Urbana 12 Leadership Team

Tom Lin currently serves as the Vice President of Missions and Director of Urbana for InterVarsity. As a Harvard student at Urbana 93, Tom was compelled to give his whole life to student ministry and global missions. Since then, he has planted a student movement in Mongolia with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, helped plant 16 new InterVarsity chapters as the Regional Director for the central U.S., written a book published by InterVarsity Press, and spoken to thousands about missions. He currently serves as the Vice Chairman of the Board for Wycliffe Bible Translators and is the Lausanne International Deputy Director for North America.

Rob Knight has been involved in the lives of college students for nearly thirty years through the ministry of InterVarsity — including ten Urbana conferences. He says, “I’ve seen God use Urbana across multiple generations of students to transform their understanding of him and to change the trajectory of their lives. One highlight has been helping students form a partnership with their counterparts in Bosnia, which has continued for the past eleven years and has led to changed lives on both sides of the Atlantic.” Rob relocated from Southern California, where he oversaw InterVaristy’s work on several campuses, to Madison, Wisconsin, in 2008 to serve as the Director of Operations for Urbana.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto serves as the Program Director for the Urbana. She oversees the development of the main sessions, which include worship, speakers, dancers, and theater teams. Much of her insights stem from experiences living among poor people in the slums of Nairobi, Cairo, and Bangkok. She helped develop and direct the Global Urban Trek, an urban immersion program designed to challenge students to use their majors on behalf of the world’s poor people. Nikki consults and speaks for a variety of campuses, churches and organizations and currently sits on the board of Mission Year. She is currently editing a collection of Urbana Minibooks and is co-editor of More than Serving Tea which is a book that contains a collection of essays, stories and poems looking at the intersection of race, gender and faith for Asian American women. Her blog on Urbana.org can be found at The View from Stage Right.

Tommy Lee’s personal vision is to invest in young leaders, to help them make a difference in the lives of others around the world. He has served ministries such as Moody Bible Institute, The Lausanne Movement, Global Executive Leadership Forum, Willow Creek’s Global Leadership Summit, and currently Urbana 12.  His role with Urbana not only allows him to serve a Christ-focused ministry, but to also invest in the next generation of leaders.

Al Anderson loves to see students become leaders in the kingdom of God. Having served a number of roles in Inter-Varsity Canada and InterVarsity/USA, his one driving passion is to see individuals grow into all the Christ imagines for them. He currently lives in Toronto, serving as the Vice President of Campus Ministries for Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship of  Canada. He is married to Sue and has three children: Rachel, Jacob and Naomi.