Christopher Fici

Christopher Fici is a writer/minister/teacher of the Hindu Gaudiya Vaisnava tradition, based in New York City. He has spent the last five years studying and living as a monk in Vaisnava communities in West Virginia and in New York City, where he is associated with The Bhakti Center. During his time as a monk, he taught vegetarian cooking classes, and courses on the philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita at New York University and Columbia University. He is also involved in Interfaith work in New York City with Faith House and Local Faith Communities.

He is currently studying for his Master's degree at Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York.Christopher is an avid blogger, focused on the spiritual side of ecological and sustainability issues at his blog The Yoga of Ecology. He also contributes to Beliefnet, Elephant Journal, Good Business International, and State of Formation.

Jane Fitzpatrick

Jane Fitzpatrick is an analyst and an avid researcher of the intersections between religious traditions and international affairs with a passion for opera and art. She earned her master's degree in International Affairs from Penn State University and has a Bachelor's degree in Religious Studies from Gettysburg College. Jane has previously provided research assistance for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Strategic Religious Engagement Unit of the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Army War College.

Adeola Fearon

Ilari Oba Adeola Fearon is a visionary, poet, author, humanitarian, artist, healer and Chair of United Religions Initiative’s North America Leadership Council and Ex-Officio Global Trustee. Ilari Oba is a title meaning “Royal Messenger” in the Yoruba language from Nigeria. Adeola is an ambassador for compassionate living. Her life’s work has been devoted to empowering individuals and community. As an educator, interdisciplinary artist, and community engagement specialist her goal is to inspire, teach and heal.

Stefanie Felix

Stefanie Felix is a Seattle-based freelance editorial photographer. Her documentary style captures human nature exhibited in everyday life situations and relationships and resonates with many. Clients rely on her to describe their programs and missions with visually strong and emotional images. In a recent project, she was called by Faith Action Network of Washington to document a candlelight vigil at a Sikh Temple in Renton, WA, in response to the Wisconsin shootings in August. Resulting photographs were honored by Harvard Pluralism Project and were also the visual component of an educational/inspirational video produced with Faith Action Network chronicling this event. The vigil was a strong example of pluralism and interfaith cooperation. 

Pam Faro

Storyteller Pam Faro lives in Broomfield, CO and has performed and taught since 1988, across the US as well as several countries overseas. Her diverse repertoire includes original retellings of multicultural folktales, bilingual cuentos, biblical storytelling, interfaith storytelling, and personal/historical narratives including the true story of her great-uncle who survived the Titanic. A life-long Lutheran, Pam also served churches as music/choir director for 30 years. She received her B.A. in music with teacher certification from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and her Master of Divinity degree from Iliff School of Theology in Denver. An active member of the Network of Biblical Storytellers International (NBS), she has been editor of the Journal of Biblical Storytelling, teaches in the Academy for Biblical Storytelling, writes for The Biblical Storyteller magazine, and is a member of the NBS Seminar, a group made up of academics and performers developing a new paradigm for biblical scholarship called Performance Criticism. She guest-edited the “Interfaith Storytelling” issue of Storytelling Magazine” in 2016. Pam serves as a consultant/workshop-leader in using storytelling in ministry settings, in addition to her work as a performer/entertainer and educator in secular contexts.
Pam's website: www.storycrossings.com

Patricia Adams Farmer

Patricia Adams Farmer is a process theologian, writer, speaker, and progressive minister. She is a regular contributor to Spirituality & Practice and Jesus, Jazz, and Buddhism. After living five years in Ecuador (2011-2015), observing their ecological model for sustainability, she began focusing her writing/storytelling around themes of eco-theology and multi-faith expressions of spirituality. She is co-founder of Fat Soul International, a spontaneous movement of creative individuals and small groups of musicians, writers, and interfaith activists around the world who, in these times of unrest and change, seek to “widen out in love” rather than “shrink back in fear.” She is the author and co-author of several books including Embracing a Beautiful God, Fat Soul: A Philosophy of S-I-Z-E, and Replanting Ourselves in Beauty.  Join her at the Fat Soul Café on Facebook! You can learn more about her work and contact her at www.patriciaadamsfarmer.com.

Silvana Faillace

Silvana Faillace is Senior Director of Development and Humanitarian Assistance (DHA) at CWS. Silvana brings over 15 years’ experience in international development and the public health/nutrition field. She has extensive experience in the design, management and implementation of a wide variety of development and humanitarian strategies and programs at local, regional and international levels and across different cultures, having worked in Africa, South East Asia and the Americas. She has served in several leadership positions including as National Executive Director with the Colombian Red Cross, and Indonesia Country Director with Hellen Keller International. Before joining CWS she was Health and Nutrition Officer with UNICEF, Colombia. She holds a Masters in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University, an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and a BA in Political Science from Los Andes University in Colombia.

