Who We Are

Marites Guingona Africa

In 1998, I was inspired by the United Religions Initiative vision of a better world where people of diverse cultures and beliefs could come together to a common ground to engage in various forms of dialogue in the spirit of mutual respect, understanding and cooperation. In 2000, my interfaith friends and I established the Peacemakers’ Circle Foundation, Inc. in Metro Manila and engaged in the endeavor of building respectful relationships among peoples of diverse cultures and beliefs through various forms of dialogue. We were one of the many founding URI cooperation circles during its Charter signing in June 2000. In 2003, our Peacemakers’ Circle CC began to reach out to grassroots communities in Metro Manila where Muslims and Christians lived together as neighbors. Today, our peace and relationship-building work has deepened and expanded to include training Muslim, Christian and indigenous leaders from the conflict-affected communities in the war-torn southern Philippine region of Mindanao.

Seyyedeh Dr. Nahid Angha

Seyyedeh Dr. Nahid Angha is co-founder and co-director of the International Association of Sufism (IAS). She is executive editor of the quarterly journal Sufism: An Inquiry and founder of the International Sufi Women Organization. Dr. Angha is the IAS representative to the United Nations (NGO/DPI) and the first Muslim woman inducted to the Marin Women’s Hall of Fame. She is daughter of Moulana Shah Maghsoud, the twentieth-century Persian Sufi of the Uwaiysi School of Sufism, and the first woman appointed to teach in her father’s school. She was also the first woman to sit at the center circle with Muslim leaders from around the world to lead meditation at the international Sufism Symposium. Dr. Angha is widely published as a scholar, teacher, poet, and translator. Throughout this activity she has been an active leader in interfaith activities in local, national, and global arenas.

Hafsa Arain

Hafsa Arain is a Muslim interfaith activist, creative nonfiction writer, and student at Claremont Lincoln University, where is she focuses on Islam, leadership development, and feminist movements. She has spent the past decade dedicated to building interfaith solidarity for social justice, including working for Interfaith Youth Core and the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. Her writing has appeared in multiple outlets, including The Washington Post and National Public Radio. Currently, she is a regular contributor to the high/low culture blog, This Recording. You can find her on Tumblr as “SalaamWorld.”

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 continues as 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.

Rabbi Justus N. Baird

Rabbi Justus N. Baird has served as director of the Center for Multifaith Education at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City since 2007, overseeing a program which strives to prepare religious leaders for a religiously diverse world. Rabbi Baird was ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He received a B.S. from Rice University and holds a certificate in Strategic Human Resource Management from Harvard Business School. He brings an entrepreneurial approach to his work; before entering rabbinical school he co-founded Questia.com, a successful and far-reaching academic online library. He has taught, preached in, and consulted with seminaries, churches, synagogues, mosques, and interfaith organizations. His writing can be found in Patheos, Religion Dispatches, Alban Institute publications, and Huffington Post.

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 (University of Chicago Press) and author of SUFI Expressions of the Mystic Quest (Thames and Hudson), as well as a three volume work, God’s Will Be Done, 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.

Bakhtiar is the first woman to present a critical translation of the Quran in any language. In her Sublime Quran 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.

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.”

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.

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.

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 our 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.

Rabbi Sarah Bassin

Rabbi Sarah Bassin serves as the executive director of NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change. From 2009-2011, Sarah served as the program manager at the Center for Muslim/Jewish Engagement where she implemented the first comprehensive survey on Muslim-Jewish relations in the United States. She received a certificate in Jewish Non-Profit Management in August 2010 and was ordained as a rabbi in May 2011 by Hebrew Union College.

Anne Benvenuti

Anne Benvenuti, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology and philosophy, an integrative scholar, a licensed clinical psychologist, a priest of the Episcopal Church, a spiritual director, and a published poet, writer, and photographer. She is a trustee on the Council of the Parliament of the World’s Religions and co-chair of its Women’s Task Force. She also serves on the U.N. NGO Committee on Mental health. Widely published, her research interests include neuroscientific models of natural spirituality and religious epistemology; implications of religious epistemology and natural spirituality for social policy and human-animal relations; and clinical integration of spirituality and health. She is a visiting scholar at Zygon Center for Religion and Science and at the George town University Center for Clinical Bioethics.

Diane Berke

Diane Berke is the Founder and Spiritual Director of One Spirit Learning Alliance and One Spirit Interfaith Seminary in New York City. Ordained as an interfaith minister in 1988, Rev. Berke has been a widely respected pioneer in developing interfaith ministry education. She is a member of the core faculty of the Institute for Sacred Activism, a founding member of the Community of the Mystic Heart, and a member of the Contemplative Alliance initiative of the Global Peace Initiative of Women. Diane is the author of two books, Love Always Answers and The Gentle Smile, as well as several educational reference manuals. A psychotherapist and spiritual counselor in private practice for over thirty years, Diane is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in the State of New York, a Diplomate of the American Psychotherapy Association, and a workshop and retreat leader on spiritual development throughout the United States and internationally.

William Bole

William Bole is a writer, editorial consultant, and think-tank researcher. His books include The Life of Meaning: Reflections on Faith, Doubt, and Repairing the World (2007), coauthored with Bob Abernethy. He writes about theology and politics at TheoPol.com, and about leadership (with Andy Boynton) at Forbes.com. His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times to Commonweal, America, Christian Century, and Utne Reader. In addition, he has worked as a research scholar for university think tanks and study projects. These stints have included eight years as a nonresident research fellow of the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University (2000-2007); more recently he served in the same capacity at Boston College’s Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics and as a research associate of the IMD (International Institute for Management Education) in Lausanne, Switzerland. His website is williambole.com.

Rev. Thomas Bonacci, C.P.

Rev. Thomas Bonacci, C.P., is the founder and director of the Interfaith Peace Project which encourages interfaith peace and mutual respect through small discussion, study, prayer, ritual, and practice. Located in Antioch, California, the Project sponsors hundreds of workshops that open the door to better interfaith relations. A Roman Catholic priest, Tom is a scriptural scholar who has developed adult education and deacon formation programs for San Francisco, Atlanta, New York City, Pittsburgh, and Sacramento. He taught sacred scripture and was campus minister at Carlow University, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he founded The Interfaith Sanctuary for students. Along with his interfaith ministry, Tom is dedicated to serving victims of poverty, people dealing with HIV/AIDS, and those recovering from drugs and alcohol. IPP is The Interfaith Observer’s fiscal sponsor.

Karen Boyett

Karen Boyett is an interfaith leader working locally and internationally since 1999. She is committed to improving religious literacy and to improving community through genuine understanding and inter-personal connections. Since 2005, Karen has been the Executive Director of the Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas as well as Camp Anytown, a youth empowerment program focused on leadership in a multicultural society. Karen was elected to the Board of Directors of the North American Interfaith Network in 2008 where she continues to serve, making important contributions in developing young adult interfaith leaders. Also, Karen contributes to the international group, Women of Spirit and Faith where she supports the voices and initiatives of young women. Karen teaches Religious Studies, Cultural Anthropology, and Sociology at Regis University and the College of Southern Nevada.

Vanessa Gomez Brake

Vanessa Gomez Brake is director of operations & outreach at the Chaplaincy Institute for Arts & Interfaith Ministries (ChI) in Berkeley, California. ChI is an interfaith seminary re-visioning theological education to serve a pluralistic world. For several years, Vanessa has also served as research assistant for the Abrahamic Family Reunion -- a project offering ways to use psychological and spiritual approaches in reconciling conflicts among Jews, Christians and Muslims. In the SF Bay Area, Vanessa is active as a community educator, peacemaker and interfaith activist. Previous to moving to California, she worked at the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy & Conflict Resolution in Arlington, VA. She completed a MS in Conflict Analysis & Resolution at George Mason University, and received BA degrees in Religious Studies and Psychology at Arizona State University. Vanessa was recently elected to the Board of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio.

Rev. Dr. Marcus Braybrooke

Rev. Dr. Marcus Braybrooke is a retired Anglican parish priest, living near Oxford, England. He has been involved in interfaith work for nearly fifty years. He joined the World Congress of Faiths in 1964 and is now president. He served as executive director of the Council of Christians and Jews from 1984 to 1988, is a co-founder of the Three Faiths Forum and patron of the International Interfaith Centre at Oxford. He has travelled widely to attend interfaith conferences and to lecture. Professor Braybrooke is author of over forty books on world religions, including Pilgrimage of Hope: One Hundred Years of Global Interfaith Dialogue (1992), the history of the interfaith movement’s first century. A number of his books address shared worship, prayer, and meditation. In September 2004 the Archbishop of Canterbury awarded him with the Lambeth Doctorate of Divinity “in recognition of his contribution to the development of interreligious cooperation and understanding throughout the world.”

Dr. David R. Brockman

Dr. David R. Brockman has taught courses in Christian theology, theology of religions, world religions, Asian religions, and the social context of Christianity at the Perkins School of Theology, at Southern Methodist University, and at Brite Divinity School. He is the author of No Longer the Same: Religious Others and the Liberation of Christian Theology (2011), and co-editor (with Ruben L. F. Habito) of The Gospel Among Religions: Christian Ministry, Theology, and Spirituality in a Multifaith World (2010). He currently serves as project director for the World Conference of Associations of Theological Institutions (WOCATI).

Dr. Patrice C. Brodeur

Dr. Patrice C. Brodeur holds the Canada Research Chair on Islam, Pluralism, and Globalization at the University of Montreal. His graduate degrees at Harvard were supplemented with three years studying in Hebrew and Arabic-speaking institutions. Patrice has been involved with the Pluralism Project since the early nineties, an affiliate since 1999. He taught for six years at Connecticut College and was a visiting fellow on interreligious dialogue and conflict resolution at the University of Notre Dame. His research includes using the video conferencing to network interdisciplinary research teams in 13 predominantly Muslim countries studying the intersection of Islam, pluralism, and globalization. An earlier project mapped interfaith dialogue in the Balkans from 1990 to 2006. Professor Brodeur’s books include Building the Interfaith Youth Movement: From Dialogue to Action (2006), co-authored with Eboo Patel, and The Pluralist Paradigm: Democracy and Religion in the 21st Century (2006), with Sondra Myers.

Jim Burklo

Jim Burklo is the associate dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California and teaches at USC’s School of Social Work. An ordained United Church of Christ pastor, he is the author of two books on progressive Christianity: Open Christianity – Home by Another Road (2000) and Birdlike and Barnless: Meditations, Prayers and Songs for Progressive Christians(2008). His blog is called Musings, and he edits the monthly INgage interfaith e-newsletter for southern California. He pastored California churches in Sausalito, San Mateo, and Palo Alto, served eight years on the campus ministry staff at Stanford University, and organized and led the Urban Ministry of Palo Alto, a homeless services agency. Jim served on the executive council of The Center for Progressive Christianity.

Dr. Tarunjit Singh Butalia

Dr. Tarunjit Singh Butalia is the current Secretary General of the World Sikh Council-America Region and the Moderator of Religions for Peace – USA. He is a trustee of North American Interfaith Network, the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions, and the National Religious Coalition Against Torture.

Dr. Butalia has worked extensively with the World Council of Churches and helped organize the first National Gathering of Religious Leaders in Chicago in 2006, the same year he addressed the Eighth World Assembly of Religions for Peace in Kyoto, Japan. He has been active in facilitating Catholic-Sikh dialogue and represented the Sikh Faith at the 25th anniversary of the World Day of Prayer for Peace hosted by Pope Benedict XVI at the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi, Italy.

