Sierra-Marie Gerfao

Full name: Rev. Sierra-Marie Gerfao (she/her)

A light skinned woman with short blonde hair, dark glasses, and a polka dotted blouse smiles warmly with a tree and the sky in the background.

As Director of Religious Education for Children and Youth at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Danbury, the Rev. Sierra-Marie Gerfao is a creative, big-picture thinker with a depth of experience as a longtime Unitarian Universalist religious educator. (Sierra-Marie’s pronouns are she/her/hers, and her last name is an Irish-Portuguese hybrid pronounced “JER-fay-oh.”) She has served congregations in Washington state, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. She is known for her expansive understanding of the work of religious education, a relational and family-centered approach, and developmental insight.

Sierra-Marie is committed to justice and liberation. She is currently completing her first theological book, which, among other things, proposes a theology of liberation for disabled folks. Sierra-Marie says that being queer and disabled is a strong part of her own identity, and her commitments to justice and liberation are a feature of how she thinks about religious education. Citing the work of the Rev. Rebecca Parker, she says religious education is “humanization in the context of dehumanizing forces.”

Sierra-Marie has a Bachelor of Science in Community Health from the University of Northern Colorado, a Master of Social Work from Yeshiva University, and a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School. In 2012 she was a Ministry Fellow with the Fund for Theological Education. Her fellowship project involved researching the development of qualities of strength, closeness, and resilience in religiously liberal families. Sierra-Marie was ordained as a Unitarian Universalist Minister in 2021, and her other part-time work is an experimental ministry of public theology.

Originally from New Mexico, Sierra-Marie lives in New Haven, CT with her wife, two teenage children, and an eighty-five pound dog. She loves to hike with her dog, swim, and watch women’s hockey and women’s basketball.