Verena studied Applied Theology (BA/MTh) at Regents Theological College in the UK, after which she served as a theological educator in South Sudan from 2007-2011. She started her PhD in Educational Leadership at Columbia International University (USA) in 2011, which she finished in 2017. She spent 5 years in Mozambique with SIM working as a theological educator in Pemba and then as Academic Dean of the Instituto Teológico de Lichinga in Lichinga training pastors for the local evangelical churches. In September 2021, she started to work as a Regional Consultant for Theological Education in Africa with the Overseas Council.

Research interests

African theology, theological education in general and in Africa in particular, curriculum design for theological schools. She has published on pneumatology and has taught on many NT books and theology in general.

Xiaoli has been serving in Australia and overseas as a lecturer, pastor and mentor over the last twenty years.  Her PhD offers a conversation between the Chinese soul-searching and the gospel of Jesus Christ through a unique contextual poetic lens (Leiden: Brill, 2018).  She has published widely for both academic and general readers. She is also a spiritual director and serves on the Executive Committee of Australian Association of Mission Studies and the Editorial Board of Australian Journal of Mission Studies.

Academic profile: https://staff.divinity.edu.au/staff/xiaoli-yang/

Personal website: https://zadokperspectives.wixsite.com/website

Research interests

intercultural theology; world/Asian Christianity, poetic theology, comparative theology, ethno-hermeneutics, Christian spirituality