Tarunjit manages to assume major responsibilities amongst the leaders of the world’s religions while staying active in grassroots interfaith activity. He has long been a leader among Ohio’s Sikhs and continues to take leadership roles in state-wide, municipal, and university interfaith efforts in Columbus, Ohio, where he has been profiled by the local news and received numerous awards for interfaith bridge-building. Dr. Butalia advises the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue and contributes to Huffington Post-Religion. His interfaith efforts have been showcased nationally on the Hallmark Channel.

Angela Butel

Angela Butel is a rising junior at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She is pursuing an anthropology major, with concentrations in human rights and humanitarianism and African studies and a minor in French. She interfaith work on and off campus includes being a member of the Macalester Multifaith Council, co-chair of Mac Catholics, and an emerging organizer for the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition of Minnesota. In addition to these responsibilities, Angela works for Amicus, which provide transitional services to ex-offenders, and is involved in her campus chapter of Habitat for Humanity. She is coordinating TIO’s young adult work group and researching the scope of interreligious peacemaking globally for the Observer’s June 2012 issue.

Jan Chaffee

Jan Chaffee, as a young girl in Ohio, decided San Francisco was where she wanted to live. Turning 21, she made the move and her family followed. She spent twenty years as a legal secretary, most of it with Louis O. Kelso, the pioneering economist who created the ESOP and other corporate financing techniques that build private ownership of productive capital into employees and other citizens. In 1996, with her partner and spouse Paul Chaffee, Jan helped found the Interfaith Center at the Presidio, managing its funds for 15 years and Chapel use for a dozen. As such, she was on the front-end of interfaith celebrations, weddings and funerals, programs, staffing, and administration. With Paul, she retired from the Center at the end of 2010. Today Jan oversees The Interfaith Observer’s finances.

Rev. Paul Chaffee

Rev. Paul Chaffee, ordained in the United Church of Christ, is founder and editor of The Interfaith Observer (TIO), a monthly internet magazine. He was the founding executive director of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio, where he served for 17 years. He sat on United Religions Initiative’s original Board of Directors for six years and for ten years a trustee of the North American Interfaith Network (NAIN). He led the teams which planned the initial URI-North America summit in 2001 and NAIN’s 20th anniversary NAINConnect in 2008. Over the years Paul has started and/or edited numerous newsletters, including Bay Area Interfaith Connect, published each month by the Interfaith Center. Paul’s publications include Accountable Leadership (2nd edition, 1996), Shared Wisdom (2004), a booklet about developing interfaith relationships, and Remembered Light (2007). He was honored as a Distinguished Alum at Pacific School of Religion in 2007 and as an Interfaith Visionary by the Temple of Understanding at its 50^th anniversary in 2010.

Biswadeb Chakraborty

Biswadeb Chakraborty is the United Religions Initiative’s coordinator for east India. With graduate degrees in percussion (Indian drum) and human resource project management, his interfaith activism and musical career as performer and producer weave together beautifully. For six years Biswabed worked at Transformative Collaborations International, a California-based organizational development venture. In India and abroad he has worked with young human rights and interfaith activists, using his music to attract large numbers to the cause. From a deeply spiritual family that encouraged his early musical abilities, Biswabed is a networker bringing together artists, human rights activists, and interfaith organizations. His musical group Ektaan promotes a grassroots-supported, discrimination-free India on television and radio, in concerts, and on CDs.

Rev. Dr. Peter Yuichi Clark

Rev. Dr. Peter Yuichi Clark has been a leader in Bay Area hospital chaplaincy for more than fifteen years. After completing his doctorate, he went to Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley, California, eventually overseeing two dozen chaplains. Recently he moved to the UCSF Medical Center, one of the world’s great teaching hospitals. Chaplain Clark has been honored within and outside the medical community for his “extraordinary ability to relate to people of all ages, and how quickly he establishes rapport and trust.” He also has an unusual ability to relate to people across racial, cultural and other barriers and enjoys ecumenical and interfaith dialogue. Chaplain Clark teaches pastoral care at the San Francisco Theological Seminary and the American Baptist Seminary of the West. Peter writes a religious calendar for chaplains called to minister to people of all faiths, published by The Interfaith Observer each month.

Philip Clayton

Philip Clayton is Dean of Faculty at Claremont School of Theology and Provost of Claremont Lincoln Univeristy. He also holds the Ingraham Chair in Theology. He received a joint doctorate in philosophy and religious studies from Yale University.

Dr. Clayton develops a constructive Christian theology in dialogue with metaphysics, modern philosophy, and science. The demands of this task have led to his writing or editing some twenty books and over a hundred articles on topics in religion and theology, as well as philosophy of science and neuroscience, philosophy of mind, history of philosophy, philosophy of religion and constructive metaphysics. A panentheist, he defends a form of process theology that is hypothetical, dialogical and pluralistic.

John B. Cobb, Jr.

Dr. John B. Cobb, Jr. was born in 1925 to Methodist missionary parents in Kobe, Japan. Impending war brought the family back to the United States in 1940, where John completed high-school. The army assigned him to Japanese language study. He translated Japanese documents and served in the occupation of Japan. On discharge, he studied at the University of Chicago, where he first discovered the profundity of Buddhism. After receiving the PhD from the Divinity School, he taught for three years at Young Harris College in north Georgia. During the first year he was assigned as part-time pastor to a six-church circuit and established a seventh congregation. He taught for five years at Emory University before going to the Claremont School of Theology, where he taught from 1958 to 1990. He was visiting professor at universities in Germany and Japan as well as Chicago, Harvard, and elsewhere in the United States.

A lifelong student of Alfred North Whitehead, Professor Cobb pioneered in bringing ‘process thinking’ to Christian theology. Process theology, among other things, offers clarity and cogency about affirming one’s own faith without making others ‘wrong.’ Professor Cobb co-founded the journal Process Studies and the Center for Process Studies at Claremont. More than 40 books that he has written, edited or co-edited include Christian Faith and Religious Diversity (2002), The Emptying God: A Buddhist-Jewish-Christian Conversation (2005), 9/11 & American Empire: Christians, Jews, and Muslims Speak Out, (2006), and, most recently, The Dialogue Comes of Age: Christian Encounters with Other Traditions (2011), reviewed in TIO’s inaugural September 15, 2011 issue.

David C. Cramer

David C. Cramer is a doctoral student and teaching assistant in the Department of Religion at Baylor University. Having grown up in an evangelical context, his first serious encounter with religious pluralism was through reading and subsequently writing his master’s thesis on the religious epistemology of John Hick while at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he received his M.Div. and M.A. in philosophy of religion. For three years David taught in the Religion and Philosophy Department at Bethel College, Indiana, before beginning his studies at Baylor. He has published articles on religious pluralism, nonviolence, gender equality, and the theological ethics of John Howard Yoder in various academic journals and is co-editor of the recent volume, The Activist Impulse: Essays on the Intersection of Evangelicalism and Anabaptism (Pickwick, 2012). David, his wife Andrea, and their two young children are actively involved in Hope Fellowship, a Mennonite faith community in Waco, Texas.

Anya Cordell

Anya Cordell is a speaker, writer, and activist. She is the recipient of the 2010 Spirit of Anne Frank Award, bestowed by The Anne Frank Center USA, and author of RACE: An OPEN & SHUT Case, which unravels presumptions of what we call “race,” named among the “books to change your life” by N’Digo Magazine. Anya, who is Jewish, founded The Campaign for Collateral Compassion, and has passionately countered post-9/11 hate-backlash against Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, and others. Her programs for children through adults tackle “appearance-ism”, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and all stereotyping. See www.Appearance-ism.com.

John Crossin

John W. Crossin, OSFS, is a Roman Catholic moral theologian and ethicist. He was named executive director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB’s) Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs in 2011. Father Crossin served most recently as executive director of the Washington Theological Consortium, 1998-2011. He holds a Ph.D. in moral theology and master’s degrees in psychology and theology from The Catholic University of America. He is past president of the North American Academy of Ecumenists and the Thomas More Society of Washington. He is widely published in theological journals and is author of the following books: Everyday Virtues; Walking in Virtue: Moral Decisions and Spiritual Growth in Daily Life; Friendship: The Key to Spiritual Growth; and What Are They Saying About Virtue?

Greg Damhorst

Greg Damhorst studied physics as an undergraduate and now is an MD/PhD student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he pursues a doctorate in bioengineering developing a portable, low-cost, point-of-care device for HIV/AIDS diagnosis in resource-limited settings.

Greg has been a leader with Interfaith in Action, the University of Illinois’ premier student interfaith organization, since early 2007. Motivated by Jesus’ compassion and ministry of healing, Greg is pursuing a career at the intersection of medicine, technology and service, and he is interested in the role interfaith cooperation will play in the effort to bring health to the people who need it most.

Greg is also a co-founder of Faith Line Protestants, a blog that explores Christian participation in the interfaith movement, especially at the intersection of evangelism and common action for the common good.

Benjamin B. DeVan

Benjamin B. DeVan has taught religion, philosophy, and African American literature at North Carolina Central University, Peace College, and a January term mini-course at MIT titled, “Religion: Bringing the World Together, or Tearing the World Apart?” He completed his MA in Counseling at Asbury Theological Seminary, his MDiv at Duke University, a ThM at Harvard in World Religions with a thesis on evangelical Christians and Islam, and is now a doctoral candidate at Durham University, UK, writing a dissertation on the New Atheism. Ben writes for State of Formation and the Journal of Comparative Theology and posts a blog for PeaceNext.org.

Rabbi Mark S. Diamond

Rabbi Mark S. Diamond is executive vice president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, a multi-denominational organization of 330 rabbis. Rabbi Diamond is a senior rabbinic fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and serves on the Ethics Resource Committee of Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. The rabbi is president of the Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders and led the Council's February 2005 interfaith trip to Israel. In April 2006, he brought forty African Methodist Episcopal pastors, rabbis, synagogue and church members on a relief mission to rebuild homes and lives devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Rabbi Diamond headed an interreligious delegation of Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders on a January 2008 mission to the Vatican and Israel, highlighted by an audience with Pope Benedict XVI.

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.

www.stefaniefelix.com

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.

Julian Foley

Julian Foley, public relations coordinator for Untied Religions Initiative, joined URI’s development and communications teams in September, 2010. She produces and edits web content and URI publications, handles public relations and writes grant proposals. Julian has been working as a writer and editor since 2002. She became interested in interfaith cooperation while doing research and editing for journalist Sandy Tolan’s powerful book, "The Lemon Tree," published by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2006, about an unlikely friendship between an Arab and a Jew in Ramla. Julian has also done work for Free Range Graphics, Firebrand Books and the California Teachers Association’s Institute of Teaching, among others. Julian holds master’s degrees in Journalism and Latin American Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BA in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland. She lives in Berkeley with her husband and two children.

Frank Fredericks

After graduating from NYU, Frank Fredericks worked in the music industry, managing artists such as Lady Gaga, and founding Çöñàr Records. In 2006, he founded World Faith. After developing the World Faith model, he traveled to Lebanon, India, Egypt, and Sudan finding passionate young people to start Chapters. World Faith is now active in nine countries. Frank resides in New York, working as a PR and Online Marketing Consultant and performing as a professional musician. As an active blogger, Frank contributes to various blogs including the Huffington Post, Washington Post, and Sojourners. Frank has been interviewed on Good Morning America, NPR, New York Magazine, and various international media outlets.

Elder Don Frew

Elder Don Frew became a Wiccan priest 27 years ago. Since serving two terms as president of Covenant of the Goddess (CoG), the world’s largest Wiccan organization, he has been an official CoG interfaith representative. Don’s interfaith involvement began in 1986 in the Berkeley Area Interfaith Council. In 1993 and 1999 he was a member of the Assembly of Religious Leaders at the Parliament for the World’s Religions. He has been secretary of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio’s Board of Directors for 11 years and served nearly that long on United Religions Initiative’s Global Council. Don’s leadership has guided a number of major ventures, including the ongoing Lost & Endangered Religions Project and the 2004 international Interfaith Sacred Space Design Competition, both sponsored by the Interfaith Center at the Presidio.

