Gail Hambleton has worked for decades in various International NGOs. Her passion for peace is rooted in her difficult experiences of war and its aftermath in Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Rwanda. Gail was instrumental in the establishment of the humanitarian aid organization Women for Women in Rwanda, in 1997. Currently she is the director of Interfaith Partnerships for the Global Peace Foundation (GPF). Ms. Hambleton is also the national director of the Interfaith Alliance to Abolish Human Trafficking, Safe Haven Campaign, which is a project of GPF-USA.
Katy Hall
Katy Hall is the Managing Features editor of the Huffington Post, where she previously led the politics and entertainment pages and the iPad magazine. She is a graduate of Princeton University and received her masters in journalism from Columbia University. Her work has been published in the New York Observer, New York Times, People and Times of Trenton. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Alena Hall
Alena Hall is a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduate who works on the Huffington Post’s editorial initiative The Third Metric. She earned her master’s degree in magazine journalism from New York University and helps people rediscover their health as a personal trainer. A runner, yogi and health enthusiast, she enjoys searching for new ways to live a little more mindfully each day.
Ambassador Mussie Hailu
Ambassador Mussie Hailu is a peace activist working at national, regional and international levels for peace, reconciliation, interfaith harmony, disarmament, the Golden Rule, world citizenship, right human relationships, and international cooperation. He identifies himself as a Citizen of the World, strongly believes in the interdependence of human beings, and celebrates cultural diversity. He sees the differences in race, ethnicities, religions, politics, and nationalities as important elements of the one and indivisible humanity. Mussie, building on Scarboro Mission’s Golden Rule poster, is circulating tens of thousands of an African version of the poster. He has served African and global organizations, including United Nations agencies, and he is a founding member of United Religions Initiative. Currently he serves as regional director of URI for Africa and representative of URI at the Economic Commission for Africa and African Union.
Iftekhar Hai
Iftekhar A. Hai, one of ten children in a Muslim family, was born in an ‘untouchable’ community near Mumbai during British rule. He spent 11 years in a Catholic school, graduated from Podar College, a center of Hindu revivalism, and was able to come to the United States for graduate work, where his American mentoring came from his Jewish landlady, who became a close friend. After 25 years in the business community, he dedicated himself to interfaith education and became a leader of leaders. For three decades he has given hundreds of lectures and workshops in school, congregations, and conferences around the world. He was a founding member of United Muslims of America in 1983 and directs its Interfaith Alliance. He has been a trustee of United Religions Initiative, the San Francisco Interfaith Council, and the Interfaith Center at the Presidio. A columnist for the San Mateo Times, Iftekhar is a nationally recognized Muslim leader championing interfaith peace.
Yasmine Hafiz
Yasmine Hafiz is the associate editor for The Huffington Post’s Religion section. She holds a B.A. in Political Science from Yale University and is a co-author of The American Muslim Teenager’s Handbook. Ms. Hafiz formerly interned for Farah Pandith at the U.S. Department of State and was a founding member of the Arizona Youth Interfaith Movement. A 2008 Presidential Scholar, she has extensive public speaking experience regarding religion in America. She has stamps in her passports that make customs officials take a second look, and she enjoys curling up with a good book. Follow her on Twitter at @YHafizHuffPo.
Ruben Habito
Ruben L. F. Habito teaches at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He also serves as Guiding Teacher at the Maria Kannon Zen Center located in Dallas, Texas. Ruben is married to Maria Dorothea Reis Habito, International Program Director of the Museum of World Religions, located in Taipei, Taiwan. They are the parents of two sons, Florian and Benjamin, both of college age. His published works include Healing Breath: Zen for Buddhists and Christians in a Wounded World. (3rd edition, 2006.), Experiencing Buddhism: Ways of Wisdom and Compassion (2005), and Living Zen, Loving God (2004), and others books in English and Japanese. He has served as president of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and of the Society for Buddhist Christian Studies.
Janet Haag
Janet M. Haag is the executive director of Fellowship In Prayer and editor of its publication, Sacred Journey, an interfaith journal of poetry, art, and reflection on prayer and service. She has graduate degrees in spiritual formation and psychology, preparing her for more than thirty years of experience in education, spiritual formation, and social services. She is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post, writing about prayer and meditation issues.
Hans Gustafson
Hans Gustafson is the director of the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, where he also teaches courses in the area of (inter)religious studies and theology. He is the author of several articles and chapters, the book Finding All Things in God: Pansacramentality and Doing Theology Interreligiously (Pickwick 2016, Lutterworth 2017), and is editor of the forthcoming Learning from Other Religions: Leaving Room for Holy Envy (Palgrave, 2018).He holds M.A. degrees in philosophy and theology, and a Ph.D. degree in religion. He resides in Minnesota with his wife and three sons.
