Laleh Bakhtiar

Laleh Bakhtiar holds a BA in History, MA degrees in Philosophy and Counseling Psychology, and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology. Bakhtiar is a Licensed Professional Psychotherapist in Illinois. She also taught at the University of Chicago. She is co-author of A Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture (2000) and author of SUFI: Expressions of the Mystic Quest (1976), as well as a three volume work, God’s Will Be Done (1993, 1994, 1994), on moral healing, and 15 other books on various aspects of Islam, and is the leading authority on spiritual chivalry, most clearly expressed in the Sufi Enneagram (2013).

Bakhtiar is the first woman to present a critical translation of the Quran in any language. In her Sublime Quran (2007) translation she interprets the controversial verse that has led to domestic violence in the Islamic community to the way the Prophet understood it. Instead of husbands being allowed to beat their wives, she translates: “husbands should go away from their wives,” let the anger subside, and then consult with one another. Her translation has been introduced into evidence in child custody cases in the United States.

Rabbi Justus N. Baird

Rabbi Justus Baird is Senior Vice President, National Programs at Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, where he shapes strategy around both existing and new national initiatives, develops innovative program models and strategies, and serves as senior leadership. 

Prior to joining Hartman, Justus was the Dean at Auburn Seminary, joining in 2007 to build its multi-faith education work and becoming Dean in 2011. As Dean at Auburn, he oversaw and built programs to identify and equip faith-rooted justice leaders across the U.S., including the Auburn Senior Fellows. Justus has a reputation among his colleagues for being calm, thoughtful, and an educator-builder.

Justus co-founded a major online library (Questia.com, 1999) and an experimental Jewish supplementary school (Yerusha, 2009). He was ordained at HUC-JIR and is an alumnus of both the Wexner Graduate Fellowship and the Hartman Rabbinic Leadership Initiative (RLI).

Rev. Jennifer Bailey

Named one of 15 Faith Leaders to Watch by the Center for American Progress, Rev. Jennifer Bailey is an ordained minister, public theologian, and emerging national leader in multi-faith movement for justice. She is the Founding Executive Director of the Faith Matters Network, a new interfaith community equipping faith leaders to challenge structural inequality in their communities. Jennifer comes to this work with nearly a decade of experience at nonprofits combatting intergenerational poverty.

An Ashoka Fellow, Nathan Cummings Foundation Fellow,  and Truman Scholar, Jennifer earned degrees from Tufts University and Vanderbilt University Divinity School where she was awarded the Wilbur F. Tillett Prize for accomplishments in the study of theology. She writes regularly for a number of publications including Sojourners and the Huffington Post. Her first book, tentatively titled Confessions of a #Millennial #Minister is currently under contract with Chalice Press. Rev. Bailey is an ordained itinerant elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Katherine Bagley

Katherine (Kat) Bagley is the managing editor for Yale Environment 360, an online magazine offering opinion, analysis, reporting, and debate on global environmental issues. She was previously a reporter for InsideClimate News covering the intersection of environmental science, politics and policy, with an emphasis on climate change. She is co-author of the book "Bloomberg's Hidden Legacy: Climate Change and the Future of New York City," published by InsideClimate News in November 2013 and winner of the Deadline Club's Award for Reporting by Independent Digital Media. Her writing has also been included in the anthologyBest American Science and Nature Writing.

Kat also works as a freelance journalist and editor. Her print and multimedia work has appeared in publications such as Popular Science, Audubon, OnEarth, Scholastic's Science World and The Scientist, among other news outlets. She teaches science journalism to undergraduates at Barnard University and is an avid traveler. Katherine holds master's degrees in journalism and earth and environmental sciences from Columbia University. She received her bachelor's degree from St. Lawrence University. She currently lives in the New Haven area of Connecticut with her husband and two children.

Carrie Sue Ayvar

Carrie Sue Ayvar is a third generation, award winning, bilingual storyteller. Blending traditional, international & personal tales, Carrie Sue Ayvar takes her listeners on a journey into the imagination connecting people, languages and cultures through her stories that often flow effortlessly between Spanish and English. A Chautauqua Scholar and historic portrayal artist, she shares stories of women who have made a difference, built communities, and opened minds and opportunities. A recipient of a Scholar/Humanist Fellowship from the Florida Humanities Council, the National Storytelling Network’s Oracle Award for Service and Leadership, as well as the Chuck Larkin Distinguished Service Award from the Florida Storytelling Association, Carrie Sue has also been has been recognized for Teaching Artistry excellence with the “Sun Award” for Advancing Teaching and Learning Through the Arts - Arts4Learning/Miami and the Broward County Teaching Artist Recognition Award.

