#  People 

 



##  The Program for the Evolution of Spirituality 

 

 

       ![A stone walking labyrinth at Harvard Divinity School surrounded by shrubs](/sites/g/files/omnuum4701/files/styles/hwp_21_9__1920x825/public/2025-03/Screen%20Shot%202025-03-05%20at%202.45.12%20PM.png?h=cf3cb235&itok=P1CjLepd) 

 

 



 

 



 

The Harvard Divinity School Program for the Evolution of Spirituality, under the direction of [Professor Dan McKanan](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/people/dan-mckanan), aims to support the scholarly study of, and the preparation of students interested in ministering in, emerging spiritual movements, marginalized spiritualities, and the innovative edges of established religious traditions.



 

##  Meet the Team 

 

Program Director

### Dan McKanan 

 

Dan McKanan serves as the Ralph Waldo Emerson Unitarian Universalist Senior Lecturer at Harvard Divinity School, where he has taught since 2008. He studies religious and spiritual movements for social transformation in the United States and beyond, with particular emphasis on environmental activism, intentional communities, and socialism. Much of his research focuses on the Unitarian Universalist tradition and the anthroposophical movement. He is the author of six books, among them *Camphill and the Future: Spirituality and Disability in an Evolving Communal Movement* (University of California Press, 2020), *Eco-Alchemy: Anthroposophy and the History and Future of Environmentalism* (University of California Press, 2017) and *Prophetic Encounters: Religion and the American Radical Tradition* (Beacon Press, 2011), which won the Frederic G. Melcher Book Award. He also served as lead editor of the two-volume *A Documentary History of Unitarian Universalism* (Skinner House Books, 2017). Earlier works explored the Catholic Worker movement and nonviolent activism in the early nineteenth century.



 



      ![Dan McKanan](/sites/g/files/omnuum4701/files/styles/hwp_1_1__480x480/public/hds2/files/dan_mckanan_600x400.jpeg?itok=IuZ2olun) 

 

 

  HDS Senior Lecturer and director of the Program for the Evolution of Spirituality Dan McKanan. / Photo: Justin Knight   

 



 

 

 

 ### Natalia Schwien Scott

Charter Coordinator

 

   ![Headshot of Natalia Schwien Scott](/sites/g/files/omnuum4701/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-09/Natalia%20Schwien%20Scott%20Headshot%201.jpg?h=72a09f1c&itok=gBvUNWGS) 

 

 

 

 ### Matthew Ceurvorst

Program Coordinator

 

   ![Headshot of Matthew Ceurvorst](/sites/g/files/omnuum4701/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-03/Screen%20Shot%202025-03-04%20at%209.40.15%20PM_0.png?h=93e3e8ff&itok=pOjmP3oR) 

 

 

 

 ### Sadie Trichler

Program Coordinator

 

   ![Headshot of Sadie Trichler](/sites/g/files/omnuum4701/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-03/Screen%20Shot%202025-03-04%20at%209.50.15%20PM.png?h=dce5e584&itok=MsiDCst1)