BONDS Peer Mentors and Area Assistants
BONDS (Building Opportunities and Networks for Divinity Students) Peer Mentors
The BONDS Peer Mentorship Program is designed to help incoming University of Chicago Divinity School students transition to graduate school and build community both within their new cohorts and across the Divinity School. Peer mentors engage with incoming students through office hours, one-on-one meetings, regular email check-ins, and social events. BONDS mentors are always available to answer questions about campus and student life, moving to Chicago, experience with courses, languages, etc, or connect students to other resources in the Dean of Students Office or the University.
Brian Carter is a dual-degree student in the MDiv/MSW program. He is studying Islamic mysticism, Islamic Psychology, and philosophies of self. He is interested in chaplaincy and therapy and how to incorporate religious understandings of self and our relationship to “other” into the psychotherapeutic alliance. In his free time, he enjoys movies, theater, swing dancing, activism, and other organized trouble-making.
Max Freeman is a second year MA student specializing in Sanskrit and Kannada literature. He is interested in studying medieval South Indian texts in the context of their living performance traditions. He also likes to think about the future of experimental schools and the teaching of literature. Max grew up biking the perfectly gridded streets of Oak Park, on Chicago’s west side. Now in Hyde Park, his second favorite thing about living on Chicago’s south side is the proximity to the Museum of Science and Industry’s Swiss Jolly Ball. To unwind at the end of each week, you can usually find Max baking a challah or two for Shabbat. He also likes to play hacky sack and swim.
Elijah Freiman is a second year MA student focusing on the history of scholarship on religion and its relation to liberalism as a political and philosophical project. His interests center around the intersection of religion and law, including religious freedom jurisprudence in the United States. He enjoys biking, team sports, chatting about the parsha, and hearing about other people’s dreams.
Sofia Lesur Kastelein is a second year in the MDiv program. She is interested in the overlaps between religious and therapeutic practices, as well as the queer appeal of astrology and tarot. Before arriving in Chicago, she grew up between Mexico City and southeast England, studied history and anthropology in London, and worked as a corporate oracle (consultant) in New York. Outside of studying, she currently enjoys learning to play the accordion, carving lino prints, and visiting museums.
Naomi Miller is a second year MA student focusing on medieval Christian mysticism, particularly the writings of female mystics. She is additionally interested in the intersection of literature and mysticism more broadly. Originally from New York City, Naomi came to the divinity school following a series of tutoring and teaching jobs that took her all across the 5 boroughs. She currently works as an accessions assistant in the Regenstein Library Special Collections. Outside of academia, you can find Naomi picnic-ing at the point, catching a movie at Doc Films, or psychoanalyzing reality TV.
Parker Niles (he/they) is a second-year MA student interested in contemporary Buddhist ritual in digital contexts, Buddhist material agency, encounters with the supernatural and unexplained, and Tibetan language. Outside of the fourth floor of the Reg, they work at Grounds of Being as a barista, and enjoy stand up comedy, literary fiction, graphic novels, pretending to be a film buff, and all things that go bump in the night.
Mukti Patel is a PhD student studying South Asian Religions with a focus on Sanskrit and Gujarati literature and history. Mukti is originally from Toronto and grew up in Virginia, always within two miles of a body of water. When not studying, Mukti likes to make art in any medium possible-- painting with coffee, calligraphy with crushed berry ink, sculpting with wire-- you name it. She is also an enthusiastic plant mom, currently most proud of a miniature rose bush growing in her kitchen. You can usually find her at a coffee shop ordering anything but coffee.
Elaina Reese is a third-year student in the MDiv program and is interested in healthcare chaplaincy and clinical ethics. Originally from Buffalo, New York, Elaina found her way to the Divinity School after educational and work experiences in the fields of nuclear materials, pediatric clinical trials, and hospice. When she's not studying, Elaina likes to share meals with friends, write letters, shop at Korean grocery stores, and play Mario Kart.
Chase Viscuse is a second-year MA student doing historical and ethnographic work with serpent handling communities. He can usually be found ordering at Grounds of Being or walking his dog, Nomad. Chase is interested in projects that operate outside of societal norms. His extracurricular interests include sports, walking his dog, coffee, watching movies, and chess.
alicehank winham (we/wer) is a PhD student in the Philosophy of Religion track, focusing on Buddhist philosophy in conversation with contemporary philosophies oriented towards liberation. We hold a BA in Philosophy and Theology and an MSt in Asian & Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Oxford, where we worked on neo-Pragmatist approaches to Candrakīrti as counters to naive Realism, and on countering Nihilistic approaches to Nāgārjuna by dispelling the possibility that he wielded śūnyatā with the arithmetic connotations of zero. Currently, alicehank is interested in exploring questions of how 'what and who counts' arises in our field of perception in relation to individuation, differentiation, and our use of logic, while continuing to practice philosophical witchood, yoga, meditation, communal and environmental care, and insurrectionist ethics.
OPEN SPACE COORDINATORS
AREA ASSISTANT
Dani Levy is a second year MA student at the Divinity School studying ancient Levantine and Near Eastern religions, with a focus on cosmological texts, the Hebrew bible, and themes of gender, materiality, and the body. She is especially interested in the relationship between immaterial divine concepts and their material embodied manifestations as written texts, amulets, body parts, and holy objects. Originally having grown up in California, Dani has since loved living in Chicago for the past five years. Outside of academia, she enjoys making ancient-inspired jewelry, watching movies, listing to disco music, and painting her nails.
MINISTRY ASSISTANT
Hart Lang is an MDiv and one of two Open Space Co-Coordinators. Originally from South Carolina, he’s been an artist and facilitator in Chicago for the larger part of the last ten years and remains eternally curious about all the ways creativity facilitates community building. He has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, a B.A. in Anthropology and Philosophy, and an abiding devotion to Lake Michigan.
Tutors
Garrett Lincoln Ashlock is a first-year PhD student on the History of Christianity track. He holds a BA in Middle East Studies from the University of Michigan and an MA from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Garrett is captivated by the relationship between Christianity and Platonism. He has focused on so-called “Christian Platonists” in the Greek, Armenian, and Syriac traditions, especially the Dionysian Corpus and Origen of Alexandria and his followers. From Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Garrett enjoys hiking, fishing, horticulture, natural history, bluegrass and country music, cooking Kentucky staples like barbeque, fried chicken, and cornbread, Cincinnati Reds baseball, and reading books, both fictional and non-fictional, especially those concerning the American South.
Admissions and Recruitment Assistant
Gillian Applegate (she/her) is a second-year MDiv. After a career in foster care, she decided to follow her calling and go to divinity school to become a chaplain. Gillian is an avid fan of West Ham United, hot tea, and the Balkans.
Andrew Wagner is an MA Student at the Divinity School. He has interests in the philosophy of religion, especially related to philosophical and theological perspectives on the self, the will, and time, as well as intellectual history, focusing on the relationship between existentialism and the history of Christianity. He is from Louisville, Kentucky and in his free time enjoys long distance running, playing electric guitar, and swimming at the Point.