Gary Gach

Gary Gach is a Jewish Buddhist, ordained in the Order of Interbeing, practicing mindfulness in the tradition of Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. He is author of the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buddhism (3^rd edition, 2009), the editor of the American Book Award-winning What Book!? Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop (1997), and translator of three books by Ko Un, hailed by Lawrence Ferlinghetti as “Korea’s greatest living Zen poet.” Gary’s work has appeared in Buddha Dharma, Evergreen Review, European Judaism, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, The New Yorker, Patheos, and Religion Dispatches. He hosts an online haiku forum for Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. He’s also Western advisor to the Buddhist Channel. Gary can be reached at his website, http://www.word.to.

Francis Geddes

Francis Geddes, D. Min., has studied and taught a variety of spiritual disciplines during the past forty years. He teaches healing in the context of contemplative prayer and interfaith spiritual exercises at retreat centers, conferences, congregations, and seminary classrooms. The title of his doctoral dissertation is “Healing Training in the Church,” completed at the San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, California, in 1981. He is a retired minister in the United Church of Christ and a graduate of The Program in Spiritual Direction at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in Washington D.C.; Stanford University; and the Yale Divinity School. He is the author of Contemplative Healing: The Congregation as Healing Community. Dr. Geddes believes there is a natural, God-given “healing force” abroad in the universe and latent within every person. He suggests that we are all healers, but most of us are not aware of that potential.

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.

Rev. Canon Charles Gibbs

Rev. Canon Charles Gibbs has served as United Religion Initiative’s founding executive director for the past 16 years, from URI’s gestation to the present international network of more than 500 cooperation circles in 78 countries. Charles has worked with religious, spiritual and other leaders in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, been a featured speaker internationally, and written extensively about interfaith cooperation. With colleague Sally Mahé, he co-authored Birth of a Global Community (2003), a book on the birth of the United Religions Initiative. His essay “Opening the Dream: Beyond the Limits of Otherness” appears in the anthology, Deepening the American Dream. As an Episcopal priest, Charles brings to his work a strong commitment to spiritual transformation and to work for peace, justice and healing, as well as an abiding belief in the sacredness of all life on this planet.

Karl Giberson

Karl Giberson, Ph.D, is a leading scholar of science & religion and has written several books and hundreds of articles, essays, reviews, and blogs. He is the former president of the BioLogos Foundation, founded by Francis Collins to help Christians make peace with science. He is an active participant in America’s creation/evolution controversy and has published in outlets including Salon.com, Edge.org, Discover, The Weekly Standard, and Perspectives of Science & Faith. He has also written or co-authored seven books, including Worlds Apart: The Unholy War Between Science and Religion; Species of Origins: America's Search for a Creation Story; Oracles of Science: Celebrity Scientists Versus God and Religion, published in Italian and Spanish; and Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution, which was recognized by The Washington Post as a “Best of 2008” book.

Giberson is a popular speaker and has lectured about science-and-religion at Oxford University, MIT, the Venice Institute for Arts and Science, the Etore Majorana Center in Sicily, and colleges and universities in the United States. In 2006 he spoke at the Vatican on "America's Ongoing Hostility to Darwinism.” Dr. Giberson is a professor at Stonehill College and a fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation. Feel free to visit his website.

Ted Glick

Ted Glick has devoted 44 years of his life to the progressive social change movement. After a year of student activism Grinnell College, he left in 1969 to work full time against the Vietnam War. As a Selective Service draft resister, he spent 11 months in prison. In 1973 he co-founded the National Committee to Impeach Nixon.

For the last nine years Ted has played a national leadership role in the effort to stabilize our climate and for a clean energy revolution. He was a co-founder in 2004 of the Climate Crisis Coalition and in 2005 coordinated the USA Join the World effort leading up to December 3rd actions during the United Nations Climate Change conference in Montreal. In May, 2006 he became the national coordinator of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council and is currently National Policy Director for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. For three and a half months in the fall of 2007 he ate no solid food as part of a climate emergency fast focused on getting Congress to pass strong climate legislation, one of 20 extended fasts for social justice.

He has participated in and led hundreds of actions and been arrested seventeen times for acts of nonviolent civil disobedience. His prolific writing on the movement to which he devotes his life includes his 2000 book, Future Hope: A Winning Strategy for a Just Society (2000) and his column, "Future Hope," distributed nationally since 2000. His book Love Refuses to Quit: Climate Change and Social Change in the 21st Century (2009) is free for downloading.

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.

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. 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.

Janet M. 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.

Ruben L. F. 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. (3^rd 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.

Iftekhar A. 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.

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.

Krithika Harish

Krithika Harish, 23, is the Young Leaders Program Coordinator at the United Religions Initiative. She is passionate about youth leadership and empowerment, building inclusive communities, and facilitating dialogue between disparate groups. Krithika has experience delivering leadership trainings and workshops internationally in both English and Spanish. Her motto is to think global and to act local. She loves San Francisco.

Grove Harris

Grove Harris consults, speaks, and writes about religious diversity in America and the interfaith movement. Most recently she served as the program director for the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, orchestrating over 600 programs for the Parliament held in Melbourne, Australia, December 3-9, 2009. She has presented at the American Academy of Religion, Brandeis University, Harvard University, Union Theological Seminary, the North American Interfaith Network, and the Global Youth Leadership Institute. As a Peace Commissioner, she represented the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the International Association of Peace Messenger Cities in Krusevac, Serbia. Grove was the managing director for the Pluralism Project at Harvard University, and earned her Masters in Divinity from Harvard. She is a writer and sought-after speaker in the areas of Paganism and young adult interfaith engagement. She is a North American Interfaith Network trustee, co-chairing its Board Development

Committee.

Sande Hart

Sande Hart is the founder and president of SARAH (Spiritual And Religious Alliance for Hope), public speaker, and activist. She serves on the boards of SARAH, I Am Jerusalem, One Global Family Foundation, and The Religious Diversity Institute. Active in United Religions Initiative, she currently chairs the URI-North American Leadership Council.

Sande is the mother of two, wife, and active community builder. When it came time for her kids to fulfill community service hours, they were being encouraged to “go through the motions” of someone else's project, rather than learn how to be philanthropic, creative, and effective. With lots experience chairing community events (and learning from expensive mistakes) she wanted to empower her kids with the tools and skills that took her nearly 20 years to “learn the hard way.” The result is her book Make A Difference 101, Community Service – A Practical Step-by-Step Guide for Kids, available at Amazon.

Barbara Hartford

Barbara Hartford’s career in nonprofit management has taken her to The Hunger Project, San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, and the Institute of Noetic Sciences. In 1997 she joined the staff of United Religions Initiative. At URI she has managed the start-up areas of Operations and Financial Management, Human Resources, and Communications/PR. She is now the director of Peacebuilding Initiatives and is focused on launching the Traveling Peace Academy to deliver trainings throughout the URI network. She produced the URI Interfaith Peacebuilding Guide, a confluence of the principles of URI with pioneering conflict transformation and appreciative methodologies, co-authored with interfaith peace activists including Mohammed Abu-Nimer and Cynthia Sampson. Another highlight was creating a two-year URI pilot program in Moral Imagination, taught by John Paul Lederach for community activist peacebuilders from Uganda, Ethiopia, India, and the Philippines. Barbara also serves as photo editor for URI’s website and Communications.

Rachel Heath

Rachel Heath lives in Chicago where she works for the Spiritual Life Office and Rockefeller Memorial Chapel at the University of Chicago and serves on the Peace and Justice Committee for the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago. She graduated from Yale in 2011 with a Master of Divinity and a certificate in Religion and the Arts from the Institute of Sacred Music. In 2013 Rachel was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Association for Episcopal Deacons. She is interested in building communities through interfaith dialogue and collective action rooted in social justice.

Rev. Bud Heckman

Rev. Bud Heckman is the executive director of Religions for Peace USA. A Christian minister ordained in The United Methodist Church, Rev. Heckman formerly served as director for external relations for Religions for Peace International, director of external relations for the Coexist Foundation USA, chief development officer of Hartford Seminary, secretary general of Religions for Peace USA, executive secretary in the Mission Volunteers unit of the General Board of Global Ministries, and program administrator for the World Congress of Philosophy. With graduate degrees from the University of Chicago Divinity School and Boston University, he has served rural, urban, and suburban churches in Illinois, Ohio, Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut. A frequent speaker and writer on interfaith relations, Bud is editor of an award winning reference book called InterActive Faith: The Essential Interreligious Community-Building Handbook (2008). He lives in Manhattan.

Elizabeth Dabney Hochman

Elizabeth Dabney Hochman is the founding editor of KidSpirit Online and KidSpirit Magazine, a nonprofit web community and magazine that empowers teens to explore life’s big questions in a spirit of openness. A graduate of Princeton University, with a Masters in Music from the Mannes College of Music in New York City, she has over fifteen years’ experience as an opera singer. From her experience working with adolescents through KidSpirit, Ms. Dabney Hochman has published a number of articles on spiritual development in youth, including “KidSpirit Magazine: Youth in dialogue about life’s big questions,” in New Directions for Youth Development (Jossey-Bass, 2008); and “Six Steps to Nurturing the Spirit in Adolescents,” IN Good Things to Do: Expert Suggestions for Fostering Goodness in Kids (Council for Spiritual and Ethical Education, 2009).

Ruthie Howard

Ruthie Howard is a passionate newcomer to the interfaith world. Growing up in Northern California without a formal religious or spiritual upbringing, a series of unexpected events brought her to Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2009 where she began a life changing position with the AmeriCorps Program at the Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada. AmeriCorps recruits and trains full-time volunteers to nonprofit, faith-based, and other community organizations needing to create and expand their programs. Through AmeriCorps, Ruthie served for two years with the Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada, learning about interfaith culture and the importance of interfaith dialogue. In 2011 the Council hired her officially as it program manager. Ruthie is driven to include youth in interfaith work. She serves on the Young Adult Committee of the North American Interfaith Network and is the intern coordinator for TIO.

Zachary Hoover

Zachary Hoover is the executive director of LA Voice, part of the PICO National Network, a coalition of 55 community organizations in 19 states representing over one million families. He holds a Master of Divinity from Harvard and a ministry license in the American Baptist Churches of the USA. Zach has been organizing in PICO for seven years. He has extensive experience in cultivating congregational leadership in diverse religious communities, speaks Spanish fluently, and has co-led national trainings for clergy and professional organizers. The record for organizing campaigns he has led includes winning millions in parks improvements, creating fairer impound policies for immigrant drivers, saving citizens millions each year, increasing access to groceries for low-income residents in food deserts, and bridging gaps between communities often divided by race, class, and freeway. Zach brings his faith, discipline, and commitment to building a powerful, multicultural LA Voice, currently organizing 25 churches, synagogues, and mosques in six city council districts of Los Angeles. Zach is married to Saskia Pallais and lives in Los Angeles.

Gard Jameson

Gard Jameson received his Ph.D. from Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2005. He teaches Chinese and Indian Philosophy in the Philosophy Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Prior to his tenure at UNLV, he spent 25 years practicing as a Certified Public Accountant and Financial Planner at Piercy, Bowler, Taylor & Kern and Touche Ross.

He is the author of three books, Footprints on the Sands of Time, the story of his mentor, Dr. Raymond M. Alf, Phaethon, Our Mythic Moment, an ancient Greek tale that illuminates our current predicament, and Monkey, Our Mythic Moment, the grand epic of China.

Gard helped found and chairs the boards of the Children's Advocacy Alliance and the Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada. He is the Treasurer of VMSN (Voluneer in Medicine in Southern Nevada). He also helped found the Nevada Community Foundation.

