Canon Nicholas Porter is the founder and Executive Director of Jerusalem Peacebuilders. The former international chaplain to the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, Porter serves on the board of the American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, which supports 36 hospitals, schools, orphanages and training centers in Jerusalem, Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon. He is a member of the Order of St. John, the leading provider of ophthalmic health care in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Porter holds advanced degrees in Middle East studies, theology, war studies, and conflict transformation. A two-time graduate of Yale University, he served on the board of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. Porter ministered at St. George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem, the American Cathedral in Paris, Emmanuel Church in Geneva, Switzerland, and Trinity Church in Southport, Conn. Currently he pastors St. Mary’s Church in the Mountains in Wilmington, Vermont. He and his wife, Dorothy Meek Porter, have three daughters.
Ryan Polsky
Ryan Polsky is a writer from Los Angeles, California who is passionate about social justice, current events, and making the world a better place. He enjoys getting to know, learning about, and working with people of diverse backgrounds. He is a recent graduate of Colorado State University, with a degree in Journalism and Media Communication, and is currently the storytelling intern at United Religions Initiative. In his free time he enjoys sports, chess, and music.
Nadya Pohran
Nadya Pohran is a graduate student who approaches the study of religion through the lens of cultural anthropology. In addition to focusing on lived religion in her academic writing, she explores spiritual themes in her poetry and playwriting.
She is particularly interested in the way that religious beliefs and spiritual experiences form and inform individuals’ understanding of themselves and the society around them. Her master’s thesis at the University of Ottawa (2013-2015) focused on Charismatic Protestant practices of healing prayer. Her PhD at the University of Cambridge (2015-2018) is an anthropological study of Indian Christianity. In it, she engages with ideas of interfaith dialogue and comparative religion within an Indian cultural context.
S. Brent Plate
S. Brent Plate's teachings and writings explore relations between sensual life and spiritual life. He is a writer, editor, public speaker, and visiting associate professor of religious studies at Hamilton College. He has authored/edited twelve books and written for The Christian Century, The Islamic Monthly, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Huffington Post, Religion Dispatches, and other sites. He is co-founder and managing editor of Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief; president of CrossCurrents/ The Association of Religion and Intellectual Life; and is a board member of the Interfaith Coalition of Greater Utica, NY. His most recent book is A History of Religion in 5½ Objects: Bringing the Spiritual to its Senses. Website: www.sbrentplate.net Twitter: @splate1
Jason Pitzl-Waters
Jason Pitzl-Waters is a visual artist living in the Pacific Northwest. For ten years he worked as a journalist within modern Paganism, founding The Wild Hunt, a resource for Pagan news and commentary.
Craig Phillips
Craig Phillips became active in interfaith relations during an internship with the World Conference of Religions for Peace in 2008. Afterwards he enrolled in Hartford Seminary in a graduate program focused on Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations. His thesis is on the cultural relativism and the issue of universality in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from an Islamic perspective. Since 2009 he has been program coordinator for the Muslim Coalition of Connecticut. He also works as social media coordinator at Hartford Seminary. Craig has lived in India and spent considerable time in Nepal, Egypt, Iran, and Turkey. In the summer of 2011 a fellowship took him to a workshop in Auschwitz, Poland, to study professional ethics. Craig plans to combine his diverse experiences and education for a career in interfaith and inter-cultural relations.
Weston Pew
Weston Pew hails from the Rocky Mountains of western Montana and is the founder and director of Inner Wild, a regenerative leadership program that uses contemplative tools such as pilgrimage, group dialog, rites of passage and nature connection to cultivate a deeper understanding of and relationship to self, Earth, and community. Inner Wild currently runs programs in Montana and New York City. Weston is also the founder of the Sacred Door Trail, a 175-mile interfaith pilgrimage trail, located in the mountains of Montana, dedicated to spiritual unity and our connection to Earth and community. Currently he is helping to create an urban pilgrimage trail in New York City and is wrapping up a masters in experiential education through Prescott College.
Tina Petrova
Tina Petrova has been part of the Canadian film, television and stage scene for over 30 years as an award winning actress, writer, producer and director. She is an alumnus of Academy Award Winner Norman Jewison’s Canadian Film Centre and an accredited juror for The Coalition for Quality Children’s Media. Film critics have dubbed Tina “a driving force” and “visionary,” creating works of “faith and healing.”
