Terry Yasuko Ogawa

The Rev. Terry Yasuko Ogawa serves as the Program Manager at the Yale Center for Environmental Justice, where she plays a central role in advancing the Center’s programs, partnerships, and operational infrastructure by working with faculty, students, and community partners to support interdisciplinary environmental justice initiatives that connect Yale’s academic resources with grassroots organizations, Indigenous communities, and practitioners addressing complex environmental challenges.

Terry’s work includes leadership roles across nonprofit, academic, and community-based organizations, including most recently serving as an Area Conference Minister for the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ (UCC), where she provided strategic guidance and leadership development for congregations and clergy in Western Massachusetts and Northwest Connecticut. Her experience includes service as a local church pastor; a regional campaign organizer for the Central Atlantic Conference, UCC organizing nonpartisan, faith-based voter engagement efforts; Associate Advancement Director at Pacific School of Religion; and Chaplain and Community Liaison at The Institute for Human Services (IHS), Hawaiʻi’s largest comprehensive homelessness services agency, where she helped establish an interfaith chaplaincy program and organized a statewide faith-based summit on homelessness.

Terry holds an MS in Natural Resources and the Environment from the University of Michigan, an MDiv, and a Certificate in Asian and Oceanic Culture and Faith Traditions from Pacific School of Religion and the Graduate Theological Union, and a BA in Urban Studies from the College of Charleston. Her academic research examined land and development in the black communities of the Lowcountry of South Carolina, including heirs’ property and displacement, as well as the legacy of missionary history in Hawai‘i, the UCC’s relationship with Kanaka Maoli/Native Hawaiian churches, and theologies of reconciliation. On her sabbath days, she can often be found with her husband, Rob, wandering the woods of Western Massachusetts.