At Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s 2026 Alumnae/i Days gathering, five alums were honored for their work and recognized as this year’s distinguished alumnae/i. Below, meet these alums and discover the ways in which they each apply their unique gifts to serve God and neighbor.
Hear each awardee speak about their work in the video below, or read on to learn more about these distinguished alums.
Distinguished Alumna in Pastoral Ministry: The Rev. Dr. Judith Slater ’91/’11/’18
The Rev. Dr. Judith (Judi) Slater ’91/’11/’18 has been the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Duquesne (Pa.) since 1992. Over the years, with the support of many dear ministry partners, including John McMillan PC (Bethel Park, Pa.), Duquesne has greatly expanded its community ministries to include a community garden, monthly senior food box distributions, a free mission store, sponsoring the local Imagination Library, a community Kids Club, and English classes with local refugee populations.
A graduate of PTS’s Church Planting and Revitalization Certificate program (now the Center for Adaptive and Innovative Ministry), Judi has participated in a number of church revitalization programs over the years. She chairs the Pittsburgh Presbytery’s “Matthew 25 On the Move” ministry team, an initiative that seeks to serve “the least of these” in Jesus’ name. The initiative has successfully sourced Bibles for the Allegheny County Jail and raised approximately $75,000 for Undue Medical, an organization working to relieve people in Allegheny County of crippling medical debt. For seven years, she also worked with small congregations as associate presbyter for Pittsburgh Presbytery. She has also served as part of a shared ministry team at Lincoln Place PC for three years and youth leader at the Korean Central Church of Pittsburgh for seven years.
Distinguished Alumna in Mission: The Rev. Dr. Renee Mikell ’10
The Rev. Dr. Renee Mikell ’10 is program manager for the United Methodist Foundation of Pennsylvania and previously served as clergy assistant to the Bishop in the Western Pennsylvania Conference of The United Methodist Church, a role she held for nearly 10 years through the administration of two episcopal leaders. In that role she served the Bishop’s cabinets, various committees, boards and task forces, and was liaison with local ecumenical partners representing the Bishop. An elected Order of Elders officer, Renee has served as a delegate to general and jurisdictional conferences and has participated in United Methodist Church Global Mission partnership initiatives on behalf of the WPAUMC. During one of her four visits to Zimbabwe, she participated in a six-week cultural immersion program in Mutoko, where she lived with the family of an elementary school teacher. She has also participated in mission to Nigeria, Puerto Rico, and Fiji.
Renee holds a D.Min. in church leadership excellence from Wesley Theological Seminary, is trained and credentialed in conflict resolution and mediation (Mennonite) and as a leadership coach (CAST), and has earned certification for spiritual formation from The Upper Room Ministries Academy. During her studies at PTS, Renee was the student pastor at Albright United Methodist Church, and following her graduation and subsequent ordination, she received three additional local church assignments in Butler, Greensburg, and Pittsburgh. She has been active in extension and pastoral ministry assignments in the WPAUMC for 18 years.
Distinguished Alumna in Specialized Ministry: Michelle Snyder ’09
Michelle Snyder ’09 is a mental health therapist, executive leadership coach, church consultant, and national presenter in suicide prevention for faith communities. She is the executive co-director of the Soul Shop movement, the leading global organization in faith-based suicide prevention. Michelle has been at the helm of the Soul Shop movement since its inception, and it has grown to a global movement that spans four countries, three continents, and more than 40 states. Soul Shop’s mission is to equip faith communities to both minister to those impacted by suicide and to recognize the significant role faith communities can play in the ministry of companioning the desperate into a place of hope. With dual graduate degrees in divinity and social work and a background as a therapist (LCSW), she is a sought-after keynote speaker at the intersection of faith and suicide.
Michelle is also a consultant with the Center for Healthy Churches, where she leads both the organizational development and Presbyterian teams and serves as principal consultant and board chair of PneuMatrix, a non-profit church consulting organization geared toward adaptive change leadership for the modern church. She is the co-author of Life, Death, and Reinvention: The Gift of the Impossibly Messed-Up Life. Michelle is currently pursuing a D.Min. at PTS in the Missional Leadership cohort.
Distinguished Alumnus in Academia: Dr. Daniel Frayer-Griggs ’08
Dr. Daniel Frayer-Griggs ’08 is assistant professor of biblical exegesis and director of the Center for Writing and Learning Support at PTS, where he has taught since 2018. His exegetical approaches include both robust historical critical scholarship and attention to contextually-driven perspectives present in the life of the church. His work and teaching accordingly bring together rigorous attention to the biblical texts in their original contexts and insistence upon reading the Bible from perspectives of pastoral and social significance, including disability and ecological hermeneutics.
Dr. Frayer-Griggs is the author of Saved Through Fire: The Fiery Ordeal in New Testament Eschatology (Pickwick, 2016) and co-editor of “To Recover What Has Been Lost”: Essays on Eschatology, Intertextuality, and Reception History in Honor of Dale C. Allison Jr. (Brill, 2020). He has contributed to Harvard Theological Review, Journal of Biblical Literature, Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, Reviews in Religion and Theology, and New Testament Studies. He presents regularly at meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature and received the SBL Regional Scholar Award in 2013. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament (Durham University) and additional degrees in education (M.Ed., Aquinas College), English (M.A., McNeese State University; BA, Hope College), and theology (MA, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary; BA, Hope College). Dr. Frayer-Griggs is an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and he teaches at local churches and has contributed lessons to The Presbyterian Outlook.
Fred Rogers Award in Creative Ministry: The Rev. Eric Vinsel ‘15
The Rev. Eric Vinsel ’15 is a bi-vocational ministry leader employed full time at Cisco Systems as an account executive for global enterprise customers and volunteers full time at Second Presbyterian Church (Bloomington, Ill.). Eric has guided Second PC in successfully procuring corporate funding to support innovative educational programming for kids in the community. He has developed a team of dedicated volunteers who teach kids robotics, computer programming, and project management three days a week. Over the past four years, this program has grown the congregation’s youth engagement from a small handful of students to 80 kids who participate in the program, with an additional 20 kids on the waitlist to join.
Before joining Cisco, Eric served in a number of ministry roles across the country, including pastoral internships at Rogers Park PC (Chicago, Ill.), East Liberty PC (Pittsburgh, Pa.), New Orleans Mission (La.), and Imago Dei Church (Peoria, Ill.), where he was involved in junior and senior high school student ministry and outreach and poverty intervention ministries. He also worked in nonprofit spaces, serving as seasonal supervisor of volunteers at Forest Preserve District of DuPage County and docent and archivist at PTS’s Kelso Museum of Near Eastern Archaeology. Eric is an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the PC(USA), and he was the first student to graduate from PTS’s M.Div. with church planting emphasis program.
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