Her feature directing debut, “Rumi Turning Ecstatic,” had its world premiere on Vision TV in January 2006. Since then, it has been translated into three languages and programmed in over 17 countries – including a special invite to the United Nations in 2007.
Tina produced and directed a half-hour documentary entitled “Animating the Golden Rule” – a captivating journey through the world’s various faith traditions by youth - through music, rap and drama. She is author of Animating the Golden Rule - Teacher's Guidebook (2014). Visit The Golden Rule Movie to find out more about the DVD and Teacher's Guidebook.
Amelia Perkins
Amelia Perkins serves as director of special projects for the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions (CPWR). She has studied and worked in the areas of religion and the arts. After receiving a Masters of Theology from Harvard in 2005, she received a travel fellowship to spend a year recording the lives of Greek Orthodox nuns both in writing and on film. Amelia has worked as a researcher at the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions, working on content for the Museum of World Religions in Taiwan. She also worked on the Religion and Arts Initiative at One Center in New York, connecting diverse religious communities through interfaith arts events. In her role at CPWR, she works on international outreach and programs such as webinars, trainings and interreligious encounters.
Janet Penn
Janet Penn is the founder and director of Youth LEAD (Youth Leader’s Engaging Across Differences), formerly Interfaith Action. She works with civic and interfaith groups across the country to give teens the skills they need to communicate respectfully when they are unlikely to agree, then trains teens to facilitate these conversations and organize to address challenges facing their communities. Janet is passionate about creating a youth-led space for sustained, deep dialogue and engagement. She presents regularly at national and international interfaith and leadership conferences and retreats and has over 25 years of experience in non-profit business management.
Dr. Kusumita Pedersen
Kusumita Pedersen is chair of the Department of Religion at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, New York. Dr. Pedersen has been involved for more than 25 years with the international interfaith movement. Her academic interests include interreligious dialogue and cooperation, global ethics, and human rights.
Previously, executive director of the Project on Religion and Human Rights, a group that provides a forum for study and advocacy, collaborating with academic resources and public policy centers to ensure that religion is included in the promotion of human rights. She has been joint secretary for Religious Affairs of the Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders on Human Survival and executive director of the Temple of Understanding which is involved with interfaith education and supporting the U.N.
Currently, she is co-chair of the Interfaith Center of New York which seeks to create understanding and respect between the different religious groups that can be found in New York City. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions which hopes to establish harmony and engagement between the world’s religions.
Dr. Pedersen has concentrated for much of her life to promoting interfaith dialogue and understanding and wrote for The World’s Religions After September 11 (2008) which highlights the changes in the relationships between the faiths that are occurring into the 21st century.
C.S. Pearce
C.S. Pearce is an author and writer whose work appears in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post’s On Faith, and other media outlets. She was formerly Director of Media Relations for Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Lincoln University.
Jennifer Peace
Dr. Jennifer Peace is the assistant professor of Interfaith Studies at Andover Newton Theological School (ANTS). In addition, she co-directs the Center for Inter-Religious and Communal Leadership Education (CIRCLE), a joint initiative between Hebrew College and ANTS. Having worked as an interfaith organizer for more than 15 years, Dr. Peace was a founding board member of the United Religions Initiative, part of the initial leadership team for the Interfaith Youth Core, and a founding member of the Daughters of Abraham, a book-group model for Muslim, Jewish and Christian woman that has grown into a national movement. Dr. Peace is co-editor of a new collection of interfaith narratives, My Neighbor’s Faith: Stories of Interreligious Encounter, Growth, and Transformation (2012).
Dan Pawlus
Dan Pawlus, vice president of communications at Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), oversees all media efforts, website communications, thought leadership, and branding initiatives. Dan’s been a communicator on several “stages” throughout his career with an eclectic background in the entertainment business that includes professional performing in Broadway tours, theme parks, cruise ships and Wild West stunt shows as well as extensive work in television development and production with award-winning artists and producers. He currently co-hosts "30 Good Minutes," a weekly interfaith talk show, on WTTW 11(PBS) in Chicago. Always involved in the faith world, Dan has been active in music ministries at various churches across the country. His favorite production, however, is his family that includes his wife Leanna, son Luke, and beautiful twin girls.
