Our Team & Partners
Our Staff
Allyson McKinney Timm
Founder and Executive Director | Board Chair
Allyson McKinney Timm (she/her) is a human rights lawyer, scholar, and faith leader with over two decades of experience defending the dignity and rights of those on the margins in the United States and globally. Her work promoting justice and equality has spanned the nonprofit, private, and academic sectors. In 2018, she was named “one of ten faith leaders to watch” by the Center for American Progress. Allyson is a frequent speaker and writer on issues of faith, justice, and gender equality, and has contributed to Sojourners, Christian Century, Religion News Service, USA Today, and other publications.
Before founding Justice Revival, Allyson taught and supervised students at the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School. While at Yale, she supervised the investigation and analysis of issues such as early and forced marriage, human trafficking, and religious liberty and consulted on issues at the intersection of human rights and religion. Previously, Allyson established and led the Uganda Field Office of International Justice Mission, launching a successful program to defend the property and inheritance rights of vulnerable widows and orphans, which became a model for others in the region.
Allyson holds a law degree and an MBA from Georgetown University and a Masters in Divinity from Yale Divinity School. She is ordained as a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Ellie Hutchison Cervantes
Communications Manager
Ellie Hutchison Cervantes (she/her) is a mission-driven communicator with over ten years of experience mobilizing support for immigrants’ rights, economic development, and other social causes. She is passionate about uniting spirituality and justice and has contributed to the work of local, national, and international faith-based organizations in advancing change.
Originally from the Midwest, Ellie now calls many places home—having lived, studied, and volunteered across the U.S. as well as in England, Cambodia, Hungary, and Mexico. In her spare time, Ellie enjoys traveling, learning Spanish, and facilitating an intergenerational community of Catholic Sisters and spiritual seekers called “Nuns and Nones.” Ellie holds a B.A. in International Development from Calvin University and a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary.
Marena Groll
North Carolina Lead Mobilizer, #Faith4ERA Campaign
Marena Groll (she/her) is a grassroots activist, community organizer, speaker, and writer. She utilizes her field organizing and legislative advocacy experience to design infrastructure for intersectional movement building that centers the prevention of sex discrimination.
Marena is passionate about affirming the validity of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, having cofounded a non-profit organization and developed dynamic local, state, and national campaigns that promote constitutional equality.
She is an active United Methodist and credits her parents, church family, and sisters of United Women in Faith for fostering her in the ways of the beloved community. She believes the voices of people of faith and conscience are vital in advancing human rights for all.
An ardent believer in the practice of soul care, Marena enjoys binge reading, gardening, traveling off the beaten path with her husband, and southern BBQ debates at family reunions.
Marena holds a BS in Special Education and MA Ed in Educational Administration, Curriculum and Supervision from East Carolina University, NC. She acknowledges the ancestral lands of the Tuscarora peoples on which her family resides.
Our Board of Directors
Lori Adams-Brown
Board Member
Lori Adams-Brown is a combination of international speaker, business executive, podcaster and relief and development expert. She hosts the top 5% global podcast A World of Difference, celebrating humanity’s unique differences and encouraging us all to make a difference around the world together.
Since growing up as a missionary kid in international schools in Costa Rica and Venezuela, Lori has spent her career working in Indonesia, Singapore and the San Francisco Bay Area. She worked in disaster relief in the 2004 Indonesian tsunami where she consulted with the UN coordination efforts, and she has spoken to audiences in Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, Thailand, Malaysia, Venezuela and around the US. Lori served as a missionary in Asia, and a pastor in Silicon Valley.
She believes deeply that we need a diversity of perspectives to solve the greatest challenges of our day. So, she has learned to speak six languages that bring a rare multicultural perspective into her speaking, training, coaching, and business consulting in Silicon Valley, where she lives with her husband, three teens, and Singaporean rescue dog.
Lateisha Garrett
Board Treasurer
Teisha Garrett hails from Powhatan, Virginia, and is a graduate of James Madison University where she earned a degree in English and Political Communications. After college, Teisha moved to Washington, D.C. to make the world a better place and focused on fundraising from major and grassroots donors.
Teisha has spent most of her career mobilizing and engaging people to support political candidates, advocacy organizations, issues, and nonprofits. As a fundraiser, she has raised over $100 million from email, direct mail, phones, events, and campaigns. She is consistently called on to serve as an advisor on project implementation, strategy, recruiting, and messaging.
Teisha also serves on the boards of the Alexandria Commission for Women and Virginia’s List, chairs the board of the Vola Lawson Breast Cancer Fund, and is an active member of Alfred Street Baptist Church. In her spare time, she can be found wandering around Alexandria, cheering on a Washington sports team, voraciously consuming books, or baking cupcakes.
Jennifer Gee
Board Secretary
Erin Grayson
Board Chaplain Emerita
Erin Grayson is an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA). She has served PCUSA and United Church of Christ congregations in Connecticut and Washington state. Erin’s ministry includes preaching, teaching, facilitating small groups, and organizing retreats. Pastorally, Erin is committed to building up and inspiring communities of faith to live according to Jesus’ great commandment: to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself.
Erin also serves as president of her local Interfaith Council and as an executive board member of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial Association. Before divinity school, she interned in the press room in the U.S. State Department, worked for Human Rights Watch, and conducted research on the Rwandan genocide at the Carter Center, where she also served the conflict resolution team.
Erin and her husband Tony have three great kids, Aiden, Corinne, and Caleb. You can follow Erin’s musings and creative writing at erinkgrayson.com, where she reflects on the art of faithful living.
Lisa Sharon Harper
Board Member
Lisa Sharon Harper is the founder and president of Freedom Road, a groundbreaking consulting group that crafts experiences that bring common understanding and common commitments that lead to common action toward a more just world. Lisa is a public theologian whose writing, speaking, activism and training has sparked and fed the fires of re-formation in the church from Ferguson and Charlottesville to South Africa, Brazil, Australia and Ireland. Lisa’s book, The Very Good Gospel was named 2016 “Book of the Year” and the Huffington Post identified Lisa as one of 50 Women Religious Leaders to Celebrate on International Women’s Day. Her much anticipated book, Fortune: How Race Broke My Family And The World–And How To Repair It All, is now available!
Our Partners