Gard also serves on the board of the Stillpoint Center for Spiritual Development and the Alf Museum of Life in Claremont, California, and is the associate pastor at Grace Community Church in Boulder City, Nevada. His great joy is his wife, Florence, and his two children, Michael and Julia.

Julia Jameson

Julia Jameson was born and raised in Boulder City, Nevada, a small town south of Las Vegas. She attended Vivian Webb, a boarding school in Claremont, California, where she began her appreciation for the importance of diversity and its acceptance. She is currently studying Religion and Sociology at Bryn Mawr College. She is co-president of the Mawrter Multifaith Alliance, the interfaith group on campus and she also leads the LGBTQ Bible Study. She hopes to cultivate an atmosphere of religious and peaceful understanding on her campus. She has participated in summer Internships for the Council for the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago and the United Religions Initiative in San Francisco. She is an artist and a musician in her spare time.

Kile Jones

Kile Jones is finishing his second year of coursework 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. Kile Jones is the Founder/Editor-in-Chief of Claremont Journal of Religion and is a Contributing Scholar at State of Formation.

Kurt Johnson

Kurt Johnson is co-author, with David Robert Ord, of the forthcoming book The Coming Interspiritual Age (Namaste Publishing, Nov. 2012). A comparative religionist and also a monastic for many years, Kurt was a long-term associate of Brother Wayne Teasdale (author of the terms “interspiritual” and “interspirituality”) and founded, with Bro. Wayne and others, Interspiritual Dialogue in 2002. Its vast “Interspiritual Multiplex” resource website is at www.isdna.org. Kurt is a trustee of One Faith Interfaith Seminary.

Kurt also holds a doctorate in evolution and ecology and recently retired from a 30-year high profile career in the sciences. His best-selling book Nabokov's Blues (co-authored with journalist S. Coates) was named a "top 10 book in science" in 2000 by the Washington Post and Library Journal, More can be learned about Dr. Johnson’s dual careers at Wikipedia (Kurt Johnson, entomologist).

Father 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Rev. Dr. 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.

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.

Paul F. Knitter

Paul F. Knitter, Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture at Union Theological Seminary since 2007, is a leading theologian of religious pluralism. He holds a licentiate from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and a doctorate from the University of Marburg, Germany. Knitter’s journey into interfaith dialogue began in 1964 when he was a seminarian in Rome and experienced the Second Vatican Council firsthand, as the Roman Catholic Church declared its new attitude towards other religions.

Most of Dr. Knitter’s research and publications have dealt with religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue. Since his ground-breaking 1985 book, No Other Name?, he has been exploring how the religious communities of the world can cooperate in promoting human and ecological well-being. This is the topic of One Earth Many Religions: Multifaith Dialogue and Global Responsibility (1995) and Jesus and the Other Names: Christian Mission and Global Responsibility (1996), and his critical survey of Christian approaches to other religions:Introducing Theologies of Religions(Orbis Books, 2002). In 2005, Knitter edited a multifaith exploration titledThe Myth of Religious Superiority(Orbis Books). His latest publication is Without Buddha I Could Not Be A Christian: A Personal Journey of Passing Over and Passing Back(Oneworld Publications, 2009).

Rabbi Nancy Fuchs Kreimer

Rabbi Nancy Fuchs Kreimer, Ph.D., is on the faculty of Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and directs its Department of Multifaith Studies and Initiatives. For more than 30 years, she has explored what joins and separates religions in their practice and approach to holy texts. She creates workshops and retreats bringing emerging religious leaders together.

“I look on interreligious study as part of the spiritual formation of rabbinical students,” she says. "In addition, we want to prepare our students to be proactive leaders in a religiously diverse society.” Kreimer regularly hosts visiting Muslim scholars and initiates programs that offer joint text study of Torah and Qu’ran. She organizes service-learning projects where rabbinical students work in interfaith settings, then bring their experiences back to the classroom. She envisions a generation of Jewish leaders able to forge alliances with their Muslim and Christian counterparts in the community to create understanding and catalyze change.

Rabbi Kreimer’s blog is Multifaithworld.org, and she is regularly published in The Huffington Post.

Jennifer Kogan

Jennifer Kogan is a clinical social worker and writer who helps parents identify and create what is meaningful to them so they can feel more connected and joyful. She offers individual, couple, and family counseling and support in her Washington DC practice. Jen is a mom of two school-age children and is one half of an interfaith couple herself. Check here for more about her work and writing.

Phil Lane Jr.

Phil Lane Jr. is an enrolled member of the Yankton Dakota and Chickasaw First. National Indian Magazine named Phil named a Modern Indian Sports Great for his record-breaking accomplishments in track and wrestling in 1977. For 44 years, he has worked with Indigenous peoples in North, Central and South America, Micronesia, South East Asia, India, Hawaii, and Africa. For 16 years he taught at the University of Lethbridge, in Alberta, Canada. With elders from across North America, Phil co-founded the Four Worlds International Institute (FWII) in 1982.

Today he chairs the Four Directions International, an indigenous-owned economic development company incorporated in 1996, focusing on the importance of culture and spirituality in development. Phil is an award-winning author and film producer, whose credits include “Images of Indians, “Walking With Grandfather,” and “Healing the Hurts.” He has been honored by Indigenous elders as Hereditary Chief through a traditional headdress ceremony. He was the first indigenous person to receive the Windstar Award, and has been honored by the Foundation for Freedom and Human Rights, in Switzerland, and the Center for Healing Racism in Houston.

Tom Krattenmaker

Tom Krattenmaker is a Portland-based writer specializing in religion in public life and author of the award-winning Onward Christian Athletes, on Christianity in professional sports. Krattenmaker’s second book, The Evangelicals You Don’t Know, was released in April 2013.

Krattenmaker writes regularly for USA Today’s op-ed page as a member of the newspaper’s editorial Board of Contributors. His column-writing was honored by the American Academy of Religion in its 2009 Journalism Awards program, receiving praise for challenging popular misconceptions about evangelicals “and showing that something new, something more complex and subtle is going on — a great goal for religion commentary.” His work has also appeared in recent years in Salon, the Los Angeles Times, the Oregonian, Beliefnet, the Huffington Post, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. His numerous media appearances include National Public Radio, the New York Times “Idea of the Day” website, and ESPN’s “Outside the Lines.”

Krattenmaker was a presenter at the 2010 and 2013 “Q” gatherings and the 2010 conference of the American Humanist Association. Named the 2009 Mendenhall Lecturer at DePauw University, Krattenmaker has also spoken at college campuses including Georgetown, Baylor, Lewis & Clark, Willamette University Law School, the University of Portland, Portland State University, Missouri State University, and Springfield, Swarthmore, and Haverford Colleges. He was a recipient of the 2009 “Friend of MET” award from the Portland-based Muslim Educational Trust and, this year, the Hunderup Award for religious education from the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon.

Dr. Peter Laurence

Dr. Peter Laurence is executive director of the Education as Transformation Project at Wellesley College. He was the founder and director of the Westchester Interfaith Council in Westchester County, New York; executive director of the Temple of Understanding; national interreligious program officer for the National Conference of Christians and Jews; and developer of the U.S. Chapter for the World Conference on Religion and Peace. He has served as chair of the Board of the North American Interfaith Network and was a member of the Assembly of Religious and Spiritual Leaders for the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1993 and 1999. He was an advisor in the initial stages of those two Parliaments and in the formation of United Religions Initiative. Peter has written and edited numerous books, including Education as Transformation: Religious Pluralism, Spirituality, and a New Vision for Higher Education in America (2000). He serves on the editorial boards of the Religion and Education journal and the Journal of College and Character.

Leslie Leasure

Leslie Leasure is a second year M.Div. student at Pacific School of Religion. Prior to seminary, Leslie worked as a fundraiser for nonprofit organizations and received an MFA in creative writing from Indiana University. After graduation, she hopes to work as a chaplain, providing interfaith spiritual care in a hospital setting.

Rev. Dr. William E. Lesher

Rev. Dr. William E. Lesher has a long and distinguished career in promoting global interreligious dialogue. Before becoming an interfaith activist, he spent 20 years as president of Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, where he helped establish the Chicago Center for Religion and Science. As a Chicago religious leader, he was active in the centennial celebration of the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1993 and has been closely connected ever since. He served as an ambassador for the Council in preparation for the 1999 Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, was convener of the 2004 Parliament in Barcelona, Spain, and stepped down as chair at the end of 2009 Melbourne Parliament. Along the way, Bill Lesher has been an adviser, trustee, consultant, and chair to numerous international educational, ecumenical, interfaith, and human rights organizations.

Kay Lindahl

Kay Lindahl has been an interfaith activist in numerous settings, locally and globally. She is the founder of The Listening Center and the Alliance for Spiritual Community and co-founder of Women of Spirit and Faith. She served on the board of the North American Interfaith Network, where she served as Chair and hosted a NAINConnect in Fullerton, California. She is a former trustee for the United Religions Initiative Global Council. For the past fifteen years she has been teaching the sacred art of listening to a variety of groups all over the world, including religious leaders and spiritual seekers, health-care professionals and members of the business community. She is the author of popular books about listening for adults and children, including the award-winning The Sacred Art of Listening (2002), and she is active in women’s interfaith circles.

Oren Lyons

Oren Lyons is a Native American Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga and Seneca Nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy), as well as a member of the Council of Chiefs of the Haudenosaunee, professor, author, publisher, advocate of Indigenous and environmental causes, and honorary chairman of the Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse team.

Lyons was given the name Joagquisho, Bright Sun with a Strong Wind, at birth and grew up on the Seneca and Onondoga reservations where he was raised in the Iroquois traditional ways of thinking, being, and knowing. In 8th grade, he dropped out of school and later became a talented amateur boxer. In 1950, at age 20 he was drafted into the US Army where he continued to excel in boxing. He returned to the reservation in 1953 where he was recruited by the coach of the Syracuse University lacrosse team. Lyons once again proved an outstanding athlete and was named an All-American lacrosse goalie while at Syracuse and his post-college lacrosse activities helped get him elected to the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in the US and Canada. He was named 'Man of the Year in Lacrosse' by the NCAA in 1989. Lyons maintains his close connections to lacrosse and continues to be an inspiring role model to both Native and non-Native lacrosse athletes. Lyons graduated from Syracuse in 1958 with a degree in Fine Arts and then lived and worked as a commercial artist in New York City.

In 1970, Lyons returned to the Onondoga Nation during which time he accepted the role of Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga and Seneca Nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) and began his advocacy work on Indigenous and environmental issues. In addition to his duties as Faithkeeper, Lyons is a professor at SUNY - Buffalo where he directs the Native American Studies program within the department of American Studies. Lyons also co-founded Daybreak, a national Indian newspaper, with John Mohawk, a Seneca teacher and journalist. Lyons actively participates in many national and international forums including the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations. Lyons has received many awards and honors, including an honorary law degree from Syracuse University, the Ellis Island Congressional Medal of Honor, the National Audubon Society's Audubon Medal for service to the cause of conservation, and the first International Earth Day Award from the United Nations. In 1992, Lyons became the first Indigenous individual to address the U.N. General Assembly. Lyons serves on the board of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development and has been a Native American representative to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting since 1974.

Sally Mahé

Sally Mahé is the director of Organizational Development at United Religions Initiative, where she has been on the core staff since 1996. Her work is leading URI from vision to practice. She supports the international staff and regional development, and designs cross-cultural interfaith gatherings. Sally is co-author of Birth of a Global Community: Appreciative Inquiry in Action (2003) and A Greater Democracy Day by Day (2004. Sally holds an M.Ed from Harvard and a MA in Theology from General Episcopal Seminary. Prior to URI, Sally developed a nationally recognized curriculum and trained teachers in the basic principles of democracy.

