OUR TEAM

Stephanie Krehbiel, PhD

Executive Director and Co-Founder

Dr. Stephanie Krehbiel works directly with survivors confronting churches and other religious institutions, accompanying them through reporting processes, investigations, media coverage, and public storytelling. As an advocate, she has worked with over a hundred individual survivors from a range of denominational backgrounds, from Catholic to Amish to nondenominational evangelicals. Her work has been covered in the New York Times, National Catholic Reporter, the Star-Tribune, and numerous smaller publications. Dr. Krehbiel holds a PhD in American Studies from University of Kansas with a concentration in Women, Gender, and Sexuality studies, and her work as an advocate began during ethnographic research on institutional violence against LGBTQ+ people in the Mennonite Church USA. 

As a collaborator with her Into Account colleagues, Dr. Krehbiel co-wrote a report based on the testimony of forty-four  survivors of sexual abuse, assault, and harassment perpetrated by Catholic liturgical composer David Haas, exposing coverups and complicity in the liturgical music industry as well as the Archidiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and contributing to Haas’s lifetime ban from the industry events he once used to target victims. Her posts for the Into Account organizational blog have covered topics such as Title IX regulation changes, the hidden dangers of organizational “lifestyle” policies, sexual abuse in collegiate sports, and the social consequences of institutional betrayal. She is a frequent guest speaker in university and seminary classrooms. 

.

 Jay Yoder

Director of Operations and Co-Founder

Jay Yoder trained in sexual violence advocacy during college at Ohio State University, and has advocated for survivors for 20 years. Trained as sexual violence advocate at SARNCO (Sexual Assault Response Network of Central Ohio), Jay has supported rape survivors during rape exams in hospitals; provided support to callers to a rape crisis hotline; taught workshops and trainings on consent, on supporting trauma survivors, on trauma-informed responses to community conflict, on gender and sexuality, and on undoing oppressions frameworks; and is a self-defense instructor.

Jay spent time working as the Victim’s Services Coordinator for Ohio’s statewide coalition, The Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence, supporting rape crisis centers, training police officers and attorneys, and supporting survivors around the state. In addition Jay has supported health care, child abuse, and queer mental health non-profits; as well as political consulting firms in community organizing and fundraising. Jay also co-founded Pink Menno, a movement for queer inclusion in the Mennonite Church.

Jay is certified in Sexual Violence Advocacy, Danger Assessment & Safety Planning, and the Sanctuary Trauma-Informed Model.

Emily Joy Allison

Communications Consultant

Emily Joy Allison is an author, activist and non-profit communications professional as well as the co-founder of the #ChurchToo hashtag, created to expose sexualized violence and abuse in churches, Christian schools and parachurch ministries. Emily‘s full-time gig is in political communications, but she is offering support to the IA team as a Communications Consultant, providing social media strategy, content management, and more. Emily published her debut non-fiction book #ChurchToo: How Purity Culture Upholds Abuse and How to Find Healing in March 2021, and has been a critical voice in the conversation about Christianity, purity culture and abuse for over a decade. She currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee with her wife Caitlin and will be graduating with her Master of Theological Studies degree with a concentration in Religion, Gender and Sexuality from Vanderbilt Divinity School in May of 2022.

Hilary Jerome Scarsella, PhD

Director of Theological Integrity

Hilary is a scholar, speaker, and advocate with expertise in trauma, theology, ethics, religious practice, and policies relevant to sexual violence. She is committed to an intersectional approach to resisting sexual violence, one that centers racial justice. Her work at Into Account focuses on direct partnership with and advocacy for survivors. She is the the primary point person on the IA team for assessing the implicit and explicit theological dimensions of community practices, policies, social patterns, modes of communication, etc., so that the religious dimensions of survivors’ experiences can be named, validated, and addressed in the communities that produced them.

In addition to working directly with survivors, Hilary develops resources to support high quality theological education on the subject of sexual violence. As a part of that work, she consults with religious leaders and communities who want to develop a culture that is more trauma-informed, mindful of sexualized violence survivors who are members of the community, and wise with respect to members who are perpetrators. Outside of her work with Into Account, Hilary is Assistant Professor of Ethics and Director of Gender, Sexual, and Racial Justice at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School.

Erin Bergen

Director of Student Advocacy

Erin is an educator, advocate, and dog mom. 

Andre Swartley

Director

Andre is a writer and indie publisher in Newton, Kansas. He is on the faculty at Hesston College, where he has been instrumental in encouraging better policies and practices around sexualized violence. He is an award-winning author of four young adult novels. Andre updates and maintains Into Account’s private archive of abuse reports, and works with individual survivors to locate police and court records.

Azucena Gonzalez

Director

Azucena Gonzalez is a Latina, Health Care Data Analyst in Kansas. She gathers data to support quality-improvement efforts in hospitals and clinics. Azucena received a B.A. in Psychology, with certificates in Interprofessional Health Studies and Neuroscience from Bethel College in North Newton, KS. She has worked as a Bilingual Advocate for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. In that role, she served as a translator for survivors during their interactions with the police and other advocates. She listened to immigrant survivors and provided them with resources and skills to advocate for themselves, as well as assistance with navigating the court system. Her continuing focus is on advocating for survivors, including immigrants and people of color, who are unable to receive adequate resources because of language barriers and lack of cultural awareness from those running the system.

Terri Russ

Director

Terri lives in South Bend, Indiana, and teaches Communication Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame. Terri is also an attorney with a background in victim advocacy, and has been invaluable to us when we or our clients have needed guidance around legal issues. She’s a committed justice activist and serves as the Board President for The LGBTQ Center in South Bend as well as being the founder of the Michiana Women Leaders Project.