Briana L. Wong, PhD

Hometown – Kent, WA
Undergrad – Columbia University, BA, History and French
Graduate School – Princeton Theological Seminary, 2015, MDiv Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary, 2020, PhD, World Christianity & History of Religions
Current – Visiting Assistant Professor, Wake Forest University School of Divinity

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Briana Wong is a student at Princeton Theological Seminary. She is driven by an intense passion for justice and has dedicated her life to the fight against oppression in New York City and around the world.

While an undergraduate at Combia University, in order to combat educational injustice, Briana served as a coordinator for Mentoring Youth in New York City (MyNYC), a program designed to prepare high school students in East Harlem for the college application process. The group had approximately 30 bright, driven, future first generation college students and 20 mentors volunteers from Columbia. Mentors help their students with SAT preparation, college essay writing skills, and interview tips; they also take the students to school sporting events, museums, and musical performances to give them a taste of life as a college student.

Briana also helped lead a small group Bible study with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and interned with Restore NYC, a non-profit organization that provides services for the victims of international sex trafficking, through the fellowship’s New York City Urban Project during the summer between her freshman and sophomore years. That same summer, she began volunteering with kids at a battered women’s shelter 90 minutes from campus.

As an associate editor of opinion at the Columbia Spectator, the school newspaper, Briana did her best to provide a platform for students who wish to raise awareness about various social justice issues— human trafficking, genocide, the repression of girls worldwide, religious intolerance and persecution, the lack of male role models for young boys in inner cities, the stigma surrounding the AIDS virus, extreme hunger in developing nations, and homelessness in New York City— and the responsibilities Columbia students have with respect to these issues.

Briana feels it is her duty and her privilege to use her educational opportunities and resources to give a voice to the voiceless. Whether she becomes a professor in a developing nation, a newspaper opinion columnist with a social justice beat, or an attorney who defends the rights of young women forced into sexual slavery, she is committed to making a substantial contribution the battle against systemic injustice.