Burning Refuge Summit Organizing Team

We are a Buddhist-, BIPOC-, and queer*-centered team of Harvard Divinity School graduate students committed to radical social-spiritual justice and liberation in, around, and through Buddhism.

Matta Zheng

Founding Director

  • Matthew “Matta” Zheng (any pronouns) is the founding director of Burning Refuge. Together with an incredible team, Matta dreamed, developed, resourced, organized, and executed the inaugural Burning Refuge Conference in 2024 and continues to serve as the head of the Burning Refuge Collective.  

    Matta is also a 3rd year Masters of Divinity student at Harvard Divinity School, where he anthropologically studies diaspora Buddhism and queer spiritualities as they intersect with racial capitalism and the end-of-life. Matta is also training as a clinical chaplain and practices spiritual counseling for queer/trans undergraduates. Most importantly, Matta is a devoted queer Buddhist whose practice and passion for the religious tradition extends to every corner of the migrant Buddhist diaspora.  

    Prior to HDS, Matta graduated from Stanford University with a dual B.A. in Political Science and Human Biology with Interdisciplinary Honors in LGBTQ+ Studies. In the future, Matta hopes to further complete an MD/PhD in medical anthropology to accomplish their dream of synthesizing palliative psychiatry, Buddhist ministry, and medical & religious anthropology. 

Cam McCartin

Director of Conference

  • Cam is a 2nd year Master of Divinity student at Harvard Divinity School, where he studies intersections of Buddhism and ecology. Cam is in the process of articulating a practical Buddhist eco-theology that would inform a spiritual caregiving of the earth in its time of material and spiritual catastrophe. Cam graduated from Brown University in 2020 in the Contemplative Studies Program, where he had the great joy to pursue study of Buddhist poetry and early Daoist texts. Before coming to HDS, Cam worked a few growing seasons as an apprentice on a vegetable farm in northern Oregon, then as a farm apprentice at Green Gulch Farm and Zen Center. Cam has an abiding interest in translation of Buddhist texts (Pali and Chinese), as well as regenerative agriculture and food justice. Cam is working toward a long-term vision of founding a lay-Buddhist-led farm invested in the spiritual formation of young aspiring farmers that combines the social liberatory praxis of SoulFire Farm and the Zen approach to spiritual liberation of Green Gulch. 

Jiamin Li

Director of Retreat

  • Jiamin (any pronouns) is a 2nd year Master of Divinity student at Harvard Divinity School exploring their interests in politics, memory, intergenerational and historical trauma, and Buddhist chaplaincy. Jiamin graduated from Tufts University with a B.A. in International Relations concentrating on Global Health, Nutrition, and the Environment. 

    During Jiamin’s first year at HDS, she worked as the Director of Speaker Relations for the inaugural Burning Refuge conference in 2024. This year, she has stepped into the role of Director of Retreat to work on the spiritual incubator retreat for Burning Refuge Summit 2025. Jiamin is very excited to create more opportunities for kinship- and solidarity-building through the retreat program expansion this year. 

Maya Lee

Communications and Publicity Coordinator

  • Maya Lee (they/them) is a 1st year MDiv student at Harvard Divinity, where their interests lie in generational trauma, the Asian diaspora, queer identity, and socially engaged Buddhism, Asian diaspora and identity. They hope to merge these interests in their work as a community organizer and interfaith hospital chaplain, specifically working with hospice and palliative care patients.  Prior to studying at HDS, they graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's in political science and East Asian studies from SUNY Albany, where they also led the UAlbany Buddhist Students Association. They most recently completed a Fulbright grant as an English teaching assistant at the University of South-East Asia and Pannasastra University in Siem Reap, Cambodia. While living there, they had privilege of engaging Cambodian Buddhism and witnessing the level of spiritual care Buddhist monks provided for their community. They also volunteered with Paw Patrol Cambodia, a registered non-profit providing medical care and education to local animals and communities. Maya is beyond excited to have found the Burning Refuge community and hopes that this work will help spark further conversation and action around these complex issues.

Jade Lu

Communications and Publicity Coordinator

  • Jade (she/her) is a 1st year Master of Divinity student at Harvard Divinity School, exploring a range of questions related to care, relationality, and movement-building. She hopes to keep learning how one might see the world through Buddhist and indigenous lenses while learning and understanding what lenses she was given in the first place. Jade is a second-generation American, as her parents were born in and lived through the Cultural Revolution in China. 

     

    Prior to HDS, Jade worked in climate and clean energy policy with a focus on environmental justice and DEI initiatives. She graduated from Duke University in 2017 with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science and Biology. She has practiced with various sanghas in the Boston area since 2019 and feels grateful to have found her way to another.  

Amber Houghstow

Finance and Development Coordinator

  • Amber Houghstow (she/he/they) is a contributor to the Burning Refuge Collective, assisting with grant writing for Burning Refuge 2025. 
     
    A prospective Master of Divinity student at Harvard Divinity School, Amber's interests center the intersection of Buddhist practice, deep ecology, and social liberation. Amber holds an MLA in International Relations from Harvard Extension School and a Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. 
     
    Amber holds a deep interest in engaged Buddhism, feeling connected to the Plum Village Earthholder Community, and also practicing with Soka Gakkai International. 
     
    Prior to joining the Burning Refuge Collective, Amber co-founded the Center for International Peacebuilding, supporting environmental activists and community leaders in high-conflict areas. Amber also worked on the Zondervan campaign for Cambridge City Council, with MIT Global Startup Labs in post-war Sri Lanka, and taught middle school math in Providence. 
     
    Amber is deeply grateful to be learning with the Burning Refuge community and hopes their work will contribute to collective liberation. 

Cass Morales

Finance and Development Coordinator

  • Cass Morales (she/her) is a 1st year Master of Theological Studies student at Harvard Divinity School and is interested in studying how both magic and spirituality can be used as forms of resistance against institutional oppression. She studied Anthropology and Latinx Studies at Wellesley College and was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, where she was able to present her independent research on Latin America witchcraft (brujería), gender, and resistance. Before Divinity School, she was deeply invested in public service work at Harvard College’s Phillips Brooks House Association and has extensive experience in youth work and mentorship. 

Frances

Factotum

  • Frances (they/them) is pursuing an MDiv at Harvard Divinity School. They have an MA in English with a concentration in critical theory from the University of Victoria, Canada. Before this they studied at KU Leuven’s Institute of Philosophy in Belgium. Frances’s central research fields are 19th- through 20th-Century German philosophy and Anglo-American modernist literature. In their current work, they generally use texts from these traditions to do violence to the anthropocentric logics that are often passed off as ineradicable within the traditions themselves. Their primary Sangha is Cambridge Zen Center, a part of the Kwan Um School of Zen. They are thrilled to serve under the Burning Refuge leadership team this year.