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.

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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

Jasmine Banks, Research Fellow

Jasmine Banks (she/her) is a movement strategist, organizer, writer, and public humanities practitioner with more than a decade of experience building campaigns and organizations at the intersections of democracy, public education, racial and economic justice, and LGBTQ+ liberation.
Jasmine is the founder and executive director of Generation Common Good, a national organization building the power of families, students, educators, and communities to defend public education and advance a multiracial democracy rooted in dignity, belonging, and the common good. She is also the co-founder and co-producer of Parenting is Political, a cultural organizing and narrative project that challenges the myth that parenting and family life exist outside of politics and builds a vision of family grounded in collective care, freedom, and justice for working-class parents and caregivers.
In 2026, Jasmine was elected Board President of the New York Transgender Advocacy Group (NYTAG), where she supports the organization’s governance and long-term strategy in service of transgender and gender-expansive New Yorkers. She also serves on the 2026–27 Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Board for DC Public Schools.
Before moving full-time into movement work, Jasmine worked as a therapist, small-business owner, and communications and marketing leader. Her interdisciplinary background continues to shape an approach to organizing that brings together political education, storytelling, culture, relationship building, and institutional strategy.
Jasmine is currently completing a Master of Arts in Public and Engaged Humanities at Georgetown University, where her scholarship explores public memory, oral history, hospitality, third spaces, and the ways the humanities can become a tool for community building and democratic practice.

Contact Jasmine Banks

Visiting Scholars

Annie Selak

As an ecclesiologist, Dr. Annie Selak studies wounds in the church, or moments where the church fails to live into its mission and causes harm. Racism, sexism, and clericalism are examples of the church failing to credibly be church. Her first book, The Wounded Church: Tending to the Harm within Catholicism, will be published by Fordham University Press in June 2026.Guided by a feminist methodology, Selak integrates the lived experience of women with a robust vision for the church. She earned her Ph.D. in systematic theology at Boston College and M.Div at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. Selak has over 15 years of experience in Catholic ministry, and her writing has appeared in Modern Theology, Journal of Catholic Social Thought, Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal, Washington Post, National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, and America. She is an avid women’s sports fan and enjoys rooting for the Washington Spirit soccer team and Notre Dame Women’s Basketball team.

Matthew D. Taylor

Matthew D. Taylor, PhD, is an award-winning author, scholar, and nationally recognized speaker on religion and politics in the United States. He is the author of The Violent Take It by Force, Scripture People, and the forthcoming Defying Tyrants, and a leading expert on Christian nationalism, religious extremism, and the role of religious pluralism in defending democracy. His research and commentary have been featured in The New York Times, Weekend Edition, On the Media, Rolling Stone, Politico, The Bulwark, Sojourners, and Religion News Service.
Dr. Taylor holds a PhD in Religious Studies from Georgetown University and an MA from Fuller Theological Seminary. He is the creator and host of the acclaimed Charismatic Revival Fury and American Unexceptionalism podcast series. Known for his ability to translate complex scholarship into clear, compelling insights, Taylor brings intellectual rigor, moral clarity, and pastoral sensitivity to every audience.
A highly sought-after speaker, Taylor has delivered lectures, keynotes, and policy briefings at prestigious venues across the country, including the U.S. Capitol, Harvard University, Stanford University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Southern California, Candler School of Theology at Emory University, and the Chautauqua Institution. He has also briefed congressional staffers and faith leaders on the real-world implications of religious extremism.
Whether addressing academic audiences, faith communities, or public leaders, Matthew Taylor equips listeners with historical depth, theological insight, and practical tools to understand—and respond to—the challenges facing religion and democracy today.

Visit his website

Graduate Assistants

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.

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.