Matthew Russell
Executive Director

Matt is an academic, activist, pastor, professor and teacher. He is on staff at Chapelwood United Methodist Church in Houston and is the Executive Director of Iconoclast Artists and projectCURATE (a non-profit educational and social enterprise incubator that seeks to build bridges across cultural, economic, religious and racial divides in Houston).

He has taught at Duke Divinity, Fuller Seminary and completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Cambridge in Psychology and Religion.  In 2010, he completed his Ph.D. at Texas Tech University in Human Development where he explored how women construct alternative narratives of redemption from years of sustained trauma and abuse.  

Prior to this he planted and pastored a church called Mercy Street, a “church for people that hated church”.

Matt has worked extensively with ex-offenders and recovering addicts.   In collaboration with Marlon and other Houston educators he is developing innovative curriculum for public schools which seek to provide pathways of learning and economic opportunity for kids in the inner city.

Matt is married to Michele and they have three wonderful, crazy boys: Miguel, Lucas, and Gabriel.