Orlando Espín is professor of systematic theology, and of religious studies, at the University of San Diego, where he founded and directs the interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Latino/a Catholicism. He has specialized in the theological study of popular Catholicism, as well as in theologies of culture and traditioning. He is regarded as one of the founders of U.S. Latino/a theology. He is the 2016 recipient of the “John Courtney Murray Award”– the highest recognition by the Catholic Theological Society of America.