Episcopal Church Foundation Announces Four 2025 ECF Fellows
New York, NY – July 30, 2025 – The Episcopal Church Foundation (ECF) is excited to announce the four individuals named 2025 ECF Fellows: the Rev. Brainerd Dharmaraj, the Rev. Dorothy Goehring, the Rev. Kenji Kuramitsu, and Demarius Walker.
“For over sixty years, ECF’s Fellowship Partners Program has invested in leaders who wish to build a more faithful, just, and resilient Episcopal Church,” writes ECF President and CEO Dail St. Claire, congratulating the 2025 Fellows. “The 2025 ECF Fellows exemplify this legacy through their bold vision and deep engagement with the realities of today’s world. We proudly support their work as they help shape the Church of the future.”
Jacob Sierra, ECF Senior Program Director and manager of the ECF Fellowship Partners Program, adds, “The four recipients' scholarship and ministry projects reflect a preoccupation with equipping leaders with the tools needed to build The Episcopal Church the world needs today. This Church emphasizes the necessity of a diverse, expansive community, is committed to justice and reconciliation, and wrestles with the ethical implications of the modern age. In some way or another, the 2025 ECF Fellows’ work will speak to each of these areas.”
We invite you to read more about the 2025 ECF Fellows and their projects below.
The Rev. Brainerd Dharmaraj serves as Priest Associate at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, California, a multicultural and bilingual parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. Growing up in India with its myriad languages and cultures, Brainerd developed a deep appreciation for the gifts and joys of diversity, as well as its challenges. His experience as an immigrant, combined with his ministry at St. Mark’s and longstanding interest in diversity, led him to pursue doctoral studies. He is currently working towards a PhD in Practical Theology at the University of Aberdeen. His research explores the lived experience of the Eucharist liturgy in multicultural and multilingual congregations, with a particular focus on English-Spanish bilingual communities.
Brainerd hopes that this “bottom-up” approach to liturgical study — grounded in the lived experiences of worshippers — will foster a greater understanding and appreciation of the diverse elements that shape worship and meaning-making across traditions. He also envisions this work contributing to the broader integration of cultural differences, not only in worship and liturgy but across all aspects of parish life.
The Rev. Brainerd Dharmaraj will be named the 2025 Father J. Robert Wright Academic Fellow. The Rev. J. Robert Wright was an Episcopal priest, scholar, ecumenist, Episcopal Church historian, and a 1964 ECF Fellow. Upon the passing of the Rev. Wright, ECF received a transformational legacy gift from the Rev. Wright’s estate, which permanently endows an academic fellowship. We are incredibly grateful for this gift and excited to announce the Rev. Brainerd Dharmaraj as our inaugural Father J. Robert Wright Academic Fellow.
The Rev. Dorie Goehring (she/her) serves as Assistant Rector at St. John's Episcopal Church, Jamaica Plain, MA. She is also a PhD candidate in Comparative Theology at Boston College, with a doctoral minor in Theological Ethics and a concentration in Catholic Healthcare Ethics. Her dissertation applies methodologies of comparative theology to questions of prenatal genetic testing ethics, with a focus on Anglican/Episcopalian and Islamic bioethical thought.
Dorie hopes that her work may contribute to the fields of disability theology, comparative theology, and theological bioethics. In addition to her academic and pastoral work, she has served in chaplaincy and clinical ethics roles at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Boston Medical Center Brighton in Brighton, MA, and Elizabeth Seton Residence in Wellesley Hills, MA. Prior teaching experience includes Boston College and the Ethics Consultation skills course at Harvard Medical School's Center for Bioethics.
The Rev. Kenji Kuramitsu is an Episcopal priest, licensed clinical social worker, and educator based in Chicago. He serves as Associate Dean for Community Life at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel at the University of Chicago and maintains a small private practice, Kintsugi Psychotherapy PLLC. He is board-certified in group psychotherapy and teaches pastoral care at McCormick Theological Seminary. He is also a Sacred Journey Fellow with Interfaith America.
Inspired by his own transformative experiences on pilgrimage and leading local "Race and Place" walking tours, Kenji’s ECF project, “Sacred Sites, Living Stones: Virtual Pilgrimages for Memory and Meaning,” will develop digital and in-person resources to guide church communities through pilgrimage experiences at sites of historical trauma, resistance, and sacred memory – such as Japanese American incarceration camps and civil rights landmarks. Designed for use in small groups, these materials will combine theological reflection, multimedia engagement, and practices of truth-telling to connect historical accountability with Christian discipleship.
Demarius J. Walker is trying his best to “listen for the sound of the genuine” and follow the streams that bring joy to the city of God. He is called to cultivate reconciling communities and facilitate creative encounters that invite people to listen deeply— to themselves, one another, and God. Demarius holds degrees from Boston University and Virginia Theological Seminary, and he is receiving an MA in Peace and Social Transformation at Earlham School of Religion. He credits his formation and journey into the ministry of reconciliation to the Community of St. Anselm in London, the Corrymeela Community in Northen Ireland, the Society of St. John the Evangelist in MA, the Chemin Neuf Community in France, Holy Cross Monastery in NY, and Mucknell Abbey in the UK, where he affirmed his call to the intentional community movement, a vocation he shares with his wife Lakshmi.
Demarius is interested in how intentional Christian communities feed and are fed by movements for justice, healing, and social transformation. Through the fellowship, he aims to connect young adults with a safe, accessible, and visible network of alternative Christian communities, nurturing a rehumanized generation shaped by the habits of reconciliation and ultimately making the way for a reimagined world that embodies God’s dream for humanity.
Applications for the 2026 ECF Fellowship will open in November 2025. Information about the ECF Fellowship Partners Program and the application process for the 2026 ECF Fellowship can be found on ECF's website.