Formation in Action: McCormick’s 2026 Rising Star
SEPTEMBER 17, 2026
Announcing McCormick’s 2026 Rising Star Award Recipient: Professor Adriana “Dri” Rivera
McCormick Theological Seminary is proud to announce Professor Adriana “Dri” Rivera as the recipient of the 2026 Rising Star Award. A theological educator, researcher, curriculum designer, and advocate for more responsive learning communities, Dri embodies McCormick’s commitment to faithful leadership that meets the complexities of the present moment with imagination, care, and courage.
Now Assistant Professor of Contextual Education and Educational Ministry at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Dri is helping shape the future of theological education by centering the lived experiences of students and preparing leaders to serve communities with greater awareness, compassion, and resilience.
ABOUT THE RISING STAR AWARD
The Rising Star Award is presented to a McCormick alum in recognition of faithful contributions to ministry in the Church and society. The award honors graduates from the past ten years whose service reflects the many forms ministry can take—from pastoral leadership and chaplaincy to education, social justice, advocacy, community organizing, and social service.
Recipients demonstrate how theological education can take root wherever people are working to strengthen communities, pursue justice, cultivate healing, and help others imagine new possibilities. Dri’s work exemplifies this expansive understanding of ministry.
FROM THE CLASSROOM TO THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION
Before entering theological education, Dri served as a seventh-grade English teacher and a Lutheran (ELCA) youth minister—experiences that helped form their commitment to learning as a deeply relational and transformative practice.
Dri earned a Bachelor of Science in Secondary English Education from Indiana University Bloomington and a Master of Divinity from McCormick Theological Seminary. They are currently completing a PhD in Christian Education and Congregational Studies at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
Across each chapter of their vocation, Dri has remained focused on a central question: How can education honor the whole person and equip people to participate more faithfully in the healing and transformation of their communities?
REIMAGINING HOW THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION FORMS LEADERS
Dri’s research focuses on trauma-informed and healing-centered post-pandemic pedagogies for digital theological education. Their work pays particular attention to faculty development and the importance of aligning teaching practices with an institution’s mission.
This scholarship responds to a rapidly changing educational landscape in which students bring complex histories, responsibilities, wounds, and wisdom into every learning environment. Dri’s work challenges theological institutions to move beyond the simple transfer of information and embrace education as formation—formation that attends to what students know in their minds, carry in their bodies, and have learned through living.
At Eden, Dri directs the contextual education program, teaches emerging religious leaders, and helps students connect theological learning with the communities and ministries they serve. They also work as a religious education consultant specializing in programming, evaluation, and curriculum design.
A MINISTRY OF HEALING AND FORMATION
Dri’s leadership has made a lasting impact at McCormick. As Assistant Director of Educational Programming for the Trauma Healing Initiative, they oversaw the Microcredential in Community Healing Practices and facilitated faculty development workshops focused on trauma-informed teaching.
Dri also directed the joint Writing and Resource Center serving McCormick and Catholic Theological Union. Drawing on their experience as an educator and Christian education editor, they helped students strengthen their writing, clarify their ideas, and develop confidence in their own theological voices.
Last year, Dri further extended this ministry as co-host alongside Rev. Dr. Stephanie M. Crumpton of the Trauma Healing Initiative’s Be Well podcast. Through thoughtful conversations about teaching, learning, healing, and living in challenging times, they have helped bring the initiative’s work beyond the classroom and into a wider community.
Across each of these roles, Dri has approached education and formation as ministries of accompaniment—creating spaces where students, faculty, and listeners can engage with greater honesty, agency, and care.
BECOMING WHAT WE IMAGINE
Dri’s vocation reflects the spirit of McCormick’s 2026–27 theme, (Be)coming What We Imagine. Their work gives faithful imagination hands and feet—transforming ideas about care, accessibility, and belonging into teaching practices, programs, and learning communities that more fully reflect those commitments.
They remind us that theology belongs wherever people are wrestling with how to live together, how to heal, and how to build institutions worthy of the people they serve. Through scholarship, teaching, collaboration, and care, Dri is helping theological education become more responsive to the world as it is—and more capable of preparing leaders to participate in the world as it might yet become.
McCormick is honored to recognize Professor Adriana “Dri” Rivera as the 2026 Rising Star Award recipient and to celebrate the faithful, imaginative leadership they are already bringing to the Church, the academy, and society.