Kaitlyn M. Dugan
Director
Kaitlyn Dugan is the Director of the Center for Barth Studies. She is grant co-author for two $300,000 Scholarly Editions and Scholarly Translations grants awarded to the center by the National Endowment for the Humanities to the Karl Barth Translator’s Seminar in 2019 and 2023. Dugan is also a project partner on a Swiss National Science Foundation research grant titled “Die Krise der Wirklichkeit. Zur Leistungskraft (post-)apokalyptischer Theologie in Zeiten kognitiv-existenzieller Unsicherheit am Beispiel Karl Barths.” She is co-editor (with Philip G. Ziegler) of The Finality of the Gospel: Karl Barth and the Tasks of Eschatology (Brill, 2022) and (with Paul Dafydd Jones) of Karl Barth and Liberation Theology (T&T Clark, 2023). Dugan is also the English language editor for Zeitschrift für Dialektische Theologie. In the summer of 2024, Dugan was the first Scholar-in-Residence of the Karl Barth Center for Reformed Theology at the University of Basel, Switzerland.
Dugan earned a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and political science from Taylor University, a Master of Arts in theology from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a Doctor of Philosophy in systematic theology from the University of Aberdeen. Dugan’s research and writing focus on Pauline apocalyptic theology, eschatology, Karl Barth, Christian liberation theologies, and theologies of death. She is currently writing her first book manuscript.
Yanan Rahim N. Melo
Editorial Director
Yanan (he/him) is a journalist and editor from Cagayan de Oro, Philippines. As Editorial Director at the Center for Barth Studies, he oversees and guides public scholarship initiatives that bridge the intersections between systematic theology, cultural commentary, and progressive politics.
He holds an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, where he wrote his master’s thesis, To Begin Again: Christology at the End of the World, in which he proposed a decolonial theology of divine grace in response to the mass deportation crisis. For his research, he received both the Archibald Alexander Hodge Award in Systematic Theology and the Edward A. Dowey Jr. Award for Excellence in Reformation Theology.
As a journalist, Yanan has published op-eds with outlets such as Sojourners, Christianity Today, BitterSweet Monthly, Space on Space Magazine, Geez Magazine, Interfaith America, and more. His coverage areas primarily tackle matters of religion, class, culture, and immigration. He has reported on the ways grassroots communities engage contemplative practices through rapper Kendrick Lamar’s music, as well as how Zohran Mamdani’s stunning campaign poses a challenge to immigrant communities who have acquiesced into “model minority” status in the U.S. You can find him on Instagram: @yananrahim.
Gavin Chase
Managing Editor
Gavin (he/him) is a theologian, farmworker, and musician who works as the center’s Managing Editor, where he oversees the workflow of God Here & Now Magazine. He is a current graduate student at Princeton Theological Seminary, finding his theological interests at the intersections of ecology, power, and end-of-life care. His current research explores the implications of U.S. evangelical commitments to afterlife and rapture ideologies that do away with materiality and mortality. The project aims at grounding these cultural and theological escapisms by turning to ecological process, namely becoming attentive to death, dying, and decay. Gavin’s writing has been featured in God Here & Now, Yale University’s GCRE, as well as in other academic journals. He also recently composed and performed a multi-track piece titled Antiphonies for the Dying Fowl at the Lewis Center for the Arts (Princeton University).
When not writing, editing, or making music, Gavin can be found tending chickens and sheep at Princeton’s Farminary Project or working with other farms across New Jersey. He resides in Princeton with his wife, Katie, and their bubbly two-year-old, Robin.
Israel (Izzy) Rodriguez
Associate Editor
Israel Rodriguez is a Seventh-day Adventist theologian and philosopher from Southern California. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from La Sierra University, where he developed a passion for theology and wrote A Non-Retributive Approach to Eschatology, a paper arguing that eschatology should be rooted in God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ. He was also inducted into the Theta Alpha Kappa National Honor Society for excellence in theology and religious studies. His principal research interests include Christology, eschatology, soteriology, apocalyptic literature, the Book of Revelation, systematic theology, biblical theology, Seventh-day Adventism, Old Testament and Hebrew Bible, biblical studies, and Karl Barth. At present, he is overjoyed to be studying as a Master of Divinity student at his dream school Princeton Theological Seminary.
Rodriguez is also a musician, playing guitar, bass, and percussion—he cannot live without music. Genres he gravitates towards are bossa nova, jazz, R&B, EDM, CCM, acoustic, and house. He loves to make things with words, expressed through conversations over a delicious meal with friends and family and writing. Though being a city boy, Rodriguez loves to travel and see new places with family and friends.