Our Team

Vanessa Avery, Executive Director

​

For more than 25 years, Vanessa has been a pioneer, scholar and architect of interfaith relations, interreligious literacy, and building pluralistic communities of caring, trust, and civic action.  

 

Vanessa has been regularly recognized for the foresight and innovation that has helped her to see ways of educating and designing interreligious programs to strengthen communities, build safer neighborhoods, and grow grassroots networks that seed peace.  

 

In addition to leading Sharing Sacred Spaces, Vanessa is Lecturer in Interfaith Engagement at Yale Divinity School, a Fellow at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace, and author of numerous articles on world religions, interfaith understanding, organizational culture, and religion, (non)violence, and peace.