Our Team

Staff

Jim Wallis, Faculty Director & Founder

Jim Wallis is a writer, teacher, preacher and justice advocate who believes the gospel of Jesus must be emancipated from its cultural and political captivities. He is a New York Times bestselling author, public theologian, preacher and commentator on ethics and public life.
He is the inaugural holder of the Chair in Faith and Justice and the founding Director of the Georgetown University Center on Faith and Justice. In 2022, Washingtonian magazine named Wallis one of the 500 most influential people shaping policy in DC. 
Raised in a Midwestern evangelical family, as a teenager Wallis questioned the racial segregation in his church and community, which led him to the Black churches and neighborhoods of inner-city Detroit. He spent his student years involved in the civil rights and antiwar movements at Michigan State University. 
He is the founder of Sojourners, and is the author of 12 books, including America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege and the Bridge to America; God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get it; The Great Awakening; The Call to Conversion; and Christ in Crisis: Reclaiming Jesus in a Time of Fear, Hate, and Violence; and host of the popular podcast The Soul of the Nation. 
He served on President Obama’s White House Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships and has taught faith and public life courses at Harvard and Georgetown University. He also serves as a Research Fellow at the Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. Wallis has previously taught at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Georgetown University in 2007 when he gave the college commencement address. 
“Coach Jim” also served for 22 seasons as a Little League coach for his two baseball playing sons. 

Contact Jim Wallis

Jim Simpson, Executive Director

Jim Simpson has served as the executive director of the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University since its creation in 2021. Before joining Georgetown, he served as political director at Sojourners, a Christian advocacy organization focused on social justice issues. Prior to joining Sojourners, he served as a legislative aide to Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and as a legislative correspondent on the Democratic staff of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship following an internship in the office of Senator Mark Warner (D-VA). Before his work in the Senate, he spent time in Kerala, India, through the Young Adult Volunteer Program (YAV) through the U.S. Presbyterian Church. Simpson is a member of the Working Group on Child Rights and Family Values, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Contact Jim Simpson

Kathleen Bonnette, Academic Program Manager

A teacher at heart and moral theologian by training, Dr. Kathleen Bonnette is responsible for developing academic content and student formation opportunities at the CFJ. She also teaches Theology here at Georgetown, and her courses include Nature, God, and Social Justice; Augustine’s Confessions; and the Problem of God. Bonnette holds a Th.D. from La Salle University. After writing her dissertation, “The Heart of Justice: An Augustinian Ethic of Relational Responsibility,” she went to work in the Office of Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation for the School Sisters of Notre Dame, Atlantic-Midwest Province. There, she developed a contemporary understanding of cosmology and integral ecology and began to question Augustine’s hierarchical framework in this light. Bonnette pulled these two streams of wisdom together as the Imbesi Family St. Augustine Fellow at Villanova University’s Augustinian Institute in 2022, where she produced a book, (R)evolutionary Hope: A Spirituality of Encounter and Engagement in an Evolving World (Wipf and Stock 2023). Currently, she analyzes the ways in which hierarchical paradigms generate and maintain social divisions, and the potential for ecological wisdom to transform them. You can find her scholarly writing in sources such as the Journal of Moral Theology and the Journal of Catholic Social Thought. For public opinion pieces, look for her by-line in America: The Jesuit Review and U.S. Catholic.

Contact Kathleen Bonnette

Andrea Collazo-Salazar, Communications Coordinator

Born and raised in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, she moved to the Springfield, VA area at age 12 and now calls Washington, DC home. Andrea is passionate about storytelling and creating human-centered narratives that spark connection, inspire action, and drive meaningful change. With a deep belief in the power of communications to amplify underrepresented voices, she brings a blend of creativity, strategy, and heart to everything she does.
Before joining the Center, she served as a Communications Associate at West End Strategy Team, where she led media outreach and developed messaging for a variety of mission-driven clients across sectors like human rights, immigration, arts and culture, and religious advocacy. During her time at WEST, Andrea also worked with CFJ to organize messaging and earned media outreach for the Test of Faith Summit last year. She has also supported communications and marketing efforts as an intern at SKDK and MediaLink, contributing to public affairs campaigns and strategic brand transformations. In addition, Andrea provides freelance consulting, supporting startups and small businesses as they develop their brand identities and digital strategies. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology & Sociology and Art from Lafayette College, where she was a POSSE Foundation Scholar.