Vanita Gupta
Vanita Gupta is the acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division and the top civil rights prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice. Formerly, she was a civil rights lawyer and the Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where she oversaw the ACLU's national criminal justice reform efforts.
Gupta was born in the Philadelphia area of Pennsylvania to Indian immigrant parents. She spent most of her childhood in England and France. She is a graduate of Yale and New York University Law School, graduating from law school in 2001.
Peter B. Gudaitis
Peter B. Gudaitis has served as the president of the National Disaster Interfaiths Network (NDIN), and as a consultant, recovery contractor, researcher and trainer since 2007. He lectures nationally and internationally on interfaith and inter-religious partnerships and disaster management, as well as on religious literacy and competency in crisis settings, and disaster readiness, response and recovery best practices.
Gudaitis has over 25 years of experience in chaplaincy, disaster emergency management, faith-based philanthropy, program management and social services administration. As associate director of Episcopal Charities of the Diocese of New York from 1999 to 2003, he managed community-based outreach and youth grant programs and also directed diocesan 9/11 relief and recovery programs. He has eight years of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) experience.
Gudaitis holds a Master of Divinity degree from the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church and a B.A. from Kenyon College. He has served on many local and national boards and committees in a variety of capacities.
Rita M. Gross
Known as a warm, humorous, and very clear teacher, Rita M. Gross’ teaching involves a rare combination of academic and dharmic perspectives. She has extensive training and experience both as a professor of comparative studies in religion and as a Buddhist dharma teacher. Her Buddhist teaching is non-sectarian and she teaches for both Zen and Vipassana centers as well as Tibetan centers. She is one of six senior teachers (lopon) appointed by Her Eminence Jetsun Khandro Rinpoche to teach at Lotus Garden, Khandro Rinpoche’s Western center. In the Shambhala mandala, she is authorized to teach all levels of Shambhala Training.
Lopon Rita can teach on most topics pertaining to Buddhism for seminaries, universities, and Buddhist centers. She has specialized in topics pertaining to Buddhism and contemporary issues, including gender issues, ecology, and religious diversity. She also teaches about the implications of an accurate understanding of Buddhist history for Buddhist practitioners. In addition, she has focused on issues pertaining to theology of religious diversity and inter-religious exchange and can offer a variety of solo or co-taught workshops on this topic for seminaries and religious institutions.
John Grim
Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim are the Directors of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale. Over the last twenty years, the Forum on Religion and Ecology has been drawing together the research and insights of scholars, theologians, and laity within the world’s religions. They have identified ideas, ethics, and practices regarding ecology and justice from these traditions in books, journals, and films. Now there are environmental statements from the world’s religions, educational programs, and grassroots projects on the ground.
Tucker is a Senior Lecturer and Research Scholar at Yale University where she has appointments in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies as well as the Divinity School and the Department of Religious Studies.
Her concern for the growing environmental crisis, especially in Asia, led her to organize with John Grim a series of ten conferences on World Religions and Ecology at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard (1995-1998). Together they are series editors for the ten volumes from the conferences distributed by Harvard University Press. In this series she co-edited Buddhism and Ecology (Harvard, 1997), Confucianism and Ecology (Harvard, 1998), and Hinduism and Ecology (Harvard, 2000).
Tucker has been involved with the Earth Charter since its inception. She served on the International Earth Charter Drafting Committee from 1997-2000 and was a member of the Earth Charter International Council. She also serves on the Advisory Boards of Orion Magazine, the Garrison Institute, and Green Belt Movement U.S.
Grim teaches courses in Native American and Indigenous religions and World religions and ecology. He has undertaken field work with the Crow/Apsaalooke people of Montana and Salish people of Washington state. He is the author of The Shaman: Patterns of Religious Healing Among the Ojibway Indians (University of Oklahoma Press, 1983) and edited Indigenous Traditions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmology and Community (Harvard, 2001). Grim is co-executive producer of the Emmy award winning film, Journey of the Universe. This film is the center piece of massive open online courses (MOOCs) offered by Yale/Coursera.
Brian Grim
Brian J. Grim is president of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation and a leading expert on the socioeconomic impact of restrictions on religious freedom and international religious demography. He is an associate scholar with the Berkley Center’s Religious Freedom Project and an affiliated scholar at Boston University’s Institute on Culture, Religion & World Affairs. Prior to becoming the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation’s president in 2014, Grim directed the largest social science effort to collect and analyze global data on religion at the Pew Research Center. He also worked for two decades as an educator in the former Soviet Union, China, Central Asia, Middle East, and Europe. He is author of numerous articles and books, including The Price of Freedom Denied (2010), and writes the Weekly Number Blog. Grim holds a doctorate in sociology from the Pennsylvania State University and is also a TEDx speaker.
