Doug Kindschi, Sylvia and Richard Kaufman Founding Director

Pronouns: he/him
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (616) 331-5878

Now in my 49th year at Grand Valley State University, I have served in the position of Dean of Science for 28 of those years. I am currently University Professor of Mathematics and Philosophy and the Sylvia and Richard Kaufman Founding Director of the Kaufman Interfaith Institute. While Dean, I was responsible for 14 departments including the basic sciences, mathematics, computer science, the School of Engineering, the School of Health Professions and the Water Resources Research Institute. I received my bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Houghton College in New York, and did graduate study at the Divinity School, University of Chicago. I received my M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I also completed a minor in philosophy as a part of my doctoral study.

Kyle Kooyers, Director of Operations

Pronouns: he/him
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (616) 331-5718

I have an immense passion for community organizing and capacity building. From working with youth in under-resourced neighborhoods to tackling the nuances of food insecurity in rural areas, I have long seen the power and impact of people working together across lines of difference to make a community a healthy and inclusive place for everyone. I have a love for community-based interfaith engagement, dialogue and relationship-building spaces, and simply being a connector between religious, secular, and spiritual communities as well as social service organizations.

Liz English, Campus Program Manager

Pronouns: she/her
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (616) 331-7863

I have been a perpetual student of religions for almost half of my life, predominantly in an academic setting though my own religious experiences have colored every aspect of my life. By joining the Kaufman Interfaith Institute team, I’ve come out from behind my stacks of books and taken a much-needed step into the lived experiences of my community. From worldviews on a page to worldviews as they are lived - complex, personal, and dynamic. Campus remains my happy place, though, and as such, I am devoted to curating spaces of interfaith engagement and exploration for the GVSU community - students, faculty, staff, and alumni. 

Zahabia Ahmed-Usmani, Youth Program Manager

Pronouns: she/her
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (616) 331-5702

As an involved community member, mother, and mentor to youth, I am passionate about fostering youth leadership and embedding youth perspectives into the direction of the Kaufman Interfaith Institute. I believe that creating belonging within our community begins with our youth leaders deeply understanding their own identity and having the skills to dialogue across lines of difference. I hope that anyone who takes part in Kaufman's youth programming gains appreciative knowledge about traditions different than their own and that their attitudes are transformed through relationships they have built.

Phil Oosterhouse, Tech Specialist

Pronouns: he/him
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (616) 331-5702

Elamin Gasim Ibrahim Gasim, Office Coordinator

Pronouns: he/him
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (616) 331-5704

Rachel Robinson, Program Assistant and Pamela Kidd MD Interfaith Ambassador

Pronouns: she/her
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (616) 331-5702

My academic path led me to questions—interfaith helped me live the answers.As a neuroscience major and philosophy minor, I was always asking big questions about identity, connection, and what it means to be a flourishing human. It wasn’t until I discovered interfaith dialogue that I saw how these questions could be explored not just in theory, but in relationship. These relationships offered me refuge—a place where I felt invited to be my full self: uncertain yet hopeful, imperfect yet whole, constantly reaching, learning, becoming—in community and conversation. Through helping found a new student group—Interfaith Student Council—and now serving as a Program Assistant with the Kaufman team, I’ve seen firsthand how that community is created—through dialogue, trust, and intentional space-making. This work has brought together everything I love—curiosity, connection, and creating spaces where others can grow into their own voices too.

Roman Williams, Senior Research Fellow

Pronouns: he/him
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (616) 331-5702

I'm the founder of Interfaith Photovoice, a social enterprise where I get to combine two things I'm passionate about: photography and sociology. Through this work, I create spaces for intergroup and interfaith engagement that are visual, participatory, and deeply human.

My academic journey took me through a Ph.D. in the sociology of religion at Boston University and a Th.M. focused on global religions from Gordon-Conwell Seminary. Throughout my academic career, I've been fascinated by how people actually live their religion in everyday life, and I've explored this through participatory visual methodologies—work that came together in my edited volume, Seeing Religion (Routledge, 2015).

During my years as a professor, something shifted inside me. I found myself drawn more and more toward community-based participatory action research—work that felt immediate, tangible, and transformative. When the pandemic hit, it gave me the space (and honestly, the courage) to step out of academia and into my own consulting practice. Now I focus on what matters most to me: belief, belonging, and human flourishing.

These days, I like to think I'm helping to make the world a better place one photo at a time. It might sound idealistic, but I've seen what happens when people use their smartphone cameras to snap photos and share their stories. My book, Sacred Snaps: Photovoice for Interfaith Engagement (co-authored with Cathy Holtmann and Bill Sachs), is my invitation for others to join me in this work. Because the more of us doing this, the better.

Directions: Our primary office is located at 301 Michigan St NE, within GVSU's Cook-Devos Center for Health Sciences building (CHS), located on the corner of Michigan & Lafayette. To reach the visitor parking lot, turn off of Michigan St. at the Prospect light. The entrance to visitor parking will be on your left.  

When you pull under the building, go all the way to the end to park. Enter through the door with the "Elevators" sign above it. We'll be on Floor 2, right in front of the elevators, in room 290. 

Please contact us to receive a visitor's parking pass.

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We do also have an office on the Allendale Campus in the Cook-Dewitt Center. Send us an email to set up a time to meet there!