Swami Atmarupananda

Swami Atmarupananda, born in the U.S.A., discovered the Vedanta tradition of Hinduism as a teenager and developed what has become a lifelong fascination and dedication. He joined the Ramakrishna Order of India as a monk in 1969 in Chicago and subsequently spent many years in India engaged in monastic, scholarly, and spiritual training.  For many years he has travelled widely in the world, giving lectures and retreats, speaking at conferences dedicated to finding a spiritual foundation for civilization, and participating in interspiritual dialog.

Currently he resides at the world headquarters of the Ramakrishna Order outside of Kolkata, India where he has been charged with bringing out a revised edition of the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda in ten volumes.

Noorjehan Asim

Noorjehan Asim is in the 12th grade at Lahore Grammar School in Defence, Pakistan. Her hobbies include debating and reading. She is particularly interested in anything related to film, music, and literature, especially Greek mythology.

Anashwara Ashok

Anashwara Ashok holds a BA (H) in Political Science from University of Delhi and Masters in Diplomacy, Law and Business from OP Jindal Global University. She has previously interned at Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, United Religions Initiative and MitKat. She has also attended Identity-based Conflict Resolution and Management at Bar-Ilan University, Israel.

Anna Arphan

Anna Arphan is a Las Vegas based freelance graphic designer who works with local businesses and organizations to create designs for print and the web. She created marketing collateral for the Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada and continues to provide them with design support. Anna subsequently developed The Interfaith Observer’s logo and website and was TIO’s digital translator, getting the words and images onto our screens. She previously worked out of Chicago where she graduated from DePaul University with an M.S. in Computer Graphics.

Hafsa Arain

Hafsa Arain is a Muslim interfaith activist, creative nonfiction writer, and Ph.D. student at Boston University. her research is focused on activism, religion, and youth culture in urban Pakistan, focusing primarily on women’s activist movements. Looking both at shifting legal and cultural norms relating to marriage and women’s access to public space, her research addresses how emerging forms of feminist activism in Pakistan reflect its postcolonial class stratification and concentrates on changing gender norms and ideals.

Prior to beginning a PhD at Boston University, Hafsa worked in student services and chaplaincy at Claremont School of Theology in California, where she also received her MA in Islamic Studies and Religious Leadership in 2014. Her master’s thesis focused on the growing presence of multinational corporations in Karachi, Pakistan, and how they have affected young women’s job possibilities, attitudes towards dating, marriage, and religion, and educational aspirations in Pakistan’s largest city. Hafsa also holds a BA in English literature and religious studies from DePaul University in Chicago.

Miriam Aniel

Miriam Aniel was born in Los Angeles, CA and raised in Charlotte, NC. She currently lives in Richmond, Virginia. A 2015 graduate of Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary, Miriam lived in New York City for four years before moving to Rishon LeTzion, Israel to serve under-resourced communities. Her appreciation of diverse spaces and places, her commitment to empathy, and her love of design have given her a unique voice and lived experience.

Seyyedeh Dr. Nahid Angha

Seyyedeh Dr. Nahid Angha is co-founder and co-director of the International Association of Sufism (IAS). She is executive editor of the quarterly journal Sufism: An Inquiry and founder of the International Sufi Women Organization. Dr. Angha is the IAS representative to the United Nations (NGO/DPI) and the first Muslim woman inducted to the Marin Women’s Hall of Fame. She is daughter of Moulana Shah Maghsoud, the twentieth-century Persian Sufi of the Uwaiysi School of Sufism, and the first woman appointed to teach in her father’s school. She was also the first woman to sit at the center circle with Muslim leaders from around the world to lead meditation at the international Sufism Symposium. Dr. Angha is widely published as a scholar, teacher, poet, and translator. Throughout this activity she has been an active leader in interfaith activities in local, national, and global arenas.

Paul Andrews

Paul Andrews was on the founding staff of the United Religions Initiative. He managed operations for URI’s first three Global Summit Conferences and helped organize URI’s 72 Hours project – 300 simultaneous local initiatives in 68 countries during the Millennium Weekend, December 30th, 1999 through January 1st, 2000.

During that time he also was the Executive Producer of Improbable Pairs, two short documentaries about pairs of people who made peace in the face of extraordinary odds. These two films, now up on You Tube (“Improbable Pairs”), have been used to trigger deep conversations about reconciliation in a wide variety of settings: in prisons – between the widows of Nepali police officers and the widows of Maoist fighters in Nepal – and by the United Nations at gatherings for child soldiers.

