Steven Knapp

Steven Knapp became the sixteenth president of the George Washington University in August 2007. His priorities include enhancing the university’s partnerships with neighboring institutions, expanding the scope of its research, strengthening its worldwide community of alumni, enlarging its students’ opportunities for public service, and leading its transformation into a model of urban sustainability. 

Dr. Knapp serves on the boards of the Economic Club of Washington; the Greater Washington Board of Trade; the Greater Washington Urban League; the World Affairs Council-Washington, DC; the National Symphony Orchestra; the Washington National Cathedral Foundation; and Al Akhawayan University in Ifrane, Morocco. He is chair of the Atlantic 10 Conference Council of Presidents. He also serves on the executive committee of the Council on Competitiveness, and the jobs committee of the Federal City Council. 

A specialist in Romanticism, literary theory, and the relation of literature to philosophy and religion, Dr. Knapp taught English literature at the University of California, Berkeley before serving as dean of arts and sciences and then provost of Johns Hopkins University. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Modern Language Association. The author of three books and numerous articles, he earned his doctorate and masters degrees from Cornell University and his Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University.

Kimberly King

Kimberly King is a visionary, humanitarian, and global change agent who believes in the “beauty of dreams.” Projects in strategic development, communications, and interfaith dialog have taken her around the world supporting community projects in Africa, Asia, India, South America and Australia. She focuses on womens and girls empowerment, educational campaigns for global issues, forging community partnerships, and social entrepreneurship. Kimberly serves on numerous boards. Her client list includes Fortune 500s, NGOs, city governments, broadcast media, and the United Nations. She is chair of the Women’s Forum and the Religion and Peacebuilding Forum for the Alliance for Peacebuilding, and is a member of the Global Leadership Council for the Women, Faith and Development Alliance. She is co-author of The Power of Team and Wake up and Live Your Best Life and a recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Global Humanitarian Award in honor of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Andrew Kille

Rev. Dr. Andrew Kille is an American Baptist clergyman with a doctorate in psychology and biblical studies from Graduate Theological Union. He has been involved with interfaith dialogue for 30 years in a career combining pastoral assignments, writing, editing, teaching, church music, administration, and managing websites, including his own. He has taught at Holy Names College and Santa Clara University. He is the editor of The Bible Workbench and a trustee of Interfaith Center at the Presidio, whose Bay Area Interfaith Connect he edits. He is author of Psychological Biblical Criticism (2001) and numerous articles. Andy has been particularly active in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, co-founding the Silicon Valley Interreligious Council in 2011 and establishing San Jose, California, as a Parliament of the World’s Religions Partner City.

Billy Doidge Kilgore

Billy Doidge Kilgore is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). He is a native Southerner, book hoarder, and coffee connoisseur. After graduating from Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia he served congregations in Tennessee, Virginia, and Indiana. Billy lives with his wife, Cara, and their two sons in Nashville, Tennessee. Follow him on Twitter @billydkilgore.

Mark Kellner

Mark A. Kellner, a national reporter for the Deseret News, has written about issues of faith and freedom since 1983, including 11 years of editorial work for the Seventh-day Adventist Church world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. From 1991 to 2014, Mark also wrote for The Washington Times, both on personal technology and also matters of faith, with a weekly column called "Higher Ground." He is the author of "God on the Internet," as well as a book in the "For Dummies®" series.

David King Keller

David King Keller is CEO of Keller Business Development Advisory Group He is a former Catholic seminarian, was active in civil rights and Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign. David spent a year in the U.S. organizing press events to bring awareness to the starving children in Biafra. He has been on the boards of many non-profit organizations and one public corporation and brought The Course of Miracles into San Quentin. He has an MBA from Pepperdine, and is pursuing a PhD in East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he was a former trustee. David coaches and speaks on the subject of business development to law firms and other businesses with one award winning book on the subject and a “Rainmaker” book about to be released by the American Bar Association. David speaks regularly on the neuroscience of stress reduction and productivity, and practices daily meditation.

Alan Kelchner

Alan Kelchner is the VP for Advancement at the nation's largest and most comprehensive center for graduate study in religion. The GTU includes 2 Catholic and 6 Protestant seminaries, plus academic centers for Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Greek Orthodox. More than 1000 students including over 200 PhD students in religion.