Mark Mancao

Mark Mancao is communications manager for United Religions Initiative. In that role he manages content at URI.org, its online community features, URI’s brand, the design of print and digital resources, community surveys, orientation/training resources, and other communications projects. With two graduate degrees in religion, he worked as director of JUSTPEACE Center for Mediation and Conflict Transformation, a United Methodist start-up in Chicago and Washington DC. In 2006, Mark moved with his partner and two cats across the country to San Francisco, California, to serve as executive director of RockRose Institute. RockRose produced an international conference, “Facing Violence: Justice, Religion and Conflict Resolution-World Forum 2007,” while sharing offices with URI. After a successful World Forum, Mark moved down the hall and has been working with URI ever since. Mark is The Interfaith Observer’s website creator and point person for its design team.

Avon Mattison

Avon Mattison traces her commitment to peacebuilding to her childhood years during World War II, hearing her parents talk of war, and being utterly captured by the notion of spending her life promoting world peace. She is founder and president of Pathways to Peace (PTP), an international peacebuilding, education, and consulting nonprofit holding consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council. PTP was instrumental in supporting efforts by Robert Muller and John McDonald to establish a UN International Day of Peace, celebrated today by more than 4000 NGOs around the world. PTP remains the Day of Peace’s strongest supporter. Avon serves on the advisory councils/boards of several international organizations, including the Global Commission to Fund the United Nations, the Center For Visionary Leadership, Ehama Institute, Foundation for the Healing Among Nations, Radio For Peace International, World Peace Prayer Society, the World Centers of Compassion for Children, and the World Fund for the Dignity of Children.

Dorothy J. Maver

Dorothy J. Maver, Ph.D., is an educator and peacebuilder whose keynote is inspiring cooperation on behalf of the common good. Dot is president and CEO of the National Peace Academy in the USA, executive director of the River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding, coordinator of Push4Peace, and a founder and Governance Member of the Global Alliance for Ministries and Infrastructures for Peace. She formerly served as president and CEO of Peace Partnership International. Her career as an educator includes teaching at Norwich University, the oldest private military academy in the USA; appearing as a 2011 World Affairs Guest Lecturer at Iowa State University; co-authoring Conscious Education: The Bridge to Freedom; and serving as a keynote speaker and workshop facilitator at conferences worldwide. From 2005-2007 Dot served as executive director of The Peace Alliance and Campaign for a US Department of Peace, and prior to that was the National Campaign Manager for Kucinich for President in 2004. In the world of fast-pitch softball, Dr. Dot is known for her revolutionary fast-pitch hitting technique, The Maver Method: Secrets of Hitting Success.

P.K. McCary

P.K. McCary is an interfaith activist, storyteller, and writer. Her books include Black Bible Chronicles: from Genesis to the Promised Land. Rappin with Jesus, and The Dreamer Awakens. PK, a much loved speaker, was included by Bill Moyers in a PBS series on storytelling in scripture. She has worked as a print and broadcast journalist and a playwright. PK founded and hosts Think Peace Radio, a web-based program. Long an ecumenical and interfaith activist in Houston, Texas, and globally, she has been a trustee and secretary of United Religion Initiative’s Global Council and remains active in URI Multi-Region. Her blog can be found at www.ThePeaceHour.org.

Paul McKenna

Paul McKenna is coordinator of the Scarboro Missions Interfaith Department in Toronto, Canada. His work has included creating the Golden Rule Poster featuring the Golden Rule scripturally and symbolically in 13 religions. This multifaith poster, now translated into seven languages, has achieved international renown as an educational and interfaith resource. With graduate degrees in theology and religion, he has created a number of do-it-yourself, educational, and curriculum resources supporting the Golden Rule and interfaith dialogue. The poster and its supportive material is available for free at the Scarboro Missions website. Paul has been an activist in Toronto’s interfaith community and served as a trustee of the North American Interfaith Network.

Nancy McKay, M.Div.

Nancy McKay, M.Div., is a minister and spiritual director in the United Church of Christ and spent ten years in parish ministry. Today she provides one-on-one spiritual direction and teaches a laying-on-of-hands and prayer healing process in churches. “Love heals,” she says, “and we get to cooperate with the source of love!” She is one of the founders of the Chaplaincy Institute-An Interfaith Seminary and Community in Berkeley, where she taught spirituality. Nancy attended the first Healing Journeys conference in 1994, in Monterey, California, while she was still in treatment with an experimental vaccine for metastatic melanoma. What she learned and felt there supported her hope for a full recovery. She is now cancer free.

Brian D. McLaren

Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former teacher and pastor, he is an ecumenical global networker among innovative Christian leaders. From 1978 to 1986, McLaren taught college English, and in 1982, he helped form Cedar Ridge Community Church, an innovative, nondenominational church in the Baltimore-Washington region (crcc.org). His books include The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix (1998), Finding Faith (1999), A New Kind of Christian (2001), The Story We Find Ourselves In (2003), The Last Word and the Word After That (2005), Finding Our Own Way Again (2008), and A New Kind of Christianity (2010). His most recent book is Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? – Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World (2012). In conferences around the world, on TV, and in the press, Brian McLaren is a champion for a Christianity grounded in discernment, compassion, and inclusiveness.

Paul Louis Metzger

Paul Louis Metzger has been involved in interreligious dialogue with various religious traditions, including Islam, Buddhism, and Paganism. Dr. Metzger is professor of Christian Theology and Theology of Culture, and director of The Institute for the Theology of Culture: New Wine, New Wineskins, at Multnomah Biblical Seminary/Multnomah University. He is also a Charter Member of the Evangelical Chapter of the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy. Dr. Metzger’s most recent book is Connecting Christ: How to Discuss Jesus in a World of Diverse Paths (Thomas Nelson). The Institute recently completed a year-long series of exchanges between Evangelical Christians and Zen Buddhists through a grant received from the Association of Theological Schools.

Leslie Gabriel Mezei

Leslie Gabriel Mezei is a writer, editor, speaker, and an activist organizer for Peace, Unity and Pluralism. He founded the Interfaith Unity News ten years ago. As an interspiritual minister, Rev. Mezei conducts the Universal Worship Service. He has been on a universal Sufi spiritual path for many years and spent a month at a Himalayan Yoga Meditation Society Ashram in India, most of it in silence. He practices Buddhist mindfulness meditation and follows creation spirituality and the teachings of the Hassids of Eastern Europe.

Leslie is a Holocaust survivor of the Second World War. He has responded to the current crises of our world by facilitating Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream symposiums, offering outstanding video material and interactive experiences to bring about a human presence on Earth that is environmentally sustainable, socially just, and spiritually fulfilling. With his wife Kathy, he enjoys five children and ten grandchildren.

Leslie is acting editor of "TIO in Canada."

Timothy Miner

Timothy Miner is the executive director of the Council of Interfaith Communities and one of three founders of the Order of Universal Interfaith. He was called to chaplaincy after the events of 9/11 and now serves as a chaplain and chaplain-trainer for U.S. Federal and local law enforcement and disaster response programs. Rev. Miner is a minister for an interfaith-interspiritual fellowship, and he is the content-producer of spiritual information for a world-wide Spiritual But Not Religious community. A background in aviation and meteorology also keep him active in eco-ministry. He has academic degrees in physical and human geography, computer sciences, atmospheric science, and a M.Div. from a Baptist seminary; he is also a graduate of an interfaith seminary program. In January 2013 he will lead the first discussions of one of the world’s largest science societies as it attempts to breach the divide between science and spirituality through integral thinking.

Rev. Deborah Moldow

Rev. Deborah Moldow is the representative to the United Nations for the World Peace Prayer Society, which promotes the prayer “May Peace Prevail on Earth” globally through Peace Pole dedications and World Peace Flag Ceremonies. For five years she chaired the NGO Values Caucus, encouraging the UN to live up to its highest vision, and she is currently Vice President of the Committee of Religious NGOs and co-chair of the International Day of Peace NGO Committee. She is a 2009 co-recipient of the Spirit of the United Nations Award. Deborah has served as a trustee and vice chair of URI’s Global Council, facilitates URI-UN, and is a member of the Source of Synergy Foundation’s Evolutionary Leaders project. An ordained interfaith minister, she leads monthly Interfaith Sundays at Croton Falls Presbyterian Church, outside of New York City.

John W. Morehead

John W. Morehead has been involved for many years in interreligious relationships and conversations in the contexts of Islam, Mormonism, and Paganism. He is the director of the Evangelical Chapter of the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy, and the editor of Beyond the Burning Times: A Pagan and Christian in Dialogue by Philip Johnson and Gus diZerega (Lion, 2009).

Rev. Ellen Grace O’Brian

Rev. Ellen Grace O’Brian is the founding minister and spiritual director of the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment (CSE) in San Jose, California, a 30-year-old interfaith ministry and seminary in the tradition of Kriya Yoga. Rev. O’Brian was ordained in 1982 by Roy Eugene Davis, a personal disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda, who brought the teachings of Kriya Yoga to the west. She is the author of several books on meditation and spiritual practice as well as CD commentaries on classic spiritual works. She is a frequent speaker on the value of meditation and the importance of ethical and spiritual awakening. Rev. O’Brian has received human rights awards from governmental, interfaith, Muslim, and Hindu communities. She serves on the Advisory Council of the Association for Global New Thought and the Executive Board of the International New Thought Alliance, and is a trustee of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions.

Rev. P. Gerard O’Rourke

Rev. P. Gerard O’Rourke, a native of Ireland, was educated there and at Fordham University before being ordained in 1950. He has served as a diocesan priest in Wisconsin, New Jersey, California, Ireland, and Brazil. As a citizen diplomat during the Cold War, he raised funds to fly medical supplies to victims of the Chernobyl meltdown. He was appointed director of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the Archdiocese of San Francisco in 1990, serving more than a dozen years before named emeritus. He played a critical role in creating and promoting interfaith opportunities in San Francisco and beyond, always a champion of inclusivity and forgiveness. His insight, passion, and commitment were critical to groups he helped found and develop – the San Francisco Interfaith Council, Interfaith Center at the Presidio, United Religions Initiative, and Mastery Foundation, on whose behalf he has led annual peacemaking workshops in Ireland and Northern Ireland for the past 13 years.

Jonathan Oskins

Jonathan Oskins graduates in May 2013 with his M.A. in the inaugural class of the interreligious Claremont Lincoln University. He has been a Board member with the Academy for the Study of Judaism, Christianity and Islam since 2008. He is also the Media Relations intern for the nonprofit S.A.R.A.H. (Spiritual and Religious Alliance for Hope) as well as I Am Jerusalem. Jonathan currently is Communications Intern for the North American Interfaith Network (NAIN). For two years in a row he was an editor of Epoché, the UCLA Undergraduate Journal for the Study of Religion, and president of the “Bolle Study of Religion Student Organization at UCLA.” Jonathan was TIO’s first Guest Editor, overseeing the March 2013 issue on “From Toddlers to Millennials – Reimagining Interfaith Community.”

David Robert Ord

David Robert Ord, editorial director of Namaste Publishing, is a former Presbyterian (USA) minister and a graduate of San Francisco Theological Seminary. Co-author with Dr Robert B. Coote of The Bible's First History—From Eden to the Court of David with the Yahwist; In the Beginning — Creation, Priestly History; Is the Bible True? Understanding the Bible Today, and the Namaste Publishing book, Your Forgotten Self: Mirrored in Jesus the Christ. In November 2012 Namaste published The Coming Interspiritual Age, which David co-authored with Kurt Johnson.

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.

