Connie Lasher is Executive Director of The John Paul II Institute for Theology & Environmental Studies, in New Gloucester, Maine. A Roman Catholic systematic theologian with a Master’s and Ph.D. in Theology, she brings to her teaching and scholarship interdisciplinary competencies from the field of Environmental Studies, with particular interest in the environmental arts and humanities. She is a former Course Director and Senior Instructor at the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School (Maine), where she directed, designed and taught courses, trained staff, and developed programs in the Maine Sea School, Wilderness programs, and Florida Keys Sea School. Her forthcoming book is Environmentalism and the New Evangelization:  Ecological Identity and the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar (Herder/Crossroad, 2009).