Charles Randall Paul
Charles Randall Paul (PhD, University of Chicago, Committee on Social Thought, 2000; M.B.A., Harvard University, 1972) is board chair, founder, and president of the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy. He has lectured widely and written numerous articles on healthy methods for engaging differences in religions and ideologies, and he is currently completing two books: Fighting about God: Why We Do It and How to Do It Better and Converting the Saints: An American Religious Conflict. He is on the board of editors for the International Journal of Decision Ethics. Dr. Paul has also had a professional career in the commercial real estate business, receiving the Phoenix Skyline Award for Excellence in Urban Development. He has been married to his wife Jann for more than forty years, and they have five children.
Eboo Patel
Eboo Patel is the founder and executive director of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), a Chicago-based institution building the global interfaith youth movement. Eboo’s core belief is that religion is a bridge of cooperation rather than a barrier of division. He has spoken about this vision at places like the TED conference, the Clinton Global Initiative, and the Nobel Peace Prize Forum, as well as college and university campuses across the country. He writes regularly for The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Huffington Post. Author of the award-winning book Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation (2007), he holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes scholar. In 2009 Eboo was named by US News & World Report as one of America’s Best Leaders of 2009.
Ana Patel
Ana Cutter Patel is the executive director of Outward Bound Peacebuilding, an international non-government organization that uses the Outward Bound approach of experiential education in the outdoors to challenge and inspire leaders from divided communities to build peace together. Check out upcoming programs, including Peace Matters: An Expedition in InterFaith Dialogue, at www.outwardboundpeace.org.
David Parks-Ramage
Rev. David Parks-Ramage, Sensei is a United Church of Christ minister with 30 years experience teaching interfaith contemplative practices. He is a Zen teacher trained in koan practice at the Pacific Zen Institute and has been educated in Spiritual Direction at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation. He is the pastor of the First UCC in Santa Rosa, California.
David's contemplative teachers over the years have included John Tarrant, Henri Nouwen, Gerald May, Tilden Edwards and Rosemary Dougherty. With his deep training in Christian Contemplative practice and Zen he finds value and teaches in each tradition. Currently, he is working on the sayings and doings of Jesus as Christian koans.
Jin Y. Park
Jin Y. Park is associate professor of philosophy and religion and founding director of the Asian Studies Program at American University. Park specializes in East Asian Zen and Huayan Buddhism, Buddhist Ethics, East-West comparative philosophy, and Buddhist encounters with modernity in East Asia. She is a founding co-chair of the International Society for Buddhist Philosophy and also serves on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Religion. Her book length publications include Buddhism and Postmodernity: Zen, Huayan and the Possibility of Buddhist Postmodern Ethics (2008), Buddhisms and Deconstructions (ed. 2006), Makers of Modern Korean Buddhism (ed. 2010), Merleau-Ponty and Buddhism (ed. 2009), and Comparative Political Theory and Cross-Cultural Philosophy (ed. 2009). Her most recent book, Reflections of a Zen Buddhist Nun: Essays by Zen Master Kim Iryŏp (2014), is a translation of a book by Korean Buddhist nun-thinker Kim Iryŏp.
Michael Pappas
Michael G. Pappas was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. He graduated from Dickinson College in 1983, after which he successively worked as a lobbyist, regional field director for a presidential campaign, and investment banker for the oldest municipal bond firm in New Jersey. In 1987, he left the world of politics and finance to enroll at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, where he graduated with honors. As an ordained priest of the Greek Orthodox Church, he served parishes in Illinois and California. During his sixteen-year ministry, he was a prolific writer, contributing articles to numerous religious and secular periodicals.
As well, Michael devoted energy to work with the homeless and further ecumenical/interfaith relationships. After transitioning from parish ministry in 2007, he was selected by the San Francisco Interfaith Council to the newly created administrative post of executive director. As executive director, Michael has helped increase the Council’s budget and programs substantially; strengthened existing and cultivated new relationships with civic leaders, NGO’s, judicatories and congregations; and significantly projected the SFIC through expanded use of technology.
His previous/current board memberships include: Mayoral appointments to the San Francisco Disaster Council and San Francisco Office of Civic Engagement's 2010 Census Complete Count Committee; San Francisco Assisi Sister City Committee, and San Francisco Human Rights Commission. Recently he was elected to serve as a trustee on United Religion’s Initiative’s Global Council.
The father of two sons and a daughter, Michael is a congregant at Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco, CA.