Pim (Wilhelmus G.B.M.) Valkenberg was born in the Netherlands, where he studied theology and religious studies in Utrecht and worked as a systematic theologian at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. In 2006 he moved to the United States with his family and started teaching Catholic theology, with special attention to interreligious dialogue and Christian-Muslim relations, at Loyola University Maryland and the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he is now a professor emeritus.