William Barylo

William Barylo (PhD., EHESS) is a London-based researcher in Sociology. He is passionate about how young Muslims in Europe and North America use their cultural heritage and religious ethics to improve society through arts, the environment, social and economic justice and mental health. He looks at society from a decolonial and restorative perspective. He is an awarded photographer and film-maker having directed the documentary ‘Polish Muslims: an unexpected meeting‘. In addition, he is also a blogger for the Huffington Post UK and the author of ‘Young Muslim Change-Makers‘.

As a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Warwick, his current project ‘The Diaspora Strikes Back‘ explores modes of contestation to hegemonies and imperialims amongst Sikh and Muslim millenials in Europe through arts, activism, charity, social enterprises and more.

Samira Fatma Barucija

Samira Fatma Baručija is from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She is an activist, trying to facilitate dialog, interfaith work, and reinforce the importance of living together for the sake of peace and security. Most of her work nowadays is focused on peacebuilding and creating cultures of peace. For the most of her nine-year-long experience in civil society, Samira has been an educator trying to use the platform of non-formal education to raise awareness, motivate and empower individuals and groups, reinforcing their role in the change they want to see.

The work that Samira is doing locally is done through a youth-led, youth founded organization called Youth for Peace. She is a project coordinator and an educator working on several initiatives with Youth for Peace. She is also a part of the UNDP’s Global Youth Programme as one of 16 young people from around the world, working toward fulfilling the UN’s 2030 agenda. Samira took a role of a speaker on a panel on “Promoting dialogue and reducing insecurity” during the conference in preparation for HLPF 2019: “Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies: SDG 16 implementation and the path towards leaving no one behind.”

Since 2014, Samira has been a Youth Leader for the United Religions Initiative. During the Accelerate Peace conference at Stanford University, Samira spoke on ending religiously motivated violence, stressing the importance of leaving no one behind and changing the position of the marginalized groups. She is currently holding the position of the Regional Coordinator for United Religions Initiative’s Multiregion, working on creating and promoting interfaith cooperation and building cultures of peace, justice, & healing.

Whittney Barth

Whittney Barth, assistant director of the Pluralism Project, began her work there as a research associate for our Religious Diversity News in 2010 and continues to work on projects related to the interfaith infrastructure of the United States. In addition to studying religious pluralism academically, she has worked with several interfaith organizations including the Interfaith Youth Core, the Chautauqua Institution, and the Harvard Interfaith Collaborative. As assistant director, Whittney manages student research, manages the summer research programs, provides administrative and financial oversight, and participates in a number of local and national initiatives, conferences, and events on behalf of the Project. Whittney received her BA in comparative religion and American studies with a minor in political science from Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) in 2008. She earned a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School (2011) where she completed a thesis project exploring the possibilities of integrating interfaith engagement and ecological awareness in response to the growing sense of "placelessness" in modern life.

Ramzy Baroud

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a US-Palestinian journalist, media consultant, an author, internationally-syndicated columnist, Editor of Palestine Chronicle (1999-present), former Managing Editor of London-based Middle East Eye (2014-15), former Editor-in-Chief of The Brunei Times, former Deputy Managing Editor of Al Jazeera online. He taught mass communication at Australia’s Curtin University of Technology, Malaysia Campus. Baroud also served as head of Aljazeera.net English’s Research and Studies department. He is the author of four books and a contributor to many others; his latest volume is The Last Earth, a Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London, 2018). His books are translated to several languages including French, Turkish, Arabic, Korean, Malayalam, among others. Baroud has a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter (2015) and was a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California Santa Barbara (2016-17).

Michael Barnett

Michael Barnett is a professor at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. Barnett previously taught at the Universities of Minnesota and Wisconsin, Macalester College, Wellesley College, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Barnett was a visiting scholar at the New School for Social Research and the Dayan Center at Tel-Aviv University. He has also been a visiting professor at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. He is currently spending a year at the Transantlatic Academy to work on a project on religion and the liberal international order. Barnett has written extensively on international relations theory, global governance, humanitarian action, and the Middle East. He is the author of numerous books, including The Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism (2011). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Vern Barnet

Vern Barnet, D.Min., became minister emeritus of CRES (Center for Religious Experience and Study), a Kansas City community resource for exploring spirituality in all faiths, in 2004. He founded CRES in 1982 and became its minister-in-residence in 1985 with “community networking” responsibilities. He now focuses on writing, teaching, and consulting.

