Keynote Speaker | Sister Jean Evans, RSM, D.Th.

Sister Jean Evans, RSM, D.Th., is a member of the West Midwest community of the Sisters of Mercy, and leads a life dedicated to ministry and service for those in need. Holding dual citizenship in the United States and South Africa, Sr. Jean has given much of her time in South Africa, having spent 12 years working at the Mmakau Adult Center in Ga-Rankuwa as the principal of the Vocational Training Center for marginalized youth and unemployed adults.

Sr. Jean spent 28 years teaching in schools run by the Sisters of Mercy, and has lectured on classical and contemporary spirituality and the theory and practice of discernment at St. John Vianney Seminary and St. Augustine College, both in South Africa.

She serves as an in-service theology lecturer for San Francisco Archdiocese Catholic Schools, and leads Taizé prayer at Mercy Center in Burlingame, Calif. She previously facilitated youth meetings and prayer in the style of Taizé at the center from 1988 to 2011.

In the fall of 2012, she volunteered with the United States Province The Religious of Jesus and Mary Mission in Gros Morne, Haiti. In November 2012, Sr. Jean was awarded a Pastoral Study Grant from the Louisville Institute, a Lily Endowment-funded program based at the Louisville Seminary, to study the interface between phenomenological method and the practice of spiritual direction.

She studied theology with specialization in Christian spirituality at the University of South Africa, where she earned her doctoral degree in theology in 2002. Sr. Jean completed her master’s degree in pastoral theology at the University of San Francisco, Calif. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Russell College in Burlingame, Calif. She currently resides in Burlingame, Calif., where she leads retreats and writes on the subject of spirituality.