Shonda Nicole Gladden is a scholar-practitioner. Her research emerges at the intersections of philosophy, art, gender and cultural studies and aims to explore an anti-colonial enterprise of deconstructing Black gendered identities and cultural productions. Utilizing critical visual culture methodologies, her work explores representations of identity and the framing of movements- social, spatial, and spiritual- as cultural productions that inform ANTI-Blackness, and Black aesthetics, within the colonial project of the Americas. She is currently the pastor of La Plata AME Church and the director of Programs and Initiatives in the Lewis Center for church leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary.

the founder of Good to the SOUL (a faith informed, justice centered social enterprise that accompanies young adults and communities in vocational discernment and liberative leadership formation that energizes individuals and institutions to flourish and do good, especially good that promotes the “spirit of universal liberation" (SOUL)), she has served the African Methodist Episcopal Church in various leadership and support roles, including serving as lead pastor of four congregations and in clergy support roles for six congregations in the span of a thirty-two year career.

As the mother of an adult son, a philosophical theologian, and local pastor, she passionately embodies a pragmatic approach to analyzing and addressing impediments to individual and institutional flourishing. Through the primary work of cultivating spaces where human flourishing is central and individuals are invited to attend to the healing and well-being of their souls, she coaches and consults with various think tanks and organizations to produce theologically informed and creative resources, influencing organizational, individual, and cultural change.

Her life work is committed to studying, singing, Speaking, and showing up consistently full of everything that reflects being and doing
good to the SOUL.