Paul was also the founding director of Slavyanka Russian Chorus. Founded during the latter part of the Cold War, the Chorus has been active in numerous American-Russian cross-cultural initiatives and has toured Russia and Eastern Europe five times as goodwill ambassadors.

Megan Anderson

Megan Anderson is TIO's webmaster and associate editor. She has a B.A. in mathematics and theology from the College of Saint Benedict/St. John's University where she completed an honors thesis titled “Interfaith Youth Core: Theology and Religious Commitment in One of America’s Most Prominent Youth Interfaith Organizations,” and an M.A. in Religion, Society, and Social Change from Claremont School of theology.

She is interested in the intersection of religion, social factors, justice, and the environment and how these impact efforts to promote sustainable behavior and the creation of an ecological civilization.

In addition to her work at TIO, Megan is the communications manger for The Institute for Ecological Civilization (EcoCiv) and the executive assistant at CHERP, an organization focused on carbon mitigation, environmental justice, community health, and regenerative local economies, through the deployment of solar panels to low- and middle-income households for little to no cost using a nonprofit model.

Ariella Amit

Ariella Amit is a Jewish high school senior from Los Angeles. She is the president of the Interfaith Youth Council of Los Angeles County and co-founded the Interfaith Club at her high school. She is involved in her school’s golf team, Gay Straight Alliance, and homeroom leader program, which helps incoming 6th graders adjust to middle school social and academic life. Her interests include political science, American history, social justice, and ethics. She also has a deep interest for learning languages and is currently taking Hebrew and Spanish literature courses. Ariella has a passion for Tikkun Olam, that is, repairing the world, in Hebrew, and has volunteered with her interfaith council at the Union Rescue Mission to help homeless individuals and families in Skid Row.

Sahar Alsahlani

Sahar Alsahlani is an interfaith peace activist with a background in television and radio broadcast media and entertainment. Amplifying the voices, and sharing the stories of, individuals and communities who champion for justice inspired by their moral or religious convictions is her passion. This Iraqi-American Muslim has always been active in pursuing the studies and correlations of communications as it relates to engagement in faith-based advocacy, inter-religious dialogue, peace-building, and the theory and practice of nonviolence.

Along with serving on the board of the North American Interfaith Network, Sahar is a member of the Executive Council of Religions for Peace, USA; the Board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-NY; and has contributed to the faith-based outreach of the revived Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Sahar is a Fellow at GreenFaith, and serves on the Steering Committee for the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate Change, both interfaith organizations dedicated to climate justice. Sahar has also served as a former Co-Chair of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, USA.Sahar is currently part of an international multifaith community, the Community of Living Traditions, which is geared towards the study of, practice and principles of peace building and nonviolence.

Sam Allen

Sam Allen (they/them pronouns) is a former seminary student who was been called by the Sacred when they were five years old. At that tender age, they remember praying on their knees to God. Sam's works have also been published by their local newspaper's weekly and Sam performs autobiographical pieces in their community. They live with their cat in their beloved hometown of Stockton, California. You can access Sam's portfolio at theprose.com under the author name Samal230.

Salma Albezreh

Salma Albezreh is a 16 year old sophomore who practices the Islamic faith and attends Butler High School In Vandalia, Ohio. She is a writer of spoken word poetry and loves history class and soccer. Salma is a board member of the Interfaith Forum of Greater Dayton and a board member of the Dayton International Peace Museum. She is also very active in her Muslim community, acting as a youth leader at Dayton Mercy Society. In addition, Salma is an original member of Faith In Us, an interfaith youth group focused on promoting tolerance through art. 

Stephen Albert

Stephen Albert is a New Thought minister with an Interfaith Credential. He is a founding member of the Poway Interfaith team and its 2006 & 2012 president. Dr. Steve teaches Comparative Religion classes at the University of Phoenix and is the author of 14 books including: The Interfaith Manual, The Interfaith Workbook and REBOOT To Peace. He holds degrees from Penn State University, Drexel University, University of Colorado and a doctorate in Religious Studies from Emerson Institute. He and his wife Abigale planned and hosted the North American Interfaith Network’s 2017 Connect in San Diego.

Steve is a stroke and open-heart surgery survivor. During his recovery in early 2012, he created the concept of and the PowerPoint presentation for ‘New Thought Day,’ which has now become the first yearly holiday to bring together all New Thought organizations in the world.

Abdul Rahim Al-Uji

Abdul Rahim Al-Uji is a writer, actor, and storyteller. He recently became famous after participating in the political satire program “Al-Chinn” on the Lebanese channel “Al-Jadid.”