Rev. Barnet is known to many Kansas Citians through the religion column published Wednesdays in The Kansas City Star. Founder of The Kansas City Interfaith Council and its convener through 2003, he continues now as convener emeritus. He has been active in many professional and civic organizations. His articles, poems, and reviews appear in many journals. 

Barnet has taught religion courses in numerous colleges and seminaries. In 2007 he served on the international faculty of the pilot “Interfaith Academies” partnered by Harvard University’s Pluralism Project, Religions for Peace-USA, the Saint Paul School of Theology, and the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council. For six years he served on the editorial board of Unity Magazine as its only non-Unity ministerial member.

Abigail Barash

Abigail Barash is a graduate student at Claremont Lincoln University pursuing a Masters degree in Interreligious Studies.  Originally from St. Louis, Abbie moved to Southern California in 2007, where she attended the University of Redlands and received her BA in Religious Studies.  After college, she participated in the Glass Leadership Institute through the Anti Defamation League of St. Louis.  Besides a fellowship with NewGround, Abbie was also a student worker this past October for the Center for Global Peacebuilding conference on Muslim Perspectives on Peacebuilding in Claremont.

Adelle Banks

Adelle M. Banks joined the Religion News Service staff in 1995 after working for more than 10 years at daily newspapers in the upstate New York communities of Binghamton and Syracuse, The Providence Journal, and the Orlando Sentinel. Before coming to RNS, she was a full-time religion reporter for six years in Orlando, covered the beat during part of her time in Syracuse and contributed to religion coverage at the other papers. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., Banks was a third-place winner in the Religion Newswriters Association's Religion Reporter of the Year contest in 2011 and 1998. She also has been honored by Associated Church Press. 

Rev. Susan Baller-Shepard

Rev. Susan Baller-Shepard’s award-winning writing and poetry has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post “On Faith,” Spirituality & Health, Writer’s Digest, and other publications. Susan blogs for the Huffington Post Religion section and for Patheos, and was part of the undergraduate Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa. Having worked on international development projects in Haiti, China, Brazil, and England, Susan is a keynote speaker at national and international conferences. She’s co-founder and editor of www.spiritualbookclub.com with its blog of over 190 interviews. Presently she’s completing a non-fiction manuscript and teaching “Major World Religions.”

Kiran Bali

Kiran Bali MBE JP is chairperson of the Global Council of United Religions Initiative. A native of Nepal currently living in the U.K., she has founded and chaired several interfaith groups whilst working with a number of international organizations to enhance understanding among cultures to address community challenges and transform conflicts. For her achievements, she was honored by Queen Elizabeth II and has been the recipient of a number of international awards. She is a regular keynote speaker at events in a number of different countries and has also addressed the U.N. General Assembly.

Murali Balaji

Murali Balaji, Ph.D., is a journalist, author, and academic with nearly 20 years of experience in diversity leadership. He is the founder of Maruthi Education Consulting and consults Annenberg on diversity and inclusion issues. Balaji has also served as the education director for the Hindu American Foundation, where he was recognized as a national leader in cultural competency and religious literacy. He co-founded The Voice of Philadelphia, a non-profit geared to help high school dropouts (or pushouts) develop media literacy and citizen journalism skills.

He has also been a professor at Temple University and Lincoln University, where he chaired the mass communication department and engaged in multi-method research. His areas of research focus include political economy, critical race theory, and the connections between masculinity and nationalism.

He worked as a journalist for nearly a decade, covering politics, sports, and demographic changes. He won an Independent Press Association of New York award for covering racial justice issues and was honored by the St. Paul City Council for his work on covering policy issues. He is the author of The Professor and the Pupil (2007), a political biography of WEB Du Bois and Paul Robeson, the editor of Digital Hinduism (2017) and co-editor of Desi Rap (2008), one of the seminal volumes on South Asian Americans and hip-hop. He is a certified anti-bias trainer through the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), serves on the national advisory board of the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute, and has been featured for his work in publications such as Teaching Tolerance and Religion Dispatches.

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.