Victor H. Kazanjian

Victor H. Kazanjian Jr. is the executive director of the United Religions Initiative (URI). Prior to joining URI in October 2013, Victor served as the dean of Intercultural Education and Religious and Spiritual Life, co-director of the Peace and Justice Studies Program, and director of the Peace Studies Program in India at Wellesley College, in Wellesley, Massachusetts USA. In addition he is the co-founder and co-president of Education as Transformation Inc., an international organization that works on issues of religious diversity and spirituality in higher education. Victor is also a visiting faculty member and Fulbright Scholar at the Malaviya Center for Peace Research at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India, where he served as Fulbright Professor of Peace & Justice Studies.

Victor’s work at Wellesley College and through Education as Transformation is widely acknowledged as the catalyst in the national and international movement to include religion and spirituality as core issues in higher education, and has led to interfaith and intercultural growth and understanding. Specializing in inter-religious dialogue and conflict transformation, diversity and democracy, and peace building, Victor is a recognized thought leader and the author and editor of numerous books and articles.

Rev. Kazanjian is an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church and was trained as a community organizer working to address the systemic causes of poverty and injustice through the support of religious and community-based groups.  He holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is a graduate of Harvard University.

Mansfield 'Kasey' Kaseman

Mansfield ‘Kasey’ Kaseman is the Interfaith Community Liaison for the Office of Community Partnerships in Montgomery County, Maryland. Since his student days he has been engaged in ecumenical and interfaith ministries aimed at creating the beloved community.  The model he implemented for Theological Education in the Urban Setting was adopted by Harvard, Boston University, and Weston Divinity Schools.  His engagement in the Civil Rights Movement included providing security for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., establishing non-profits such as the Blue Hill Christian Center in Roxbury, Massachusetts and helping to implement Racial Justice Now.

In a decade of service with United Church on the Green in New Haven, Connecticut Rev. Kaseman formed partnerships with Yale, New Haven Foundation, Chamber of Commerce, AFL-CIO, state and municipal officials, and religious organizations in founding nonprofits and changing policies that impacted public education, urban renewal, anti-poverty programs, civil rights, affordable housing and healthcare. In establishing a new church in Tallahassee, Florida he simultaneously formed a statewide network for impacting the state legislature and implemented a budget committing 50 percent to mission and social justice. 

Since 2006 Kasey has served as senior vice president of CTIS (philanthropy, community service and health disparities), and vice president of Van Eperen & Company (strategic planning, marketing and corporate social responsibility).

He has degrees from Westmar College, Andover Newton Theological School, and Yale Divinity School and serves on numerous boards.  He and his wife, Dianne, have three adult children and seven grandchildren.

Eliana Kaya

Eliana Kaya is a veteran journalist, community organizer, and media consultant. She is an alumna of the 2010 NewGround Fellowship and is training as an interfaith facilitator. Currently she is writing a book about her time as a soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces during the second Intifada. She is also actively developing interfaith gardening initiatives based in Los Angeles.

Valarie Kaur

Valarie Kaur is an award-winning filmmaker, legal advocate, theologian, and public speaker. She serves as founding director of Groundswell, a non-profit initiative at Auburn Theological Seminary committed to building the multifaith movement for justice. Combining storytelling and advocacy, Valarie has led grassroots campaigns on urgent social challenges facing her generation, including racial justice, religious pluralism, immigrant rights, prison reform, LGBT equality, and a moral economy. A third-generation Sikh American, her critically acclaimed documentary film Divided We Fall (2008) on hate crimes after Sept 11th inspired national grassroots dialogue. She has been invited to speak on her work in 200 U.S. cities and media outlets such as CNN, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, NPR, BBC, and the New York Times. Valarie earned bachelors degrees in religion and international relations at Stanford University, masters in theological studies at Harvard Divinity School, and a law degree at Yale Law School, where she currently trains students in the art of visual advocacy as founding director of the Yale Visual Law Project.

Beth Katz

Beth Katz is the founder and executive director of Project Interfaith in Omaha, Nebraska. Beth got bitten by the interfaith bug in college, co-founding a student interfaith group and developing a passion for a world where people of all faiths, beliefs, and cultures are valued and included. After receiving graduate degrees in public policy and social work, she came back home to Omaha to start Project Interfaith. Along with the Project’s many programs, Beth is a frequent guest speaker, at home and abroad, including the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne. Her monthly column, “The Accidental Theist,” is published on the blog Omaha.net. She teaches international conflict resolution and religious diversity courses at the University of Nebraska and is on the board of the Center for Catholic Thought at Creighton University.

Anneke Kat

Anneke Kat is a community development practitioner experienced in working with refugees, women, and youth on issues of education, economic empowerment, and interfaith community building. Her academic and professional experiences have provided her with a chance to work with urban communities in Sub Saharan Africa and the United States. Anneke obtained a B.A. in International Development and Social Change and a M.A. in Community Development and Planning, both from Clark University. She currently serves as the Youth & Community Program Manager for Interfaith Philadelphia.

