Claudio Carvalhaes was born and raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil. A former shoeshining boy, he is also a liturgist, theologian, and artist. After serving churches in Brazil and the United States for almost ten years, Carvalhaes did his doctoral studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He has published two books and edited a third in his native Brazil. Currently, he is the Associate Professor of Worship and Liturgy at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.