Erin Lothes, Ph.D., is the executive director of Bethany Center Hudson Valley, an ecological education center in New York. She is author of Inspired Sustainability: Planting Seeds for Action (Orbis 2016) and The Paradox of Christian Sacrifice:The Loss of Self, The Gift of Self (Herder and Herder, 2007), as well as many articles on faith-based environmentalism and energy ethics and a commentary for the Orbis Books publication of Pope Francis’s Laudate Deum.  

Dr. Lothes was a tenured associate professor of theology at St. Elizabeth’s University, until resigning to lead the Laudato Si Animators Program with the Laudato Si Movement. She has been a long-time collaborator and divestment activist with many interfaith environmental coalitions such as GreenFaith, the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale, and the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, where she is presently a visiting scholar. She is also an ecclesial affiliate with the Laudato Si Research Institute, Campion Hall at Oxford University