Mariana Thomas was born and raised in Chicago. In 2016, she received her Bachelor of Arts in Cross-Cultural Communication with a minor in History at Hope College.

While at Hope, she advocated for a more substantive racial harassment policy in order to shift the campus’ culture to a more inclusive environment for students of color.

Mariana continued her advocacy work for students of color while pursuing her Master of Divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary. At Princeton, she became the 2017-2018 Moderator of the Association of Black Seminarians, a role in which she advised administrators on ways to

support students of African descent while also intentionally cultivating a deeper sense of community among her Black peers. As a result of her year as Moderator she was invited to join Princeton’s Historical Audit on Slavery Response Taskforce that engaged the Seminary’s community on ways the institution should respond to its historic relationship with slavery. She maintained this role until her graduation in May 2019.

Mariana is also an avid traveler, having gone to countries such as South Africa, Mozambique, Ghana, and India. In her travels she has enjoyed engaging with various local spiritual communities that have helped to broaden her understanding of God, self, and others. Mariana has recently returned to the USA after completing her travels to South Africa and Brazil as the 2019-2020 recipient of Princeton Seminary’s Graduate Fellowship for Parish Pulpit Ministry.

In the coming years, she hopes to continue to travel as well as become a pastor to live into her call of loving God and God’s people in the US and abroad.