Contact Andrea Collazo-Salazar

Lily Kennedy, Administrative Assistant

Lily is a graduate of Wheaton College (IL) and holds a B.A. in Biblical and Theological Studies with a minor in Classical Languages. At Wheaton, Lily met Mennonites, whose lived emphasis on the Sermon on the Mount in the Christian New Testament sparked both her commitment to nonviolence and her drive to understand how theologies reverberate through our lives, from home communities to international geopolitics. 
After graduating, Lily participated in a service year through Mennonite Central Committee, where she assisted with advocacy and communications at Sabeel in East Jerusalem. Following her service year, Lily moved to the DC area and completed internships with UNRWA and CSIS’s humanitarian agenda.
Outside of work, Lily serves on the board of Friends of Sabeel North America. She enjoys painting (by number), celebrating liturgical feasts with friends, and exploring a city much larger than her hometown in Ohio.

Contact Lily Kennedy

Graduate Assistants

Uendjii Black

Uendjiundja Black is a Master’s in Development Policy student at GU’s McCourt School of Public Policy. Originally from Namibia, she earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Cape Town, where she studied Organizational Psychology and Social Policy & Management. This academic foundation shaped her perspective on politics, allowing her to analyze governance and political outcomes through the lens of organizational behavior and strategic human capital management.
Her professional experience includes serving as a Parliamentary Research Consultant and Project Assistant for the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, a nonprofit political foundation, as well as working as a Project Consultant for the Namibia Institute for Democracy.
Uendjiundja’s interests center on promoting civic engagement and political participation while also exploring how governments and political parties use human capital strategies to strengthen governance and public sector performance. She is deeply invested in understanding the impacts of colonization and neo-colonization on foreign policy and multilateral organizations, as well as advancing poverty eradication and labor issues.
Looking ahead, Uendjiundja aspires to serve her country through leadership roles in the African Union, the Office of the President, or the Planning Commission in Namibia. Ultimately, she hopes to represent her community as a member of Namibia’s National Assembly.

Brennan Gallagher

Originally from New York City, I attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where I received a BS in Legal Studies and minors in Criminal Justice and Public Policy. After graduating in 2022, I spent the last two years working as a data analyst with Aon’s Global Reinsurance Clients team in London. I am excited to be back in the States and living in DC, working towards my MPP and MBA at Georgetown! My policy interests center around criminal justice policy, and in particular how to prevent teens and young adults from becoming involved with the criminal justice system.

Walwala Bashir, MIDP ’26

Walwala Bashir is a solution-oriented advocate dedicated to advancing justice and development in Balochistan. With a focus on transformative change, her work spans policy analysis aimed at bridging the education gap for out-of-school children and enhancing Pakistan’s export potential. Deeply committed to community service, she actively engages in dialogues that promote inclusive development. She has led impactful initiatives, including increasing Afghan refugee enrollment and optimizing waste management systems in Quetta, all with the goal of empowering marginalized communities. As a collaborative leader, Walwala builds meaningful networks and fosters dialogues that bring diverse perspectives together to drive sustainable local solutions.

Katie Kolodziej

Katie Kolodziej is a current Master’s in Public Policy student at McCourt School of Public Policy. Prior to graduate school, she spent three years at Maggie’s Place, a nonprofit supporting pregnant and parenting women experiencing homelessness in Phoenix, Arizona. During an AmeriCorps year of service as a live-in house manager at one of the Maggie’s Place maternity homes, Katie became inspired by the power of community to foster hope and resilience. Prior to Maggie’s Place, Katie worked as a data analyst for the e-commerce home furnishings business, Wayfair. Katie holds a degree in psychology from Boston College and is passionate about combining analytical decision-making with an empathetic person-centered lens to create positive change. At Georgetown University, she is interested in civic participation, service as a means to heal societal fissures and combat social isolation, and building inclusive, supportive communities.