Daniel Epstein

Daniel Epstein is marketing and innovation consultant based in Toronto, Canada. He was previously a Harley Procter Marketing Director at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio where he was employed for 21 years. It was during his tenure at P&G that he conducted most of the Portraits In Faith interviews. He has an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Illinois and a BBA in Accounting from Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. Daniel has been long involved in community service focused on reconciliation and dialogue across racial, religious, and ethnic communities. Portraits In Faith is a perfect intersection of the great passions in Daniel’s life: helping others heal, bringing people of different faiths and cultures together, global travel, and photography. Daniel is blessed to be the husband of Heidi and step-father to Lucas and Theo.

Paul Eppinger

Dr. Paul Eppinger is a graduate of William Jewell College, Princeton Theological Seminary with a Master of Divinity and a Master of Theology degree, and San Francisco Theological Seminary where he received a Doctor of Ministry degree. He has served as a missionary in Japan, the pastor of four different American Baptist Churches, as adjunct professor at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Kansas. He has served on numerous boards and committees for his denomination and in the communities in which he pastored. His last pastorate was at the First Baptist Church in Phoenix, which he served for seven-and-a-half years. He served as the Statewide Director of the successful “Victory Together” campaign in 1992 to establish a state Martin Luther King holiday. From 1993 to 2002, he served as the Executive Director of the Arizona Ecumenical Council, an organization uniting programs of 13 mainline and Roman Catholic denominations involving 700 churches and one million people. He then became the Executive Director of the Arizona Interfaith Movement in 2002. The Arizona Interfaith Movement is composed of 25 different major religious groups and seeks to bring understanding and respect of each other to all the major religions of the state and, thereby, to bring unity to all of the state of Arizona, the nation, and the world.

Margaret Ellsworth

Margaret Ellsworth is a writer, editor, and M.A. student at Claremont School of Theology, where she studies worship and the arts. She has written and edited worship resources for a variety of different situations and contexts. Her interests include literature and personal narrative, creative ritual, and interfaith family life – spurred by her own experience as one half of a Buddhist-Christian marriage. Margaret lives in southern California with her husband Drew. Follow her on Twitter @ResoluteMag or read her blog, Scribble Out Loud.

Duane Elgin

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Duane Elgin is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and social visionary who looks beneath the surface turbulence of our times to explore the deeper trends that are transforming our world. In 2006, Duane received the International Goi Peace Award in Japan in recognition of his contribution to a global “vision, consciousness, and lifestyle” that fosters a “more sustainable and spiritual culture.”

In the early 1970s, worked as a senior staff member of a joint Presidential-Congressional Commission on the American Future looking ahead from 1970 to 2000. He then worked as a senior social scientist with the think-tank SRI International where he coauthored numerous studies of the long-range future. His books include: The Living Universe: Where Are We?  Who Are We? Where Are We Going? (2009); Promise Ahead: A Vision of Hope and Action for Humanity’s Future (2000), Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life that is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich (2010, 1993 and 1981), and Awakening Earth: Exploring the Evolution of Human Culture and Consciousness (1993). With Joseph Campbell and other scholars he co-authored the book Changing Images of Man (1982). In addition, Duane has contributed chapters to twenty-two books, and has published more than a hundred major articles and blog posts.

Over the past thirty years, Duane has co-founded three non-profit organizations working for media accountability, citizen empowerment, and a trans-partisan ‘community voice’ movement using the television airwaves legally owned by the public.

Maha Elgenaidi

Maha Elgenaidi is the founder and Executive Director of Islamic Networks Group (www.ing.org), a nonprofit organization with affiliates and partners around the country that are pursuing peace and countering all forms of bigotry through education and interfaith engagement, working within the framework of the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom and pluralism. Maha received an M.A. in religious studies from Stanford University and B.A in political science and economics from the American University in Cairo. She has taught classes on Islam in the modern world at Santa Clara University, Stanford University, and the University of California at Santa Cruz, and has been recognized with numerous awards, including the “Civil Rights Leadership Award” from the California Association of Human Relations Organizations, the “Citizen of the Year Award” from the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, and the "Dorothy Irene Height Community Award" from the Silicon Valley Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Ramy Eletreby

Ramy Eletreby is a queer, Muslim, Egyptian-American theater artist, writer, and educator from Los Angeles, California. He was a contributing author to Salaam, Love: American Muslim Men on Love, Sex and Intimacy (2014). Ramy holds an M.A. in Applied Theatre from the CUNY School of Professional Studies and believes theater is a powerful tool for social change, critical thinking, and dialogue. Ramy practices theater in community-based settings and has collaborated on theater projects both local and abroad. He has worked in prisons, schools, places of worship, riverbanks, forests, and other magical places where one would not expect to find theater.

Rabbi Amy Eilberg

Rabbi Amy Eilberg is the first woman ordained as a Conservative rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. After many years of work in pastoral care, hospice and spiritual direction, Rabbi Eilberg now directs interfaith dialogue programs in the Twin Cities in Minnesota at the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning, and is adjunct faculty at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities and St. Catherine University.

Anya Dunaif

When she wrote the piece TIO republished, Anya Dunaif was in the eighth grade at Saint Ann’s School. At the time, she lived in Brooklyn, New York, with her parents and little brother. Anya likes painting, drawing, writing, photography and film. She also plays cello. 