Michael Pappas

Michael G. Pappas grew up in New Jersey. Following a degree from Dickinson College, he worked as a lobbyist, regional field director for a presidential campaign, and investment banker for the oldest municipal bond firm in New Jersey. He left politics and finance to pursue a divinity degree at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Massachusetts. As an ordained priest he served parishes in Illinois and California. His ministry included contributing articles to numerous religious and secular periodicals, working with the homeless, and ecumenical, interfaith involvement. After transitioning from parish ministry in 2007, he was selected by the San Francisco Interfaith Council to the newly created post of executive director. There he has helped increase the Council’s budget and programs; strengthened existing and cultivated new relationships with civic leaders, NGO’s, judicatories and congregations; and significantly projected the SFIC through expanded use of technology. He serves on numerous boards and recently was appointed to sit on the San Francisco Human Rights Commission.

Charles Randall Paul

Charles Randall Paul (Ph.D., 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.

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.

Dr. 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, forthcoming from Orbis in Spring 2012.

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 which highlights the changes in the relationships between the faiths that are occurring into the 21st century.

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.

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.

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 co-author of The Golden Rule Guidebook for educators. Visit The Golden Rule Movie to find out more about the DVD and Teachers Guidebook.

Swami Ramananda

Swami Ramananda, the president of the Integral Yoga Institute in San Francisco and a greatly respected senior teacher in the Integral Yoga tradition. He has been practicing Yoga for more than 35 years. Ramananda offers practical methods of integrating the timeless teachings and practices of yoga into daily life, and transforming the painful aspects of human experience into steps toward realizing our full potential.

He leads beginner, intermediate, and advanced level yoga teacher training programs in San Francisco and offers a variety of programs in many locations in the U. S., Europe, and South America. Ramananda trains teachers to bring Yoga into corporate, hospital and medical settings and has taught mind/body wellness programs in many locations. He is a founding board member of the Yoga Alliance, a national registry that supports and promotes yoga teachers as professionals. His warmth, wisdom, and sense of humor have endeared him to many.

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.

Raheel Raza

Raheel Raza, author of Their Jihad…Not My Jihad (2005), is a public speaker, diversity consultant, documentary film make, freelance journalist, and founder of SAMA (Sacred Arts and Music Alliance). Raza started writing at a young age in a culture where women were supposed to "be seen and not heard.” She bridges the gap between East and West, promoting cultural and religious diversity in print, on television and radio. An outspoken advocate for gender equality and an activist for women's rights, she has received numerous awards for her work to build bridges of understanding. She is a recipient of the City of Toronto’s Constance Hamilton Award and is the first South Asian woman to narrate a CBC documentary, “Passionate Eye.” Travelling extensively, Raza brings a fresh global perspective to her mandate “there is unity in diversity.” She has spoken at places of worship, the private sector, the Canadian Justice Department, school boards, and government institutions. She has also been invited to speak at universities in the United States and Canada, including Harvard and Columbia.

Jonathan Rose

Jonathan Rose was born in the United States and has been living and working in Mexico City for many years. He served as a publishing executive for the Addison Wesley Publishing Company until 1998, when he retired as Latin American Divisional President. He is a founding member of the Mexican Interfaith Council and became involved in United Religions Initiative in 1997. Mr. Rose was elected as a URI trustee from Latin America in 2002 and served on the Executive Committee of the Global Council as secretary from 2002 to 2005. From 2005 to 2007, he was regional coordinator for the URI’s Multi-Region sector and served on URI’s Finance Committee. Currently, he is working closely with the Multi-Region leaders to plan and implement their new vision and conclude the search for a permanent regional coordinator.

Rabbi Or Rose

Rabbi Or Rose is associate dean and director of Informal Education at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College. He also serves as co-director of CIRCLE (Center for Inter-Religious and Communal Leadership Education), a joint venture of Andover Newton Theological School and Hebrew College. Rabbi Rose is the author or editor of several books and articles on Jewish spirituality, interfaith cooperation, and social justice. He is the co-editor and contributor to Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice (2008), Jewish Mysticism and Spiritual Life: Classical Texts, Contemporary Reflections (2010), and Border-Crossings: Stories of Inter-Religious Encounter (2012). Professor Or is often found in the grassroots vineyard, has presented at North American Interfaith Network, and is active in the effort to enlarge the role of interfaith dialogue in theology schools and their offerings.

Rosemary Radford Ruether

Dr. Rosemary Radford Ruether, Visiting Professor of Feministy Theology at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduaqte University, is a renowned Roman Catholic feminist scholar. She formerly was Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology at the Pacific School of Religion and Graduate Theological Union, and also taught at the Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Ruether is the author of The Wrath of Jonhah: The Crisit of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-PalestinianConflict and Amerika, Amerikka: Elect Nation and Imperial Violence. Her many books on feminism, the Bible and Cbhristianity include Sexism and God-Talk and Our Own Voices: Four Centuries of American Women’s Religious Writing.

Stephanie Saldana

Stephanie Saldana is the author of the memoir The Bread of Angels: A Journey to Love and Faith (2011), about the year she spent in Damascus, Syria. She lives in Jerusalem, where she teachers at Bard/Al-Quds University.

Sohaib Saeed

Sohaib Saeed is a Scottish Muslim writer, translator and occasional imam. Among his primary interests are Quranic studies (quranica.com) and interfaith dialogue (dialogic.ws). After attaining a Masters in Philosophy from Edinburgh University, he moved to Cairo with his wife to pursue a degree at the renowned Al-Azhar University. Sohaib has a strong background in youth, education and interfaith work, and has volunteered for a number of organizations and spoken on diverse platforms. He believes in sharing values based on an appreciation of our shared humanity.

Sana Saeed

Sana Saeed is coordinator of LEADD (Leadership Education Advancing Democracy & Diversity), the Interfaith Alliance’s national youth program promoting active citizenship in a multi-faith society to high-schoolers. Previously, she directed youth programs at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington (UUCA) for 200 high-school and middle-school youth. She simultaneously served as consulting program manager for the Interfaith Youth Action Group, an initiative training youth to become interfaith leaders through service. Her work was highlighted in a Wall Street Journal article she co-authored on Muslim students on East Coast college campuses. In 2008, she completed her M.S. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University.

Sana currently is co-authoring a national high-school curriculum introducing anti-racism and social justice to teens called Building a Beloved Community for the Unitarian Universalist Association. In June 2012 she was elected an at-large Board Member of the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, DC. She has been featured on Voice of America radio stations and is a frequent presenter regarding young adult peacemakers. Sana is TIO’s Director of Resources.

Rev. Dr. Nathan Iddrisu Samwini

Rev. Dr. Nathan Iddrisu Samwini is head of the Department of Religious Studies at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. Following divinity studies and Methodist ordination, he did his doctoral work in Islamic studies at the University of Birmingham, England. For eleven years he was interfaith coordinator and director of programs for the Christian Council of Ghana and serves today on the Programme for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. Professor Samwini’s research interests include Islamic Resurgence in Ghana, Christian-Muslim relations in Africa, Africa indigenous religions, and comparative religions. He has two books and many articles to his credit.

Kathe Schaaf

Kathe Schaaf is a founding member of Women of Spirit and Faith, organized in 2010 with the intention of exploring, nurturing and celebrating women’s spiritual leadership. She is also one of the co-founders of Gather the Women and has anchored numerous ‘collaborative conversations’ connecting women and women’s organizations internationally since 2003. She is one of the editors of Women, Spirituality and Transformative Leadership: Where Grace Meets Power, an anthology of women’s wisdom published by SkyLight Paths in November 2011, and serves on the Board of Trustees of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions.

Samir Selmanovic

Samir Selmanovic, Ph.D, is a people-enjoying results-driven community and thought leader relentlessly pursuing “win-win-win” outcomes for corporations, their local communities, and non-profits. His ten years of community leadership as a progressive Christian pastor include recognition by the organization Muslims Against Terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11 in New York City; co-founding a vibrant young adult congregation in Southern California; and founding the non-profit Faith House Manhattan, an inter-religious “community of communities.”Noted lecturer on working with “the other,” interfaith work, and cross-sector collaboration. Samir’s book “It’s Really All About God: How Islam, Atheism, and Judaism Made Me a Better Christian” (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2009) and his work in inter-religious interdependence was profiled in the New York Times. He maintains a vast network of leaders across sectors in New York City and nationally. Founded a non-profit, raised over $2 million for worthy causes, managed 2,000+ active volunteers, and developed 50+ leaders. If he had to do it all over again, Samir would talk less and cook more.

Bruce Schuman

Bruce Schuman is an internet programmer and developer with an academic background in epistemology and cognitive science. In 1993, his “Bridge Across Consciousness” project brought scholars and believers together and began identifying the common ground in world spirituality and religion. In 1995, his “United Communities of Spirit” project extended that work to the web and includes the complete text of “World Scripture”. His Interspirit network system currently supports the Interfaith Center at the Presidio and has provided support for North American Interfaith Network, United Religions Initiative, and the Parliament of World Religions. His “Global Resonance” and “Shared Purpose” networks are exploring emerging concepts in collaboration and intercultural understanding.

Wm. Andrew Schwartz

Wm. Andrew Schwartz is a Ph.D. student in Philosophy of Religion and Theology at Claremont Graduate University. He received a B.A. in Religion and a B.A. in Missions from Northwest Nazarene University, an M.A. in Theological Studies from Nazarene Theological Seminary, and an MA in Philosophy from Claremont Graduate University. Andrew’s academic interests include: Religious Pluralism; Truth and Contradictions; Comparative Philosophy, Religion, and Theology; Process Philosophy; and Wesleyan Theology. He is the Communications Director and editor of Process Perspectives for the Center for Process Studies (a faculty research center of Claremont Lincoln University in association with Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University).

Girish Shah

Girish Shah emigrated from Bombay to northern California in 1963 to pursue graduate studies at the University of California (Berkeley). As an executive consultant with IBM Global Service and numerous other Silicon Valley ventures, he specialized in e-business solutions, retiring in 2004. In 1981 he helped found the Jain Center of Northern California and has been active there since, twice serving as its president. Today he serves as trustee on half a dozen different boards in the San Jose area. He was instrumental in planning the magnificent temple the Jains built in 2000 and a founding member of the Silicon Valley Interreligious Council. Within his community he is known as an interfaith activist, attending the 1999 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne.

Rami Shapiro

Rabbi Rami Shapiro is an award winning author, poet, essayist, and educator whose poems and essays have been anthologized in over a dozen volumes, and whose prayers are used in prayer books around the world. Rami received rabbinical ordination from the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion and holds a Ph.D. in religion from Union Graduate School. A congregational rabbi for 20 years, Rabbi Rami is currently Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies at Middle Tennessee State University where he also directs The Writer’s Loft, MTSU’s creative writing program, and directs Wisdom House, a center for interfaith study, dialogue, and contemplative practice at the Scarritt-Bennett Center in Nashville. In addition to writing books, Rami writes a regular column for Spirituality and Health magazine called Roadside Assistance for the Spiritual Traveler, and blogs at rabbirami.blogspot.com. His most recent book is Ecclesiastes, Annotated and Explained (2010). He can be reached via his website.

Tahil Sharma

Tahil Sharma is a third year student at the University of La Verne. He comes from an inter-religious Hindu and Sikh family and was raised in both India and the United States. Born in Los Angeles, he enjoys doing volunteer work and learning more about the languages, cultures, and faith traditions from around the world. Tahil is fluent in Spanish, Hindi-Urdu, and Punjabi, and is learning Japanese, Korean, and Arabic. He plans to work as a translator and interpreter after going to graduate school. He serves as co-president of the International Student Organization and the Interfaith Student Council, as well as president of the Muslim Student Association and the Model United Nations Club at La Verne.

