Teresita Cesar Mirafuentes is a faculty of the College Department of Ateneo de Davao University, Philippines, since 2010 and St. Francis Xavier College Seminary since 2003. She has had extensive exposure to community development as an NGO worker before joining academia, and has worked as a consultant to different government and non-government agencies, serving as a community development and training specialist on community organizing, participatory research, gender and development, stress management, group process and organizational development. She is also an affiliate of the Ateneo de Davao University Center of Psychological Extension and Research Services as disaster and war responder debriefing survivors and combatants of conflict.

Teresita finished her undergraduate in psychology, a master’s degree in participatory development under the Canada-Asia Partnership Scholarship Program and master’s in psychology under the College of Information Technology and Computer Science of the University of the Cordilleras Higher Education Development Project Scholarship Program.  She is currently writing her dissertation for doctorateinrural development. She is a registered Psychometrician and plans to pursue clinical psychology with a specialization on family therapy.  As a fulfilled mother of three children in partnership with her husband, she wants to help families be united, strengthened and preserved.

She is a recipient of national research award from the Department of Social Welfare and Development on Gender Awareness and Practices of Indigenous People and awarded as the “most outstanding lector and commentator of the decade of the Archdiocese of Davao.”  Her motto “maximize the minimum” ignites her interest to broaden interreligious studies with a focus on serving families. Her interreligious experiences were gained from her students as a lecturer in different colleges, universities and organizations. She also attended lectures on interreligious dialogue from the former Archbishop of Davao and interacted with people of other religions in other countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and China.