Maria Nkonge Mugweru

Program Coordinator

Maria Nkonge Mugweru, J.D. serves the Ormond Center as Program Coordinator. In this role she provides immersive support to all programs across the Center along with other functions of office management.

Prior to joining Ormond, Maria was a postdoctoral associate at Duke Divinity School for two years in the Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative (TMC), where she researched and presented conference papers on racial inequities across healthcare through the Advance Care Planning and Healthy Living Through Faith Program (ACP-HLTF); and later served as a consultant to TMC, supporting the work of the African American Advance Care Planning/Palliative Care Network (the "AA ACP/PC Network"), a vibrant network of palliative care experts nationwide who strive to provide a deeply theological vision of what it means to live well and die faithfully. Maria is the co-organizer of the Annual Richard Payne Lecture in Faith, Justice, and Health Care at Duke Divinity School. Prior to joining Duke Divinity School, Maria worked as a hospice chaplain for four years in Albuquerque, NM; and completed her first year of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando, FL. In addition to advance care planning and chaplaincy, Maria has experience with church empowerment, public policy, research analytics, and training-of-trainers.