Ruth Broyde Sharone

Honored internationally for her interfaith activism, Ruth Broyde Sharone is a documentary filmmaker, journalist, and inspirational public speaker. She travels frequently to college campuses to present interfaith programs and screen her award-winning film "God and Allah Need to Talk.”

Invited twice to address UN roundtables in Geneva, Switzerland, Ruth has organized interfaith trips to Egypt, Israel and Turkey. In 1993 she co-founded Festival of Freedom, a world movement to create bridges for friendship and peace during which participants of diverse religious, racial and ethnic backgrounds shared their faith stories as they retraced the steps of the Exodus, from Egypt to the Sinai to Jerusalem.

Ruth is now serving as Co-Chair of the Interfaith Ambassadors for a Parliament of the World's Religions (IAPWR) and has worked as a Partner Cities Associate for the global Parliament in the US, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. Her new book, Minefields and Miracles: Why God and Allah Need to Talk, launched on May 15, 2012. Her website is www.minefieldsandmiracles.com.

In 1993 she co-founded Festival of Freedom, a world movement to create bridges for friendship and peace during which participants of diverse religious, racial and ethnic backgrounds SHARED their faith stories as they RETRACED the steps of the Exodus, from Egypt to the Sinai to Jerusalem.

Jacob Holsinger Sherman

Jacob Holsinger Sherman is assistant professor and core faculty in Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies (ciis.edu) and co-director of the Chaudhuri Center for Contemplative Practice, Interreligious Dialogue, and Social Justice at CIIS. He received his PhD in Philosophical Theology from the University of Cambridge and was previously a visiting lecturer in Philosophy of Religion at King's College London. Jacob is the editor, with Jorge Ferrer, of The Participatory Turn: Spirituality, Mysticism, Religious Studies (2008), and his writings have appeared in journals such as Religious Studies, Modern Theology, and The Heythrop Journal. He is currently completing his next book, Partakers of the Divine: Contemplation and the Practice of Philosophy.

Harish Singhal

Harish Singhal earned his master’s degree in English from Allahabad University in India. He was selected to work at the Indian Revenue Service, which he left to earn his law degree from the the University of California, Berkeley. Singhal was also invited to spend a year at Harvard and was published in the Harvard International Law Journal. He went on to work as a tax lawyer for Fortune 500 companies before leaving the law in 1999 to pursue writing full time. Asoka: A Love Story (2010) is his first novel. First published in India, Asoka earned high praise and was described as “a magical story of love” and “an epic [that] reclaims the grandeur of storytelling” in The Asian Age and The Hindu. Asoka will soon be available at Amazon.com and other venues. Singhal is married with two daughters and resides in California.

Calvin Skaggs

Calvin Skaggs, founder and president of Lumiere Productions, has produced or directed over 30 dramas and documentaries for television and theatrical exhibition. His first theatrical feature, On Valentine’s Day, was the official American entry in the Venice Film Festival; his hip-hop drama Fly By Night won the Sundance Filmmakers’ Trophy in 1993. He has executive produced two major documentary series for PBS—With God On Our Side and Local News—and produced numerous films for Discovery, PBS, HBO and Channel 4 UK. Before founding Lumiere, Skaggs earned a Ph.D. from Duke University, and served as Professor of English and Cinema at Drew University.

Bowie Snodgrass

Bowie Snodgrass is executive director of Faith House Manhattan, an inter-religious community which encourages people to “experience your neighbor’s faith, deepen your own.” She is co-founder of Transmission, an emerging house church, and was a member of the Task Group that produced a new liturgy for same-gender blessings for the Episcopal Church. She was Web Content Editor of EpiscopalChurch.org from 2004-2007 and before that worked in the Episcopal Office of Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations. She majored in Religious Studies at Vassar College, received her M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and has been published in Discovering the Spirit in the City (Continuum, 2010), The Huffington Post, The Anglican Theological Review and Episcopal Life Online. She is a member of the Congregation of Saint Savior at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine and lives in Harlem with her husband, George Mathew, and one-year-old son, Jacob.

Mrs. Helen Spector

Mrs. Helen Spector joined the Board of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions (CPWR) in 1990 to help plan the 1993 Parliament Centenary Celebration. She has been active with the organization ever since, a leading ‘behind the scenes person’ making the Parliament’s huge global gatherings succeed. She served as co-chair for the site-selection task forces for the 2004, 2009 and 2014 Parliament events. She now lives in Portland, Oregon and continues as a trustee of the Council. As a professional facilitator and organizational development consultant, Mrs. Spector uses her skills to further the values and goals of CPWR, and she enjoys a reputation in religious circles as a transformational change agent specializing in denominational and judicatorial bodies from different traditions.

Joshua Stanton

Joshua Stanton is founding co-editor of the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue, co-director of Religious Freedom USA, and a rabbinical student. A Religious Leadership Fellow at the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, he edits its newsletter. His numerous awards include the Bridge-Builders Leadership Award from the Interfaith Youth Core. Josh is a regular blogger for Rabbis for Human Rights and has had articles and interviews published and broadcast in nine languages. This include pieces for the Washington Post’s On Faith, Patheos, Sojourners, German National Radio, Swedish National Radio, the Pakistan Christian Post, Gulf Times, and the Daily News Egypt. A sought-after speaker, Josh delivered a keynote address at the 2010 Eighth Annual Doha Conference, sponsored by the Foreign Ministry of Qatar and Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue. He is a trustee at World Faith and at Education as Transformation, and on the Editorial Advisory Board of CrossCurrents Magazine.

Mirabai Starr

Mirabai Starr is a Jewish Sufi who loves Christ and cultivates a Buddhist mediation practice and a lifelong devotion to a Hindu guru.

She writes fiction, creative non-fiction and contemporary translations of sacred literature. Mirabai teaches Philosophy and World Religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos and teaches and speaks widely on contemplative practice and inter-spiritual dialog. A certified bereavement counselor, Mirabai helps mourners harness the transformational power of loss. She has received critical acclaim for her revolutionary new translations of Dark Night of the Soul by sixteenth century Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross, and The Interior Castle and The Book of My Life, by St. Teresa of Avila. She is the editor and writer of the 6-volume Sounds True series, “Devotions, Prayers & Living Wisdom,” and contributing author to Living Fully, Dying Well: Reflecting on Death to Find Your Life’s Meaning. Her poetry collection, Mother of God Similar to Fire, is a collaboration with iconographer, William Hart McNichols. Mirabai’s newest book, GOD OF LOVE: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (2012), positions her at the vanguard of the emerging “interspiritual movement.”

Aaron Stauffer

Aaron Stauffer is a student and organizer interested in identity, the church, and activism. Currently in his second year of the M.Div. program at Union Theological Seminary (NY), Aaron balances his studies with being local coordinator for the Student Christian Movement, NYC, where he works to connect, agitate, and activate young progressive people of faith, as well as working in education and interfaith advocacy for peace and justice as the associate director for Religions for Peace USA.

Yehuda Stolov

Yehuda Stolov is the executive director of the Interfaith Encounter Association. IEA is an organization working for sustainable, peaceful inter-communal coexistence through the use of an interactive interfaith encounter approach. The goal is to foster respectful and friendly relations between people and communities in Israel and the Middle East.

Dr. Stolov is a member of many international interreligious organizations, including the Steering Committee for the United Nations Decade of Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation for Peace and the Trialogue of Cultures of the Herbert Quant Foundation. He is active in many interfaith activities in Israel and the recipient of the Immortal Chaplains Foundation 2006 Prize for Humanity. Dr. Stolov has lectured at many international conferences and written publications on religion, peace, and interfaith. He has a B.S. , a M.Sc. in Physics, and a Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Rev. Dr. Heng Sure

Rev. Dr. Heng Sure, a native of Toledo, Ohio, was ordained a bhikshu in the Mahayana tradition of Chinese Buddhism in 1976. For the next 33 months, in silence, he pursued a 600-mile pilgrimage dedicated to world peace, with a full ‘bow’ or prostration, after every third step. Rev. Heng Sure is the pastor of the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery (which his fluent Mandarin Chinese makes possible), president of the Board of Trustees of the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, and on the core faculty of the Institute for World Religions. As a long-time interfaith advocate, Bhikshu Heng Sure has been a long-time trustee for of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio and United Religions Initiative and a frequent presenter at Parliament of the World’s Religions gatherings.

Jesse F. Tanner

Jesse F. Tanner is a Ph.D. candidate in religious studies at the University of the West in Rosemead, California. His personal and academic interests involve religious pluralism, inter-religious dialogue, multiple religious identity, and Buddhist-Christian relations. He has been involved in interfaith work in local communities across the country for several years, maintaining an ongoing dedication to furthering the interfaith movement through teaching, research, writing, and social action. He is also currently a ministerial candidate for ordination in Unity School of Christianity.

Bron Taylor

Bron Taylor is Professor of Religion and Environmental Ethics at the University of Florida, and a Carson Fellow of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich Germany. His books include Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future (2010), the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (2005), Ecological Resistance Movements: the Global Emergence of Radical and Popular Environmentalism (1995), and Avatar and Nature Spirituality (forthcoming in 2013). He is also the founder of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, and editor of its affiliated Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture. More information, including many downloadable articles and interviews, is available here.

Theodore Timpson

Theodore Timpson is the founder and president of Young Spirit Foundation, advocating for schools that create space for wisdom and connection in young people's lives. The foundation has sponsored the development of Communitas Charter High School in Silicon Valley, a unique program where students will learn through integrative studies, self-reflection, and relationships with the community. Theodore has taught for many years at the elementary level, developed a concept-based math program, and directed several children's theater productions. He has facilitated workshops at a number of national conferences and local organizations. Theodore has a B.A. in English from Harvard University and a M.S. in Education from Bank Street College in New York City, an institution recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for its pioneering work with children. Theodore enjoys getting smiles and giggles from his two children in Mountain View, California.

Nichola Torbett

Nichola Torbett is the director of Seminary of the Street, a spiritual formation institute fostering communities of recovery and resistance. She previously served as the Director of National Programs for the Network of Spiritual Progressives, an interfaith organization working on the intersection of love, meaning, and politics. Before laying down her corporate fishing rod to follow the NSP to California, she worked as a professional writer and editor in Minnesota and got her political start as Minnesota State Co-Coordinator for Dennis Kucinich’s 2004 presidential campaign. The latter experience convinced her that powerful transformations are possible when activists actually embody, in community, the alternative values they are fighting for.

With degrees from the University of Toledo and Indiana University at Bloomington, Nichola has read widely in cultural studies, theology, social theory, and psychology, but has been most radically shaped by engagement with people who were willing to be real with her.

Rebecca Tobias

Rebecca Tobias is a Global Council trustee of the United Religions Initiative and program director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Ethics, designing and facilitating interfaith and intercultural programs promoting a culture of peace. Her degrees come from the University of London and Florida International University, and she has attended the Elijah Interfaith Institute in Jerusalem. Rebecca has coordinated capacity-building projects with civic, faith, and social justice advocacy organizations locally, nationally and internationally. As a fellow with the United Nations Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights for the Working Groups for Indigenous Populations, Rebecca assisted in drafting resolutions and served as a UN delegate to the Tripartite Forum on Interfaith Cooperation for Peace. She is particularly active in peacebuilding activities in the Middle East and among indigenous communities, and lectures widely on ethics and intercultural cooperation.

Judy Lee Trautman

Judy Lee Trautman is co-founder and co-chair of the MultiFaith Council of NW Ohio and chairs the local Erase the Hate Coalition. Currently the MultiFaith Council is seeking an official designation for Greater Toledo as a Compassionate Community in the Compassionate Cities Campaign. Another major outreach is MultiFaith GROWs, which encourages using faith space for community gardens. Judy is a trustee of the North American Interfaith Network, chairing its Communications Committee. She is an initiate and ordained Cherag of the Sufi Ruhaniat International, as well as a member of First Unitarian Church in Toledo. She is a certified leader of the Dances of Universal Peace, an important spiritual practice for her.

