Introducing the 2025-26 HDS Admissions Graduate Assistants

For more from the graduate assistants, check out this playlist of YouTube videos from Lexi, Janeen, Candice, and Elinor as they share a day in their life.

Elinor Bate, MTS ’27

Elinor Bate is a first-year MTS student concentrating in religion, literature, and culture. She grew up in Oxford, England, and graduated from Arizona State University in 2023, where she double majored in religious studies and justice studies. 

Before coming to HDS, Elinor worked in trade book publishing and in the nonprofit industry. She loves anything that involves storytelling, cross-cultural connection, and helping ideas come to life. Elinor loves speaking with prospective students, especially ones who are international, have worked in industry, or are interested in media, non-profit, or community engagement roles. She’s especially happy to chat with folks who are navigating life in a new country, coming from a professional background, or still figuring out if grad school is the right fit.

Academically, she’s interested in how literature, religion, and culture shape public life and personal identity. Elinor believes that fiction, especially sacred secular literature, can disseminate ideas around memory, love, and connection in ways that often function religiously.

Elinor continues to be fascinated by the interplay of religion in her new American home! She’s also investigating the role of storytelling in how we understand faith, community, and what matters most.

Outside of class, you can usually find Elinor at a literary event, visiting a museum, horseback riding, or exploring new neighborhoods. She’s traveled to over 20 countries, lived in three, and is always up for discussing the latest book.

Janeen Green, MTS ’26

Janeen Green is a second-year master of theological studies student at Harvard Divinity School, concentrating in religion, ethics, and politics. Originally from North Lauderdale, Florida, Janeen credits her early inspiration to her grandmother, a feminist activist and storyteller whose narratives influenced her worldview. With her grandmother’s narratives ingrained in her, she double-majored in religion and humanities (with concentrations in philosophy and women’s studies) at Florida State University, graduating magna cum laude.

During her tenure at FSU, Janeen served as president of Students Organized for Religious and Cultural Exploration (FSU’s Religion Club), studied abroad in London, England, and interned at both FSU’s Center for Global Engagement and The Well News in Washington, D.C. through The Fund for American Studies. She published a thesis exploring how Arab-American Muslim women in Dearborn, Michigan balance feminism, American culture, and Islam, revealing how these women draw on a repertoire of diverse cultural rhetoric available to them to fashion themselves in very diverse ways. She also conducted research on Black women’s passages in European art, which she presented at the Richard Macksey Humanities Symposium at Johns Hopkins University. 

As a student at Harvard Divinity School, Janeen values the pluralistic and collaborative environment, which has enhanced her academic and personal growth. Her research interests lie at the intersections of international governance, narrative ethnography, and human rights, with a particular emphasis on the usage of storytelling as a method to find ethical clarity in ambiguous 
situations. Currently, she is working on an ethnographic project centered on a Maroon community in Jamaica, focusing on narrative ethics. 

In addition to her academic pursuits, Janeen is the co-founder and co-president of the HDS Latine and Caribbean Students Association and works as a graduate assistant for HDS Admissions. In summer 2025, she worked as a research assistant for Prof. Terrence Johnson, supporting the inaugural Black and Jewish Leadership Initiative, and interned with the Council on American-Islamic Relations Florida chapter (CAIR-FL). Outside her studies, Janeen enjoys singing, traveling, connecting with loved ones, and exploring diverse cuisines.

Lexi Kallaher, MTS ’26

Lexi Kallaher is a second-year MTS student concentrating in religion, ethics, and politics. At HDS, she studies how religion impacts voter and political party behavior. More broadly, her research interests encompass issues of legitimacy, secularization, the role of religion in democracy and nationalism, and how governments and people should respond to illiberal movements. At HDS, she is also the founder and co-president of Taylor Swift: Faith & Folklore at HDS. She has worked for the International Center for Religion & Diplomacy, Mormon Women for Ethical Government, and the Public Religion Research Institute. Her experience growing up at the crossroads of Catholicism and Evangelicalism, her time at an all-LDS school, and her deep personal relationships with Muslims since childhood have instilled a resounding commitment to interfaith dialogue. Lexi grew up in Las Vegas and completed her undergraduate studies at American University in religious studies and international relations. 

Outside of HDS, she enjoys baking (having won the HDS bake-off last year), playing card games (which she likely picked up during her childhood), and traveling internationally with her friends (having visited 13 countries across five continents in the past four years). This is her second year as an Admissions graduate assistant; her favorite part of which is talking to prospective students and hearing their journey to HDS.  

Candice Mulinda, MTS ’27

Candice Mulinda is a first year master of theological studies student and a graduate assistant in the HDS Admissions Office. She’s from Roanoke, Virginia where she spent most of her schooling years attending a small Christian school, graduating with only 18 other people! This close-knit environment where all issues were discussed in relation to the Bible sparked her interest in religion and politics.

She went on to earn her Bachelor’s degree at Yale, where she studied political science and religious studies, minored in Spanish, and fell in love with New England seafood. She wrote her senior thesis on how Black megachurches in the D.C. metro area mobilize their congregations to political action, interviewing religious and political leaders around Washington, D.C.

After graduating from Yale, she worked in Washington, D.C. as a consultant, working to solve business problems for federal agencies and state governments. She spent much of her free time reading political autobiographies and literary classics. During this time, she attended HDS's DivEx Program, which opened her eyes to a future where she could continue studying religion and politics.

At HDS, she focuses on religion, ethics, and politics, taking classes like "Evangelicalism and Political Culture" in the U.S. and "African American Religious History." In her free time, she continues to read nonfiction, goes on runs, and spends time with family and friends who live in the area.