Joanna Adams is a preacher, pastor, and teacher known for building bridges of understanding in both the community and in the church. A graduate of Columbia Theological Seminary, Rev. Adams holds an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Davidson College and was awarded the Alumni Association Medal of Honor from Emory University and Columbia’s Distinguished Alumni/ae award. She has also served as a trustee of the Presbyterian Church Foundation, Agnes Scott College, and Columbia Theological Seminary.
In 2006, the Rev. Adams was named Georgia Woman of the Year and has been featured in Atlanta Magazine as one of the forty-five most loved Atlantans. In 2014, she was named Woman of the Year by the YWCA of Greater Atlanta. She has preached at the National Cathedral, the Memorial Church of Harvard University, and the Chautauqua Institution, as well as at many Presbyterian and ecumenical events. She has authored over 40 published articles, sermons, and chapters in books.
Rev. Adams has been involved in starting more than a dozen non-profit organizations, including Intown Collaborative Ministries, the Agape Center, and the Georgia Committee for Religious Liberty. She has also coordinated a series of Christian/Jewish dialogues in Atlanta under the sponsorship of the Institute of Christian and Jewish Studies in Baltimore, MD. For five years, she and four other clergy leaders in Atlanta made up Higher Ground, an initiative of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, which encouraged civil discourse and brought insight and wisdom from their different religious traditions to bear on contemporary challenges.
Currently, she is on the boards of the Grady Hospital Foundation, Skyland Trail, the Rockdale Foundation, Day 1, and Presbyterian Homes of Georgia. She is proud to be a member of the Advisory Council of the Islamic Speakers Bureau of Atlanta.
Joanna and her husband, Atlanta attorney Alfred B. Adams III, have a daughter, a son, and two grandchildren.