Kenda Dean is an ordained elder in the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference (United Methodist) and Associate Professor of Youth, Church and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary, where she works closely with the Institute for Youth Ministry. A graduate of Wesley Theological Seminary, she served as a pastor in suburban Washington, DC and as Wesley Foundation Director at the University of Maryland-College Park before coming to Princeton Seminary. Her most recent books include Occasional God: What the Soul-Searching of American Teenagers Is Telling the American Church (Oxford, forthcoming) and Generation OMG: A Youth Ministry Handbook, ed. (Abingdon, forthcoming). An Ohio native who has accidentally landed in New Jersey, she loves the beach but still can’t make herself say "downtheshore."(Bio dated 2010)