Dr. J. Cody Nielsen is founder and Executive Director of Convergence Strategies. Holding a Ph.D. in Higher Ed Administration alongside Masters degrees in Divinity and Mental Health Counseling, Cody leads the Convergence Strategies team with his nearly 15 years of experience working at the intersections of religious equity and social justice. A trained United Methodist clergy, Cody identifies as agnostic while also acknowledging the Christian privileges in which he embodies as well as afforded privileges as a white cis heterosexual man. Cody speaks frequently at conferences and is currently in the midst of several publications. He serves primarily as the Director of the Center for Spirituality and Social Justice at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA, where he oversees all campus religious life and also is an adjunct instructor. He can be reached at j.cody.nielsen@convergencestrategies.org
Staff
Dr. Julia Collett serves as Associate Director of Convergence Strategies and holds a Ed.D. in Higher Education from George Washington University. Her research focuses on how students of minoritized religions cultivate a sense of belonging on their college campus. She is a higher education specialist with a passion for DEI work and data analysis. Julia enjoys reading, playing board games, and spending time with her basset hounds, Belle and Ellie Mae.
Dr. Simran Kaur-Colbert is an independent researcher, scholar, and critical theorist who holds her Ph.D in Educational Leadership from Miami University of Ohio. Simran’s essays on intimate and societal violence are featured in the Duke University Press journal, Tikkun and in the Huffington Post. Simran has presented at multiple conferences across the United States and India on radical well-being, community-engaged activism, womanism, and harmony. She is the recipient of the 2018 Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management’s Equity and Inclusion fellowship and in 2019 the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education recognized her as a Contemplative Social Justice Scholar. She has executive leadership experience within the nonprofit sector and as a business professional in finance and insurance. Simran earned her M.A. in Diplomacy and International Commerce from the Patterson School at the University of Kentucky and her B.A. in Business Administration from the University of Mary Washington. Her hobbies include urban gardening and tending to her house plants. During her downtime Simran and her husband Jarrod enjoy cooking for and hosting family and friends over for their Afro-Asian “soul-food” dinners and (re)watching all the Midsommer Murder, Father Brown, and Great British Baking Show BBC episodes
Cathy Howland (she/her) serves as Grant Coordinator for Convergence Strategies and holds Masters degrees in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and in Spanish. She is a retired English as a Second Language teacher and throughout her career she had the opportunity to work with students from more than 80 different language and cultural backgrounds. She has held several different positions from instructor at the American Language Academy in Atchison,KS, Instituto Anglo-Mexicano(British Council) in Monterrey, Mexico, and in Iowa, where she taught every level from kindergarten through high school in Cedar Falls Community Schools, to college level in UNI’s Culture and Intensive English Program, and Hawkeye Community College, and worked as an adjunct at the University of Northern Iowa and Upper Iowa University to teach linguistics and methods in undergraduate and graduate teaching endorsement classes. She has also worked for many years as a successful grant writer for several organizations and programs at the local, state and national level in arts, education and cultural programming. Strongly believing in expanding understanding in diverse issues and advocating for equal treatment for all, she gladly joined this team and is very excited about working with Convergence Strategies to continue its mission.
Gaurav Harshe (तो/ he/ him) is an active volunteer with Convergence Strategies and is AACTE Holmes Scholar at the University of South Carolina where he is pursuing a Ph.D. in the Higher Education Administration program. He critiques the research landscape of international higher education by lending his intersectional, international student of color lived experience to the neoliberal academic conversation. His research interests are in the internationalization of higher education and focus on the experiential intersections of Indian international graduate students of color, and topics related to minoritized religious and spiritual identities, and racial marginalization.
