Our Leadership

David K. Trimble

President

After leading the Religious Freedom Institute’s (RFI) public policy work and its nationwide and international initiatives in secondary and higher education, David Trimble now serves as RFI's President. Within that context, he brings a wealth of experience to the academy and civil society in international affairs, domestic and foreign policy, law, and higher education.

Throughout his career, Trimble has focused on the intersection between religious freedom and policy. He is recognized in the U.S. and abroad for his international religious freedom advocacy on behalf of ethnic and religious minorities worldwide and for his acute knowledge of legislative process. Over the past decade, Trimble provided leadership in the drafting and passing of key genocide declarations and statutes shaping current U.S. policy on international religious freedom and the recovery and stabilization of ethnic and religious minorities in the Middle East. He has also provided counsel to leaders in East Africa regarding democracy reforms and fundamental human rights protections.

Since 2021, Mr. Trimble has delivered keynote lectures on religious freedom in Europe and the Middle East, co-developed a religious freedom education plan for secondary schools in Poland and the Visagrád Four, provided training to senior parliamentary staff and legal counsel in Iraq, launched seminal training programs for college students in the U.S. and RFI’s first transatlantic advanced student seminar in the United Kingdom, and conducted religious freedom training for foreign pastors and priests on behalf of the U.S. Department of State.

Mr. Trimble holds a Juris Doctorate from Texas A&M University School of Law, Master of Divinity from Southwestern Seminary, and a Bachelor of Arts from Campbellsville University. In addition, Mr. Trimble has completed substantial post graduate studies at Southwestern and Baylor University.

Thomas F. Farr

President Emeritus

Thomas Farr, Ph.D. served as President of the Religious Freedom Institute (RFI) from its founding until January 2023. RFI is a non-profit that works to advance religious freedom for everyone, both as a source of individual human dignity and flourishing, and as a source of political stability, economic development, and international security.

A leading authority on international religious freedom, Dr. Farr served for 28 years in the U.S. Army and the U.S. Foreign Service. In 1999 he became the first director of the State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom. He subsequently directed the Witherspoon Institute's International Religious Freedom (IRF) Task Force, was a member of the Chicago World Affairs Council’s Task Force on Religion and U.S. Foreign Policy, taught at the National Defense University, and served on the Secretary of State’s IRF working group.

From 2008 – 2018 Dr. Farr was Associate Professor of the Practice of Religion and World Affairs at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He also directed the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown’s Berkley Center.

A Ph.D. in History from the University of North Carolina, Farr is a senior fellow at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. He serves as a consultant to the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference, and as a member of the advisory councils for the Human Rights Program at Catholic University, the international division of Alliance Defending Freedom, the Alexander Hamilton Society, and the National Museum of American Religion.

His many published works include World of Faith and Freedom: Why International Religious Liberty is Vital to American National Security (Oxford University Press, 2008), a book that has shaped U.S. religious freedom legislation and foreign policy.

Nathan A. Berkeley

Associate Vice President, U.S. Strategies and Communications

Nathan A. Berkeley serves as the Religious Freedom Institute's Associate Vice President for U.S. Strategies and Communications. Berkeley oversees RFI’s initiatives in the U.S. and efforts to convey its work to a wide range of external audiences. He also supports RFI’s scholars in major research initiatives. Berkeley has served in government in numerous communications, legislative affairs, program management, and law enforcement capacities and has held positions in two congressional offices. He has also done research and writing that explores the intersection of religious freedom, equality, and nondiscrimination law. Berkeley holds B.A. degrees in political science and history from Olivet Nazarene University and an M.A. in politics from The Catholic University of America.

Jim Bennett

Director, National Center for Religious Freedom Education

Jim is the Director of RFI's National Center for Religious Freedom Education. As a career educator, Jim has held a variety of faculty and administrative positions at several public and private colleges and universities. His positions of service include Professor, College Dean, and Chief Academic Officer. At one of these institutions, Clemson University, he also served as the Director of Global Education Initiatives, Founding Director of Clemson’s Global Leadership Institute for Youth, and key contributor to the Global Learning Institute for Faculty where he assisted with the internationalization of the university curriculum.

Jim is a Fulbright recipient whose interest in international exchange and global partnerships has taken him to six continents and nearly sixty countries to lecture at universities, engage in ethnographic research, train teachers, contribute to humanitarian efforts, and advise government officials on educational issues. As a recognized specialist in global learning, curriculum development, and innovative program design, he has served on numerous boards and task forces in the United States and Europe, and is a frequent speaker at academic conferences, having delivered keynote addresses and professional development presentations at more than 70 educational conferences in the U.S. and around the world.

Jeremy P. Barker

Associate Vice President, International Strategies

Jeremy P. Barker serves as Associate Vice President of International Strategies for the Religious Freedom Institute.

He has worked in rights-based relief, development, and advocacy across the Middle East. His work has focused on the convergence of religion and international affairs, with a particular focus on combatting drivers of religious persecution, engaging with religious inequality in humanitarian and development assistance, and pursuing the development of order, justice, and accountability in fragile and post-conflict contexts. He leads in the design and implementation of the programmatic objectives of the Middle East Action Team, including research and analysis, equipping and mobilizing, and strategic grassroots and political advocacy with a particular focus on the Middle East and the intersection of religion and foreign policy.

He holds a B.A. in History and M.A. degrees in Cross-Cultural Studies and International Relations. Barker is also a Ph.D. researcher at the Institute of Development Studies and the University of Sussex.

David K. Trimble

President

Thomas F. Farr

President Emeritus

Nathan Berkeley

Associate Vice President, U.S. Strategies and Communications

Jim Bennett

Director, National Center for Religious Freedom Education

Jeremy Barker

Associate Vice President, International Strategies

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