Phillis Isabella Sheppard is the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion. In 2021 she was appointed as the Director of the James Lawson Institute for the Research and Study of Nonviolent Movements at Vanderbilt University.
Previously, she was Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Psychology at Boston University School of Theology where she was co-director of the Center for Practical Theology, and the former Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology at North Park University Theological Seminary.
She holds the Ph.D. from Chicago Theological Seminary in Theology, Ethics and the Human Sciences, the M.A. in Theology from Colgate Rochester Divinity School, and earned a certificate in adult psychoanalysis from the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis.
She is a Community Chaplain with the Upper Room and was ordained in 2022. Phillis is a spiritual director and psychoanalyst. She has a deep appreciation for the multiple spaces where the sacred may be experienced. She seeks to serve as one who draws people together to form communities of love and justice.