Meet the Curatorial Team
Amina Shumake, Assistant Curator
Hailing from the state of Michigan, Amina is currently a third-year graduate student at Yale Divinity School. She is a proud alumna of Spelman College, graduating in 2017 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Throughout her undergraduate and graduate career, Amina has worked within the realms of politics, ministry and the international advocacy of refugees, and asylum seekers. Academically, Amina is most passionate about African American religious/political thought as wellas the analysis and reformation of mainstream theology. In her down- time, Amina enjoys reading Black fiction novels, and drinking coffee.
Martine “Gloria” Bruno, Research Team, Black UCC Churches
As the Angel of New York, Martine “Gloria Dlo” Bruno has been singing for over 13 years. She received her Bachelor of Music from S.U.N.Y Purchase and a Master of Arts from New York Theological Seminary. She is attending Yale Divinity School in conjunction with the University of Connecticut’s Master of Social Work Program. As a mezzo-soprano Martina Bruno has performed in countless of prestigious spaces including Carnegie Hall receiving critical acclaim. She is member in discernment with Shalom United Church and is interning at Dixwell Ave Church UCC.
Jyrekis B. Collins, Research Team, Black Baptist Churches
Jyrekis B. Collins is a native of Athens, Ga. Jyrekis has an earned Bachelor of Arts degree from the prestigious Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga where he studied Religion. Jyrekis is currently a Master of Divinity candidate at Yale University Divinity School in New Haven, CT. His interests include the study of sociology of religion, how religion and society can work together to make a meaningful impact. He has plans to pursue a doctoral degree, and he is committed to lifelong learning. He loves the black church.
Naja Grasty, Research Team, Black Baptist Churches
Naja Grasty is a recent graduate of Spelman College with a BA in International and Comparative Women’s Studies. Her research interests are visual culture, beauty and body politics, intergenerational trauma/knowing, cultural hybridization in the digital age, Afro-Asia, Afro-futurism, and Black girlhood. Naja plans to explore the impact of notions of respectability and holiness on Black women’s fashion in the church. She has a particular interest in the impact of African Traditional Religions in the modern Black Church. Naja plans to get her Ph.D. in the Humanities and aims to look at her scholarship through a Black Feminist Lens.
Neil Grasty, Research Team, Black Baptist Churches
Neil Grasty is a freshman at Morehouse College majoring in Art History with a minor in Curatorial studies. Most recently. He was a co-presenter at the Yale University Art Gallery for the exhibition “Reckoning With The Incident” John Wilson’s Studies for a Lynching Mural . In the summer of 2019, he was 1 of 12 participants in the inaugural cohort of Spelman College’s Coeducational Art History and Curatorial Studies Early College Program. Neil plans to pursue a career as a curator at a major art museum. As a curator, he plans to address the lack of diversity within Art History and highlight unacknowledged artists of the African diaspora.
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Josh Huber, Research Team
Josh Huber is a second-year MDiv and Berkeley student out of the Diocese of Missouri, where he is a postulant for priesthood. He moved along with his wife, Angela, to New Haven from Columbia, Missouri. He will be serving as a seminary intern with St. Luke’s beginning in September 2020.
Jalen Parks, Research Team, Black Collegiate Ministries
Jalen Parks is a 2019 Yale University graduate from Flint, Michigan. At Yale Jalen studied Religion with a concentration in Theology and Ethics. Jalen is furthering this study at Yale Divinity School where his research crafts a theological response to
Black Church’s stance on mass incarceration and the imprisonment of our bodies. Jalen is also the creator and content manager of the lunchboxtheology. a lover of his mother’s homemade tacos and has a heart for people and their full liberation.