Dr. Santiago Piñón, Jr. is a professional ethicist and Associate Professor of Religion at Texas Christian University (Ph.D., 2012; M.Div., 2001, University of Chicago; M.A., 1999, Abilene Christian University), where he has served on the faculty since 2011. He is the 2024 recipient of the prestigious Deans’ Award for Teaching at TCU. His scholarship engages grief, embodiment, disability, and ethical life in contexts of suffering and marginalization, with particular current interest in questions of disability and human dignity. His forthcoming book, When God is Silent: Love, Lament, and the Work of Staying (expected 2026), is a theological meditation on grief and faith rooted in the Christian “Dark Night” tradition that argues love and divine absence can coexist, inviting individuals and communities to practice honest lament and sustaining presence in the face of loss.

Most recently, he organized the SWCRS panel “Acknowledging the Trauma of Gun Violence and Its Impact on Campus Climate” and received a 2023–2024 Regional Development Grant from the American Academy of Religion for the project Acknowledging the Trauma of Gun Violence. Dr. Piñón serves on the AAR Committee on the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession. His publications also include “Enduring Indigenous Religious Practices in the Americas,” a peer-reviewed entry in the Encyclopedia of Religious Ethics (2021), and “Losing a Child: A Father’s Methodological Plight,” in Feminist Trauma Theologies (2020). He teaches in TCU’s Religion Department and is affiliated with Women’s and Gender Studies and Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies. Dr. Piñón served as Interim Chair of the Religion Department in Fall 2024.

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