Current Fellows

A Catholic priest from the Diocese of Sivagangai, India, Fr. James Ponniah serves as director of both the Department of Christian Studies at the University of Madras and the Asian Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies (ACCS) in Panayur.  He is also one of the chief editors of International Journal of Asian Christianity. He holds an MA and PhD from the University of Madras. Previously, he was dean of the Philosophy Faculty at Jnana Deepa Vidyapeeth, a pontifical institute in Pune, India, and was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley (2008-09).   

Fr. Ponniah served as a co-investigator for the Christianity and Religious Freedom Project funded by the Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and received the American Academy of Religion (AAR)'s Collaborative International Research Grant in 2015. Recently, he was named a research fellow in Religion and Culture by the Christian Institute for Theological Engagement (CHRISTE). His most recent publications include Culture, Religion, and Homemaking in and Beyond South Asia​ (Fortress, ​2020), Democratization of Indian Christianity: Hegemony, Accessibility, and Resistance​ (Routledge, 2024), and Indian Christianity and Its Transformative Potentials (ISPCK, 2025).

Research while at CWCIT ~ Fr. Ponniah's research project is titled "Local Modernities, Belgian Missionaries, and the Catholic Diocese of Kottar, Tamil Nadu: Sacred Genealogies of Development in Kanyakumari through the Lens of Interculturality."

Fr. Patrick Gnana

Former Professor & Chair of Christian Studies
University of Madras
(Chennai, India)

Fr. Patrick Gnana holds a doctorate in Christian studies and formerly served the University of Madras in the following roles: as professor and chair of the Department of Christian Studies; dean of Endowments, dean of Student Affairs, dean of Research, and chair of the School of Philosophy and Religious Thought. In 2013, he was awarded the Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Lecturer Fellowship to teach the course, "Public Religion: Learning from Indian and American Experiences," at Harvard Divinity School.

From 2011-15, he served as chief editor of the Indian Journal of Christian Studies (ISSN 2231-0835), and his more recent published books are Pothuveli Iraiyiyal (Public Theology [Tamil], 2022); Public Theology: Indian Concerns, Perspectives, and Issues (Fortress, 2020); and the edited volume, Indian Christianity and Its Public Role: Socio-Theological Explorations (New Delhi: Christian World Imprint, 2019).

Research while at CWCIT ~ Fr. Gnana's research project is titled "Jesuit Pandarasamis of the Old Madura Mission and Their Missionary Collaborators from the Tamil Region: The Making of a Catholic Tradition in South India."

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Fr. Guy Lambert Demeni 

Diocese of Nkongsamba
(Nkongsamba, Cameroon)

Ordained in the Nkongsamba Diocese of Cameroon, Fr. Demeni holds a BA in both philosophy and theology from the Catholic University of Central Africa (Yaoundé). While pursuing these studies, he also taught at Saint Paul College in Bafang (2010), served as vicar at the Nkongsamba Cathedral, where he was also responsible for the bishop's secretariat (2015), and was the prefect of studies at the Nkongsamba Diocese's minor seminary (2016).

He then went to France, where he obtained another BA in theology from the Catholic University of Lille (2018), followed by an MA in religious studies and societies from the University of Artois (2020). Returning to the Catholic University of Lille, he pursued a PhD in theology, defending his dissertation in May 2024. While working on these degrees, Fr. Demeni also served as vicar at the Bonne Nouvelle (Good News) Parish in Hem (2017), administrator at Ste. Marie des Brouck Parish in Bourbourg (2020), and vicar at Notre-Dame-de-Réconciliation in Lille (2021-24).

Research while at CWCIT ~ Fr. Demeni's research project is an extension of his doctoral dissertation, titled "Eucharistic Counter-Politics in Response to the Privatization of the Church: Towards a Renewal of Political Theology with William T. Cavanaugh."