Ana María Celis Brunet is an associate professor in the Faculty of Law, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (UC), where she teaches canon law and law and religion, as well as post graduate courses in different programs. She received her license and doctoral degree in canon law at the Pontificia Università Gregoriana (Rome, Italy) with the dissertation La relevancia canónica del matrimonio civil a la luz de la Teoría general del Acto jurídico, contribución teórica a la experiencia jurídica chilena. Professor Celis is an ecclesiastical lawyer before the Ecclesiastical Court of Santiago. She is Director of El Centro UC Derecho y Religión (the Center for Law and Religion at UC), which began in 2005 as Centro de Libertad Religiosa, a center for studying Church-State matters and promoting religious freedom. She was the secretary and then President (2013-2016) of the Consorcio Latinoamericano de Libertad Religiosa (Latin American Consortium for Religious Freedom). She has been since September 2016 President of the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ICLARS). In August 2018 she was appointed President of the National Council of the Chilean Church for the Prevention of Sexual Abuse and Accompaniment of Victims by Pope Francis.