Andrew Atencia graduated from Brophy Prep in 2019. He is a rising Sophomore at Creighton University where he is majoring in Sustainability. He is an avid mountain biker and outdoor enthusiast who is passionate in preserving our public lands through conservation.
AZIPL’s Executive Director, Doug Bland is one of the founders of Arizona Interfaith Power & Light and has served as the Executive Director since 2009. He also is a member of the Board of Directors for the national Interfaith Power and Light. Doug is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and recently retired from the Community Christian Church in Tempe where he served as pastor for twenty-three years. The church’s inter-religious and multi-cultural storytelling concerts earned the Diversity Award form the Tempe Human Relations Commission. He earned a BA in Zoology from the College of Idaho and an M. Div. from Duke Divinity School. Besides his interest in connecting spirituality and ecology, Doug is passionate about the art of storytelling. He is adjunct faculty at the South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute, where he has taught “The Art of Storytelling”, “Telling Sacred Stories,” and “Using Storytelling in Businesses and Organizations,” “Storytelling & Advocacy,” “Storytelling & Healing.” He is a national coach for the Arizona Storytelling Project.
Cooper Davis received a Bachelor of Arts from Northern Arizona University where he studied history and graphic design. During his year as a member of the Alumni Service Corps, Cooper developed a passion for arts education at the middle school and high school levels. Working at both Brophy and Loyola Academy, he has helped expand the curriculum for the humanities and graphic design courses at the high school and worked to create the Loyola Academy fine arts program from the ground up. Combining a passion for both digital and traditional art mediums, Cooper seeks to create a dynamic and challenging classroom experience that redefines for his students what it means to be creative. Outside the classroom, Cooper coaches the mountain bike and Quidditch teams and leads a variety of outdoor-centric immersion trips around the world. Recently Cooper was appointed Brophy's first Sustainability Coordinator and is leading a team to usher in a new era of environmental stewardship on campus. By implementing an Ecological Justice Plan, inspired by Pope Francis' call to action, Cooper and his team are striving for a carbon neutral and zero waste campus by 2025
Tricia Hoyt is a biblical scholar, retreat director, leadership trainer and consultant, and educator. She recently retired from full time ministry after serving the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix for 30 years, most recently at St. Patrick Catholic Community in Scottsdale. She also served on the faculty of the University of Mary-ASU Tempe and the University of Incarnate Word (Online University), San Antonio, and continues to serve on the faculty of the Center for Leadership Wellness at the Franciscan Renewal Center in Scottsdale, Arizona. She travels frequently to offer leadership training, workshops on biblical storytelling, and to teach on a spirituality for justice.
Previously, Tricia served as the director of the Office of Peace and Justice for the Diocese of Phoenix, faculty member and director of the School of Biblical Studies at Kino Institute and in parish ministry. She is an original co-author of the spirituality program now known as Grace Within, and of JustFaith Ministries’ Hunger for Change, an eight week module for communities wishing to bring a faith perspective to national and global food insecurity. Tricia holds a M.A. in Adult Christian Community Development from Regis University in Denver, and has completed ten years of doctoral work in Biblical Interpretation at Brite Divinity School (TCU), Fort Worth, where her research specialized in the imperial context of the New Testament and the influence of Performance Criticism on biblical interpretation. She has four adult children and 6 extraordinary grandchildren.
Hava Tirosh-Samuelson is Regents Professor of History, Irving and Miriam Lowe Professor of Modern Judaism, and Director of Jewish Studies at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ. A Jewish intellectual historian, she writes on Jewish philosophy and mysticism, religion, science and technology, and religion and ecology. Among her numerous publications are: Judaism and Ecology: Created World and Revealed Word (2002); Happiness in Premodern Judaism: Virtue, Knowledge, and Well-Being (2003); Perfecting Human Futures: Transhuman Vision and Technological Imaginations (2016); Religion and Environment: The Case of Judaism(2020). Tirosh-Samuelson is the Editor-in-Chief of the Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers, a set of 21 volumes, and the recipient of several large grants for projects on religion, science, and technology.