The Rev. Charles N. Stevenson was born in Royal Oak, Michigan, and grew up in southeastern Michigan. He graduated from Michigan Technological University with high honor, earning a degree in electrical engineering. He attended graduate school at Purdue University, earning MS and Ph.D degrees in electrical engineering.
After graduation, he joined the Machine Perception Group at General Motors Research Laboratories. Following an extensive career at GMR, he worked for Delco Electronics and IBM, and then a position at MIT Lincoln Laboratories brought him to the Boston area. During his engineering career he worked on robotic and other factory automation systems, collision warning systems, anti-lock braking systems, telecommunications hardware, and the design of novel image sensors. He is currently a member of the Computer Science faculty at Salem State University.
Dr. Stevenson completed his theological education at the Yale University Divinity School, earning both Master of Divinity (M.Div) and Master of Sacred Theology (STM) degrees. For his STM thesis, he applied theological reflections on human suffering from early Lutheran writings to a contemporary ethical problem. He also completed a unit of Supervised Clinical Ministry with Lutheran Social Services of Ohio.
Charles Stevenson is married to Joni Birck Stevenson, a Chicago native who is also a Purdue engineering graduate. They have four children. The older two, Ian and Colleen, are engineering students at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. The younger two children, Hannah and Keely, are both currently enrolled in the Stow, Massachusetts, school system.
Pastor Stevenson is looking forward to the challenges of a “tent-making” ministry at St. John, where he will combine his teaching and mentoring of students at SSU with the opportunity to minister to the people of St. John and to conduct outreach programs to the North Shore Community.
