neuroplasticity and the multi-level resources of empathy, empowerment, and equality. Together, these capacities expand moral concern beyond narrow in-groups, empower people with agency to challenge racialized practices in real-world settings, and address the structural and institutional conditions that continuously re-racialize the brain. The talk concludes by considering what these insights mean for ethics, moral education, and the possibility of building more reflective, less reactive moral communities. |
Plenary Speakers
Additional speaker bios will be added as they are confirmed.
Welcome! The IRAS summer conference is a multi-generational week of learning, reflection, fun, and community! There are opportunities to attend presentations, exchange ideas, share candlelit walks to the chapel and island walkabouts, kayak, swim, visit the marine lab, make music and art, eat ice cream, and drink in the beauty of the historic island and surrounding sea. We offer adult, youth, and intergenerational programming.
Past Conferences
Past Newsletters
Past Presidents
Past Chaplains
Past Speakers
In Memoriam
Dr. Rengin B. Firat |
Dr. Angela Hummel |
Ruben Nelson |
Dr. Stephen W. Ragsdale |
Rev. Susan Shannon |
Dr. Marlena Studer |
Rev. Cameron Trimble |
Patrice K. Curtis Co-chair |
Jennifer E. Whitten Co-chair |
Welcome! The IRAS summer conference is a multi-generational week of learning, reflection, fun, and community! There are opportunities to attend presentations, exchange ideas, share candlelit walks to the chapel and island walkabouts, kayak, swim, visit the marine lab, make music and art, eat ice cream, and drink in the beauty of the historic island and surrounding sea. We offer adult, youth, and intergenerational programming.
Signs n Science: A short film about IRAS.
This conference explores how beliefs, rooted in personal and deeply cultural learning, shape our decision making — and how to harness this understanding to support healthy ecosystems and societies. By exploring scientific and religious perspectives on belief and social behaviors, and engaging in collaborative futurist practices (i.e. speculative storytelling, role play), we will create a “toolbox” that better equips us to respond nimbly and choose life-affirming paths that strengthen the interdependent web of life.
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Bio
Bio here |
About the May 7, 2025 webinar:
Spiritual Experience: A Scientific, Philosophical and Theological Retreat
Presentation Overview:
IRAS will host a live session featuring conference co-chairs Dr. Calvin Chatlos and Rev. Dr. Barbara Whittaker-Johns with panelists to include conference speakers Dr. Kurt Johnson, Dr. Roberta Pughe, Dr. Julia Mossbridge, the Rt. Rev. Br. Mark D’Alessio, and Dr. Michael Winkelman in an informal discussion about the upcoming Star Island conference on spiritual experience.
This promises to be a lively conversation!
Conference description:
Sigmund Freud popularized the awareness of our human “unconscious” but missed the discovery of our spiritual core. Recent research with psychedelics and psychology has now grounded the reality of spiritual experience and spiritual transformation in science. There is evidence that we have a spiritual core (central and innermost) biologically wired into us that is normally “outside of awareness.” Methods have been developed to open and engage that core that is associated with experience often described as mystical or numinous. Aspects of spiritual consciousness and transformation that also foster healing from trauma may even be described as a falling in love, as it encourages a comprehensive agape for the world, ourselves, others and life itself.
Topics:
Moderators:
John Calvin Chatlos is Rutgers University-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Professor of Psychiatry. An addiction, adult and child and adolescent psychiatrist, he is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He studies the nature of spiritual experience and developed a Framework of Spirituality that incorporates spiritual principles in recovery from addiction and trauma.
Barbara Whittaker-Johns is a Unitarian Universalist minister who has served almost four decades in major leadership positions in IRAS. She completed a Master’s program at Yeshiva University, NYC, and began a sixteen-year teaching career, with a focus on the neurodiversity associated with learning disabilities in youngsters. In 1984, with an MDiv from Harvard, she began a long career in UU parish ministry, later completing her DMin in theology, focusing on the power of our personal narratives of spiritual experience – at any age – to ground faith development in a scientific world view.
Spiritual Experience: A Scientific, Philosophical and Theological Retreat
Presentation Overview:
IRAS will host a live session featuring conference co-chairs Dr. Calvin Chatlos and Rev. Dr. Barbara Whittaker-Johns with panelists to include conference speakers Dr. Kurt Johnson, Dr. Roberta Pughe, Dr. Julia Mossbridge, the Rt. Rev. Br. Mark D’Alessio, and Dr. Michael Winkelman in an informal discussion about the upcoming Star Island conference on spiritual experience.
This promises to be a lively conversation!
Conference description:
Sigmund Freud popularized the awareness of our human “unconscious” but missed the discovery of our spiritual core. Recent research with psychedelics and psychology has now grounded the reality of spiritual experience and spiritual transformation in science. There is evidence that we have a spiritual core (central and innermost) biologically wired into us that is normally “outside of awareness.” Methods have been developed to open and engage that core that is associated with experience often described as mystical or numinous. Aspects of spiritual consciousness and transformation that also foster healing from trauma may even be described as a falling in love, as it encourages a comprehensive agape for the world, ourselves, others and life itself.
Topics:
- What are your thoughts about the relevance and timing of this Conference?
- What do you see as some main implications of recent knowledge about spiritual experience?
- What do you see as your main contribution to this Conference?
Moderators:
John Calvin Chatlos is Rutgers University-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Professor of Psychiatry. An addiction, adult and child and adolescent psychiatrist, he is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He studies the nature of spiritual experience and developed a Framework of Spirituality that incorporates spiritual principles in recovery from addiction and trauma.
Barbara Whittaker-Johns is a Unitarian Universalist minister who has served almost four decades in major leadership positions in IRAS. She completed a Master’s program at Yeshiva University, NYC, and began a sixteen-year teaching career, with a focus on the neurodiversity associated with learning disabilities in youngsters. In 1984, with an MDiv from Harvard, she began a long career in UU parish ministry, later completing her DMin in theology, focusing on the power of our personal narratives of spiritual experience – at any age – to ground faith development in a scientific world view.
Spiritual Experience: A Scientific, Philosophical and Theological Retreat
with Dr. Calvin Chatlos and Rev. Dr. Barbara Whittaker-Johns
May 7, 2025, at
4 PM Central time
5 PM Eastern time
This IRAS webinar is FREE but
registration is required.
Please register using the link below.
If you have questions, contact
JD Stillwater: [email protected]
with Dr. Calvin Chatlos and Rev. Dr. Barbara Whittaker-Johns
May 7, 2025, at
4 PM Central time
5 PM Eastern time
This IRAS webinar is FREE but
registration is required.
Please register using the link below.
If you have questions, contact
JD Stillwater: [email protected]