Annie Duflo

Annie Duflo, executive director for Innovations for Poverty Action, is responsible for leading the strategic directions of IPA and its day-to-day operations. Previously, she served as IPA’s research director, managing IPA’s research network, staff capacity-building, and new project development. She also played a key role in the scaling up of successful programs with particular focus on education. Annie has a wealth of experience implementing and managing randomized evaluations in the field. Prior to joining IPA, Annie was the executive director of the Centre for Microfinance (CMF) at the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR) in Chennai, India, which she joined at its creation. Annie holds a Master of Public Administration and International Development degree from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and Master in Social Sciences from EHESS (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales)/ ENS (École Normale Supérieure) in Paris.

Michael Dowd

Michael Dowd is a religious naturalist, evidential mystic, and big history evangelist. An outspoken “New Theist,” he is the author of the bestselling, bridge-building book, Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World (2009). It has been endorsed by six Nobel laureates and other science luminaries, including noted skeptics and atheists, and by religious leaders across the spectrum. He has been featured on national TV, including CNN, Fox News, and ABC News, and delivered a TEDx talk in May, 2012. He has been a Distinguished Lecturer at CalTech (sponsored by The Skeptic Society) and at the United Nations. He is also the host of the online conversation series, The Advent of Evolutionary Christianity, and Evolutionize Your Life, a free online tele-seminar. 

Michael and his evolutionary educator wife, Connie Barlow, share the inspiring side of science in ways that offer practical tools for living and realistic hope for the future. Since April 2002 they have traveled North America non-stop, addressing more than 1,700 groups from Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, and Unitarian churches, to skeptic, freethinker, and secular high school, college, and university settings, to New Thought, New Age, and Eastern spirituality groups. Michael and Connie’s work has been featured in numerous national and local media, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, and Discover magazine.

James Doty

James R. Doty, M.D., is professor of Neurosurgery at Stanford University School of Medicine and Founder and Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the founding benefactor of the Center, which supports rigorous research on compassion. Dr. Doty collaborates with scientists from a number of disciplines examining the neural bases for compassion and altruism. In addition, Dr. Doty is an inventor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. As a philanthropist, he supports a number of charitable organizations focused on peace and healthcare throughout the world. Additionally, he supports a variety of research initiatives and has provided scholarships and endowed chairs at multiple universities. He serves on the board of a number of non-profit organizations and is the chairman of the Dalai Lama Foundation. He also serves on the International Advisory Board of the Council of the Parliament of the World’s Religions.

Katherine Don

Katherine Don is a freelance writer, editor and researcher. She has been a contributing writer to six nonfiction books, including Power of the Dog from St. Martin’s Press, and Armchair Reader: The Book of Myths and Misconceptions from Publications International. She is the author of Real Courage: The Story of Harper Lee, a YA biography of Harper Lee from Morgan Reynolds Publishing. Her second YA book, Nujood Ali and The Fight Against Child Marriage, was published by Morgan Reynolds in 2015.

Katherine’s essays and journalism have appeared at Salon.com, The Atlantic online, the Huffington Post, Religion Dispatches, Next American City magazine, Bitch online, and elsewhere. She is a regular contributor at Bustle.com and Romper.com, where she covers the news, health, and entertainment.

Her first screenplay, a short film that she co-wrote with her friend Sakina Fakhri, was the first-place winner in the screenwriting category at the 2015 Los Angeles Movie Awards. It also won Best Screenplay at the California International Shorts Festival. The film, Corner Piece, is a psychological mystery that follows two detectives working for a totalitarian regime.

In 2011, Katherine founded The Book Don, a boutique book doctoring service that provides personalized editing packages for authors of nonfiction and literary fiction books.

Katherine holds a master’s degree in journalism from NYU and a bachelor’s degree in biological anthropology from Northwestern University. She loves to write and research in the areas of childbirth care, reproductive justice, and gender and media issues. Click here to follow her tweets on these topics. Additionally, Katherine freelances as a grant writer and/or editorial consultant for nonprofit organizations, and edits academic essays at Scintilla Tutoring. Read more of her work here. 

Gus diZerega

Gus diZerega is a political scientist/theorist with a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. While living and working as an artist and craftsperson to finance his degree, he met and later studied with teachers in NeoPaganism, the earth religions more generally, and shamanic healing. His spiritual studies took him far from academia’s libraries into seasonal Wiccan celebrations, encounters with Pagan deities, and out into solitary fasts in the California desert, alone on remote beaches or isolated high on mountains doing vision quests.  He was blessed with three very good teachers, Don Frew, Timothy White, and Antonio Costa e Silva (now Segyu Choepal Rinpoche).

The past 25 years Gus has aimed to bring together the disparate strands of modern social science, Pagan spirituality, and shamanic spiritual practices. He has done so through his own practice and through his teaching and writing. Gus continues being active in scholarly publishing in political and environmental theory and is the author of Power, Politics and Persuasion: A Theory of Democratic Self-Organization (2000), Pagans and Christians: The Personal Spiritual Experience (2001), and Beyond the Burning Times: Christian and Pagan in Dialogue (2009). He is also founding editor of the new online open source academic journal Studies in Emergent Order.