Jack Karn

As the Program Director of Jerusalem Peacebuilders, Jack Karn oversees and leads the development of JPB’s interfaith programs.  An experienced educator with a passion for service, Jack has spent much of the last three and a half years overseas in the Holy Land teaching leadership and peacebuilding courses in Israeli and Palestinian high schools.  He served as a volunteer in Jerusalem and Nazareth, 2016-18, with the Young Adult Service Corps of the Episcopal Church.  Jack has also worked with World Learning's Youth Programs and the CONTACT Program of SIT Graduate Institute.  He holds a B.A. in History from the University of Maine and an M.A. in Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation from SIT Graduate Institute.  Currently, Jack is in the process of becoming a Vocational Deacon in the Episcopal Church.

Abraham Karickam

Abraham Karickam holds a PhD in English and interreligious studies and MA degrees in history and literature. He has served as director of comparative literature at Mar Thoma College, Tiruvala, Kerala, in India. Formerly a journalist, Dr. Karickam is a retired college administrator responsible for the literature departments in numerous colleges in south India. Involved in interfaith activities for the past 20 years, he serves as URI’s South India zone coordinator and president of Interfaith Students Movements in south India. He trains young adults in interfaith peacebuilding and is participating in the URI Moral Imagination/Peacebuilding training. He is the author of 15 books, including Concept of the Upanishads, the Bible and the Qu’ar and Intertextuality of the Holy Books. 

Brad Karelius

Father Brad Karelius has been an Episcopal priest since 1971 in the Diocese of Los Angeles, for 30 years the pastor of Church of the Messiah, a multi-cultural congregation located in the Logan Barrio in central Orange County, CA. He founded “Hands Together – a Center for Children,” providing high quality early childhood education to the poorest children in Santa Ana. A new center currently serves homeless mothers and children. Net proceeds from the sale of “The Spirit in the Desert” go directly to support Hands Together. Fr. Brad has been Associate Professor for philosophy and world religions at Saddleback Community College, since 1973. For many years he has researched and taught Native American spirituality, and this knowledge is integrated in The Spirit in the Desert. Fr. Brad is married to Janice Karelius, a Family Nurse Practitioner doing Emergency Medicine, and they have two adult children.

Dr. Azza Karam

Dr. Azza Karam serves as the Senior Advisor on Culture at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), where she coordinates fund-wide outreach with faith-based partners and chairs the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on FBO (faith-based organizations) partners on the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals), and development. Before she joined UNFPA, she was the Senior Policy Research Advisor at the United Nations Development Program in the Regional Bureau for Arab States. Karam also worked as special advisor on Middle East and Islamic Affairs and director of the Women’s Programs at the World Conference of Religions for Peace and as a senior program officer at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. She has served as lecturer at the University of Amsterdam and as the program manager at the Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict at the Queens University of Belfast. Karam also served as consultant to international organizations in the Arab region, Central Asia, and Europe. Her publications include Transnational Political Islam (2004) and Islamisms, Women and the State (1998).

Samir Kalra

Samir Kalra is the Hindu American Foundation (HAF)’s California based director and senior fellow for Human Rights. HAF is a non-profit advocacy and human rights group seeking to provide a progressive voice to more than two million Hindu Americans. Samir plays a leading role in HAF’s human rights, public policy, and legal advocacy efforts, and is the author of the Foundation’s annual human rights report, public policy briefs on Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Malaysia, and co-author of written testimony submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution detailing a Hindu perspective on the state of religious liberty in the U.S.  Samir is licensed to practice law in the State of California and completed his Juris Doctorate degree from Santa Clara University. He received a B.A. in Political Science and a B.A. in Psychology and Social Behavior from the University of California at Irvine. 

Contribu

Mark Juergensmeyer

Mark Juergensmeyer is professor of Sociology and director of Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Juergensmeyer is the winner of the Grawemeyer Award for his book Terror in the Mind of God (2000). He is the editor of Global Religions: An Introduction (2003) and is also the author of The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State and Gandhi's Way: A Handbook of Conflict Resolution (1994), both from University of California Press.

Kile Jones

Kile Jones is working towards a Ph.D. in Religion, Ethics, and Society at Claremont Lincoln University.  His interests include religious studies, secularism, liberal religion, and unbelief.  Mr. Jones considers himself influenced by secular humanism, atheism, and Unitarian Universalism.  He is the Founder/Editor-in-Chief of Claremont Journal of Religion and is a Contributing Scholar at State of Formation.