The Board of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale is thrilled to announce the appointment of The Reverend Dr. Gabrielle Rachael Thomas to be the next Dean and President of Berkeley. She will also serve as Associate Dean of Yale Divinity School. Gabrielle will assume office on July 1, 2026, after Andrew McGowan retires after 12 years of exceptional service.
Gabrielle comes to us from Emory’s Candler School of Theology, where she is a tenured Associate Professor of Early Christianity and Anglican Studies. She was recruited by Emory in 2021 to be the inaugural faculty member of the Anglican Studies program. During her time at Emory, she has also served as Theologian-in-Community at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta.
Gabrielle was on the faculty of Berkeley and the Yale Divinity School from 2019-2021. She distinguished herself as an exceptional teacher, mentor and pastor for our students. During that time, she worked with Bishop Ian Douglas and Justin Crisp (former and current BDS trustee, respectively) and Dean McGowan to reimagine the Anglican Studies course sequence for the School. She also served as a faculty representative to the BDS Board of Trustees.
We were fortunate to embark on this search at a propitious time for Berkeley: Our student body is strong, and we are building the greater diversity we seek. Once again, our students excelled in the General Ordination Exams last spring. The long-term desire to provide free tuition for all who qualify for financial aid has been realized. The Berkeley Center has been reimagined with a $6+ million renovation. Our Capital Campaign has raised over $24 million, topping the original goal by 33 percent. And the new set of Transforming Leaders Programs has enabled us to extend the School’s mission to equip more clergy and laity for greater leadership for the Church.
From this position of strength, we knew we would have an outstanding pool of candidates interested in the position. It was a “given” that we wanted an ordained priest in the Anglican Communion; we also wanted someone who had parish experience and could serve as a role model for the many students preparing for leadership in the Church. We also wanted someone who was a gifted teacher and whose scholarship would be respected by peers at Yale and beyond. We particularly wanted someone with energy and imagination, poised to be a bold leader to build upon the many successes of the School.
We believe Gabrielle brings all of this to Berkeley — and more.
A U.K. citizen with Permanent Residency status in the United States, Gabrielle received her B.A. with honors in Classics at the University of Bristol and her Ph.D in Historical Theology at the University of Nottingham.
Gabrielle is a respected scholar of Early Christianity. She has published twenty articles and is the author of two books and co-editor of another volume. Her fourth book - the second to be published by Cambridge University Press — will be available this spring. While most of her scholarship has focused on the Early Church, Gabrielle has also been an active writer and speaker on the implications of historical theology for today’s church and women’s experiences in ministry and the academy. YDS Dean Greg Sterling, who was a key member of the Search Committee, shared, “Gabby is an internationally respected specialist in the Cappadocians. But she is far more than a serious scholar; she has made significant contributions to the role of women in the Anglican Communion both through her writing and voice within the church. Her years on the faculty here demonstrated that she is an outstanding pedagogue. We are thrilled to welcome her back in this capacity. She continues the standard that Andrew McGowan set as a scholar and committed church leader.”
Gabrielle charmed the Search Committee with her deep faith and her profound commitment to her vocation, even sharing how she had imagined being a priest from an early age, long before women were ordained in the Church of England. Her ministerial training was at St. John’s College Nottingham, resulting in a M.Th. (with distinction), awarded by the University of Chester. She was full-time Assistant Curate at a parish in Greater London from 2015-2017 where she was committed to developing outreach ministries and introduced creative new programming; she was recognized for those innovations by the Jack Petchy Foundation for “transformative leadership in the local community.” In Atlanta, she has been deeply involved on the staff of St. Luke’s in preaching, teaching, designing formation courses, offering pastoral care, and officiating at Holy Communion and Evensong.
For nearly a decade, she served on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Theological Reflection Group, engaging questions of ecclesiology, doctrine, and mission in service to the ministry of Justin Welby.
We knew from Gabrielle’s time at Yale that she is a gifted teacher. Her teaching embraces a wide range of subjects relevant to both Berkeley and Yale Divinity School, ranging from “Episcopal and Anglican Thought” and “The Anglican Way” to “Early Christian History,” “Advanced New Testament Greek,” and nine other courses. A recent Berkeley graduate who studied with her and served as a student representative on our Board, wrote: “During my time as a student, Dr. Thomas’ participation in the day-to-day life of the seminary - whether at Morning Prayer, coffee hour, Wednesday evening Community Eucharists and meals or in any number of other informal settings - showed her to be a loving and wise presence to students and colleagues alike. Formation of Christian leaders is at the core of her vocation. In her short time at Berkeley and Yale Divinity she was given the Inspiring Yale Faculty Award, not only because she is an excellent teacher, but because she authentically cared for her students and others who sought her counsel, wisdom and guidance academically and vocationally, and not just within Berkeley.”
Gabrielle inspired us in how she views herself not in separate dimensions of priest and scholar and teacher. Rather she sees herself as a priest in everything she does. The Reverend Dr. Justin Crisp, who is a Berkeley trustee and taught alongside her in New Haven said, “she is the most authentic Christian I have encountered. At her heart is a love of Jesus and for Jesus, and it is profound and inspiring. She is the ‘real deal’: her relationship with God grounds everything she does. She is a real believer—and it is palpable to students.”
When Gabrielle met with the Search Committee in New Haven, she was brimming with ideas about how to advance Berkeley. It was clear that she saw acceptance of the Deanship as a calling — her vocation and ministry — and not just a career advancement or “next job.”
It seems most appropriate to conclude with Gabrielle’s own words:
I believe in Berkeley. As I see it, Berkeley is about Worship, Witness, and Wisdom. Worship, because Berkeley shapes students in daily habits of prayer that sustain lifelong ministry. Witness, because the church must form leaders who testify to the good news of Christ with courage and joy in a fractured world. Wisdom, because the task of theological education requires not only intellectual excellence but the discernment to live faithfully in complex and contested times.
We cannot wait for you to meet The Reverend Dr. Gabrielle Thomas and see why we are so confident she will be an extraordinary Dean for Berkeley and a real contributor to The Episcopal Church and the broader Anglican Communion.
Sincerely,
Jim Elrod Linda Lorimer
Chair of the BDS Board of Trustees Chair of the Dean’s Search Committee
Vice Chair of the BDS Board