About our Baccalaureate Speaker

The Reverend Austin Crenshaw Shelley is the Senior Pastor and Head of Staff at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. Previously, Rev. Shelley served for nine years as the Associate Minister of Christian Education at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, where she was ordained to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament in October 2012.

After earning her Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia College, Rev. Shelley received her Master of Divinity and Master of Theology degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary, where she is presently a Ph.D. candidate in homiletics. Throughout her years of study at Princeton, she has continued her strong commitment to sacred music and the arts as a soprano and flautist with the seminary’s choir.

Prior to attending seminary, Rev. Shelley began her journey toward a second career in professional ministry as the Director of Youth Ministries at Lake Murray Presbyterian Church in South Carolina. Her first career as a teacher of visual art, Spanish, Latin, and gifted students’ programming turned out to be pivotal in preparing her for her passions in ministry: children’s ministry, ministry in the public square, writing, teaching, and preaching.

In 2014, Rev. Shelley joined the governing board of Young Clergy Women International, serving as managing editor of the organization’s online magazine, until her graduation from the group in 2019. Since that time, she has enjoyed writing poetry, sermons, and articles for various publications, including The Christian Century; Connections; and Preaching as Resistance: Voices of Hope, Justice, and Solidarity, edited by Phil Snider.

Rev. Shelley and her husband, Mark, together parent four children.