Kathleen A. Green
Rev. Dr. Kathleen A. Green is Executive Director of the Yale Humanist Community and a Yale Silliman College Fellow. Her doctoral dissertation focused on collaboration between humanists and religious adherents in interfaith engagement. Dr. Green also serves on the faculty of Claremont Lincoln University’s Master of Arts in Interfaith degree program, and is an Affiliated Community Minister at the Unitarian Society of New Haven. She resides in Connecticut.
Bettina Gray
Bettina Gray has woven several careers into a rich life. She is a co-founder of North American Interfaith Network, serving on its board since 1986 and as its chair since 2008. As a television producer, she created The Parliament of Souls, 27 half-hour interviews with religious leaders and teachers, including the Dalai Lama, at the 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions. The series, which came with a companion book, was repeatedly broadcast on PBS and in 140 countries. For more videotaped interfaith interviews, go to her Creative Films. As a composer she has written numerous soundtracks for interfaith and human rights-based video productions, and she continues teaching and performing musically and is Composer-in-Residence of San Francisco's Slavyanka Russian Chorus. She has keynoted and lectured on world religions and human rights in various settings, including Mills College, University of California (Berkeley), and Graduate Theological Union, and been a consultant to the World Council of Churches regarding interfaith relations.
Jonathan Granoff
Jonathan Granoff is an international lawyer, advocate, scholar, and award winning screenwriter who serves as President of the Global Security Institute, United Nations Representative of the Permanent Secretariat of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, and Ambassador for Peace, Security and Nuclear Disarmament of The Parliament of the World’s Religions. He serves on numerous advisory and governing boards such as the International Law Section of the American Bar Association, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship, Universal Sufi Council, World Wisdom Council, Tikkun, International Association of Sufism, Middle Powers Initiative, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament working to bring the values of love, compassion, and justice into action. He is a Fellow in he World Academy of Arts and Science and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. Blessed with having lived and studied with H.H. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen since his youth he is honored with the namesake Ahamed Muhaiyaddeen.
Lanier Graham
Lanier Graham began his curatorial career at New York's Museum of Modern Art. While there he played chess with Duchamp and dedicated his first book Chess Sets (1968) to him. He later served as Curator of the National Gallery of Australia, and Curator of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, where Duchamp had his first museum retrospective in 1963. It was in Pasadena at the NSM in 1991 that Graham used works from the 1963 retrospective as the nucleus for the widely respected exhibition "Impossible Realities: Marcel Duchamp & the Surrealist Tradition."
Graham has published a large number of articles, books, and catalogues on modern art and philosophy, as well as world art and sacred symbolism, including catalogues of the work of Monet, van Gogh, Guimard, Matisse, Ernst, Duchamp, and de Kooning. Among the books he has written are Three Centuries of American Painting (1971 & 1977), The Spontaneous Gensture: Prints & Books of the Abstract Expressionists Era (1987), The Prints of Willem De Kooning: A Catalogue Raisonne (1991), and Goddess in Art (1997), which is now available in four languages.
His research field involves relationships between traditional art and modern art, especially the iconography of the transcendent. He is in the process of completing two books: Mallarme & Modern Art and Images of the Infinite:Spiritual Philosophy in Modern Art which will include his interviews with major figures of the era, including Duchamp. Both books examine Modernism as a secular search for wholeness.
He has taught Art History, Religious Studies, and Museum Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, California Institute of Asian Studies, San Francisco, Naropa Institute, Boulder, and Humboldt State University, Arcata, California. He now teaches Art History at California State University, East Bay, where he also directs the University Art Gallery. His profile appears in Who's Who in America andWho's Who in the World.
Pamela Jay Gottfried
Pamela Jay Gottfried is a rabbi, parent, teacher, and author. An inveterate Scrabble player and New York Times Crossword Puzzle fanatic, she credits her love of words to her third grade teacher and her parents, who encouraged her to develop her vocabulary through reading and using the dictionary at an early age. Rabbi Gottfried is a New York City native who moved to Atlanta in 1999. Her areas of expertise include rabbinic literature and the development of Jewish law. Since her rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1993, she has taught students of all ages in churches, colleges, community centers, schools, and synagogues.
Rabbi Gottfried balances her love of writing with her work as a potter, fostering her creativity in a tactile world removed from the computer and Internet. She is also a founding member of 100 People of Faith, in Atlanta, and is active in several non-profit organizations that foster interfaith relations and the elimination of prejudice and poverty.
Jack Gordon
Jack Gordon is a photographer and media producer based in Washington DC. He is currently spearheading the multimedia project Faith in Action DC, which celebrates the community service work of people of faith throughout the nation's capital region. Additionally, Jack serves on the Board of the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington as a representative for the D.C. area Bahá’í community.