Yoland Trevino

Yoland Trevino, an indigenous Mayan woman from Guatemala, serves as chair of United Religions Initiative’s Global Council and as regional coordinator for Latin America. With graduate degrees in human behavior and psychology, Yoland is a visionary educator and trainer who focuses on issues related to personal and organizational change. In 1996, after 25 years working in education, health, psychology, family support, and community development, she founded Transformative Collaborations International. TCI works domestically and internationally supporting educational efforts to unleash the talents of children, youth, and families. TCI has done extensive organizational development work and continues to explore “the art of the possible” utilizing holistic human development, collaborative leadership, and organizational effectiveness. In addition to her work with URI, Ms. Trevino has consulted and designed events for the 2004 Parliament of the World Religions in Barcelona, Spain, as well as a youth track for the 1999 Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa.

Daniel Tutt

Daniel Tutt is outreach director of Unity Productions Foundation (UPF), a national media and educational foundation that produces films that seek to build greater understanding between Americans and Muslims. His work seeks to build greater understanding across religious and cultural lines with a particular emphasis on Islam and Muslims. Of the half dozen educational projects he oversees, one of the more exciting ones is called “20,000 Dialogues,” a film-based dialogue initiative using UPF films to create dialogue between Muslim and non-Muslim Americans.

Dan is a Fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a non-partisan think tank providing commentary and analysis on issues relating to Islam and Muslims, a PhD candidate at the European Graduate School, and an advisor for the 9/11 Unity Walk and Religious Freedom U.S.A. His recent publications include essays for Huffington Post Religions and a policy brief for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding entitled “Malleable Stereotypes: How Media is Improving the Image of American Muslims.”

Rick Ulfik

Rick Ulfik is founder and director of We, The World co-chair of The Foundation For Ethics and Meaning, and trustee of the Communications Coordination Committee for the UN. Rick organizes and promotes scores of events and other activities, large and small, every year. An accomplished composer and musician, he has written, produced, arranged, conducted, and performed for ABC, NBC, CBS, the Olympics, radio, feature films, commercials, records, CDs, and major recording artists from Queen Latifah to Judy Collins. For the past ten years he has dedicated more time to social change organizing. We, The World is a non-profit organization that develops global networks of collaboration and organizes large public gatherings to build mass involvement in creating a peaceful, caring, sustainable world. One of its projects is 11 Days of Global Unity September 11-21, with hundreds of events in more than 60 countries participating.

Thomas Uthup

Thomas Uthup is senior research associate, Institute of Global Cultural Studies, Binghamton University (SUNY). He is also founder of Friends UN Alliance of Civilizations (Twitter/@friendsunaoc), which promotes good practices in the governance of cultural diversity, intercultural education, interfaith relations, migrant integration, and youth empowerment. He previously served as research and education manager for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations project where he coordinated research networks and education projects, represented the Alliance at appropriate meetings, and provided inputs for senior UN officials on cultural issues.

Dr. Uthup's academic focus has been on the complex relationships between culture and society, with special attention to religious factors – especially Islam – affecting political behavior. Dr. Uthup has published well over 90 newspaper, journal and reference articles. He has taught at Binghamton University-New York and the College of Wooster-Ohio and been a guest lecturer in classes at Oberlin College-Ohio and Cornell University-New York.

Alison Van Dyk

Alison Van Dyk is chairman of the Board and executive director of the Temple of Understanding, one of the world’s first international interfaith organizations. She grew up under the eye of Juliet Hollister, an interfaith pioneer who founded the Temple. Professionally, Alison holds graduate degrees in clinical psychology and transpersonal psychology and is a specialist in the Lowenfeld Sandplay technique. In 1990 she set up the Early Childhood Project, St. Luke's School, South Bronx, New York, and continues as a consultant there. She provides therapy for kindergarten children at risk. Alison has been involved with Temple activities since 1967, taking her to interfaith projects around the world. In 2010 she organized the Temple of Understanding’s 50^th anniversary celebration. She frequently participates in North American Interfaith Network, Parliament of the World’s Religions, and United Religions Initiative activities.

Gretta Vosper

Gretta Vosper is the best-selling author of With or Without God: Why the Way We Live is More Important than What We Believe and Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief. These books are informed and inspired by her pastoral ministry at West Hill United Church and reflect her conviction that it isn't good enough to talk about an abstract belief that has no consequences for living well in community.

Her work at West Hill is about promoting an environment where people, often of widely differing opinions and backgrounds, can come together and work at living well within themselves, with one another, and in right relationship with the whole world. Gretta is committed to ensuring that the language within a church community is non-exclusive, and that people – ALL PEOPLE - have a place to ask tough questions and give free rein to their spiritual yearnings.

Gretta Vosper is founder of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity. To learn more about Gretta, visit her website.

Robert Walter

Robert Walter left a ten-year New York theater career as a director, production manager, and playwright after working on several projects with mythologist Joseph Campbell at Lincoln Center in New York City. The collaboration with Professor Campbell grew to become Bob’s lifework. Three years after Campbell’s death in 1987, he was named president and executive director of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, and thereby its executive editor and publisher of Campbell’s writing and films. A master teacher and a Taoist, Bob has a long history as an interfaith activist. He has presented papers, seminars, and workshops at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, the New York Open Center, the Aspen Institute, Esalen Institute, the Smithsonian Institution, and educational settings in the United States and abroad. For six years he served as a United Religions Initiative trustee, and he is closely connected to the Interfaith Center at the Presidio.

Elder Rachael Watcher

Elder Rachael Watcher has been a practicing Witch all of her adult life and a Wiccan for more than 30 years, the last 20 as an elder. She is an active member and frequent trustee of her own national organization, Covenant of the Goddess. Her primary work is in communications, focused on audio/visual and journal production. She has edited several pagan journals over the years and is currently transferring them and other historical documents onto digital media, making them available for future research. A long-time interfaith activist, Rachael is active in United Religions Initiative through the Think Peace International Cooperation Circle and other URI CCs. She was the technical director of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio’s video team that broadcast 20 live interviews over the web from the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne. She is also a trustee of the North American Interfaith Network.

Matthew Weiner

Matthew Weiner is an associate dean of religious life at Princeton University. He served as program director for the Interfaith Center of New York, where he developed a methodology for engaging religiously diverse communities through civil society, working with over 500 grass roots religious leaders and the New York State Court System, the New York Public Library, Catholic Charities, the New York Board of Rabbis, and the United Nations. He earned a Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary, an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School, and an M.A. from New York University. He writes about public religion, interfaith and civil society, and engaged Buddhism.

Reverend Terry Weller

Reverend Terry Weller was ordained in 1998 and holds standing from the interfaith New Seminary in New York and the Christian ABBA Ministries of Canada, with special interests in liturgy and spiritual counseling. For seven years he worked for the Toronto Star and has edited various newsletters. He is the publisher and editor of Interfaith Unity News. This nine-year-old electronic monthly carries listings, links, book reviews and articles about upcoming interfaith activities across Canada and, for major events, the world. He is a founding member of the Newmarket & Area Interfaith Council, sits on the Toronto Area Interfaith Council, and is active in the North American Interfaith Network and United Religions Initiative. He is also actively engaged as a teacher, spiritual director, and certified addictions counselor. Terry is The Interfaith Observer’s assistant editor.

Sandy Westin

Sandy Westin became regional coordinator of United Religions Initiative in North America after leading the planning and producing of URI-NA’s second regional summit in 2008, an event which brought URI North America new growth and vitality. For a quarter century Sandy has been a ‘make it happen’ person on effective communications, nonprofit administration, and event management. Along the way she picked up skills in data management, data management, focused nonfiction writing, and administrative systems, all of which she uses in her nonprofit work and consulting. In managing a national conference on eco-spirituality at the University of Colorado in 1995, she managed an event with 50 speakers, 70 volunteers, and 500 attendees. Recently she has been studying storytelling as another way to support community and collaboration. She is also active in building collaborative support for the “11 Days of Global Unity” global celebrations scheduled for September 2011.

Betsy Wiggins

Betsy Wiggins is a practicing speech-language pathologist living in Syracuse, New York. She is co-founder of Women Transcending Boundaries, a women’s interfaith organization formed immediately after September 11, 2001. WTB developed the model for “Acts of Kindness Weekend,” a community-wide weekend of volunteerism during the weekend of 9/11 not only in Syracuse, NY, and also in Detroit and other sites. Prior to her marriage to Jim Wiggins, she was a professional meeting manager for the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature, as well as for the Carter Center of Emory University in Atlanta.

Jim Wiggins, Ph.D.

Jim Wiggins, Ph.D., joined Syracuse University’s Department of Religion after completing his graduate work in 1963. He served on virtually all departmental committees, including director of graduate studies in religion (1975-80), and was elected by his colleagues as chair of the Department for five four-year terms (1980-2000). His academic field is Western religion and culture, with interests in the history of Christianity and Christian thought, religious/cultural diversity, death and dying, interpretive theory, mysticism, and narrative and religion. His book Religion as Story appeared in 1975; he is co-author of Foundations of Christianity (1972), Christianity: A Cultural Approach (1987), and In Praise of Religious Diversity (1996). From 1983 until 1992 he served as executive director of the American Academy of Religion. From 2002 until 2010 he was executive director of InterFaith Works of Central New York, a multi-purpose agency with a staff of two dozen. Jim is a trustee of North American Interfaith Network.

Justin Wilbur

Justin Wilbur is a senior facilitator, project manager, and trainer at Youth LEAD, a leadership program based out of Sharon, Massachusetts that actively puts “youth in the driver’s seat" by putting them in charge of facilitation and management. Through his four years of work with Youth LEAD (formerly Interfaith Action), he has facilitated heated discussions, engaged in community building work, and planned the annual Teenage Interfaith Diversity Conference. A high school senior, Justin is currently serving as the director of social media with TIO and looks forward to helping grow TIO’s subscription base.

Caroljean Willie

Caroljean Willie is a Sister of Charity of Cincinnati. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, a Master’s Degree in Reading and a Ph.D. in Multicultural Education. She has extensive experience working cross-culturally throughout the United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America as a teacher, teacher-trainer, cultural diversity consultant, and retreat director. She is the author of Praying All Ways: A Multiple Intelligences Approach to Prayer as well as numerous articles in professional journals. She is a frequent speaker at regional and national conferences and has also given presentations in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America. She currently resides in the greater New York area where she serves as the NGO representative at the United Nations for the Sisters of Charity Federation and also works with microfinancing projects in Africa.

Janessa Gans Wilder

Janessa Gans Wilder, a former CIA analyst, founded Euphrates on the heels of a 21-month assignment in Iraq. Janessa was liaising with top Iraqi leaders in the run up to the first elections in 2005 and witnessed first hand the clashes between Americans and Iraqis and the lack of cultural, religious, and historical understanding that pervaded both sides. Convinced that our foreign policy challenges require more than government effort, Janessa resigned from the CIA to start a grassroots movement to allay fear and restore trust between the West and Middle East in the aftermath of 9/11. Her aim is to help citizens on both sides realize their mutual humanity as the way to find lasting freedom and security. Her Middle East experience has included Arabic study in the Palestinian Territories and extended travel throughout the Arab world. After five years of government service on the Middle East and South Asia, she became a consultant to the State Department and a visiting professor of Middle East issues at Principia College. Janessa received a Master’s degree in International Policy Studies from Stanford University, and her BA from Principia College.

Monica Willard

Monica Willard helped organize the first United Religions Initiative gathering in New York in 1997 and signed the URI Charter in June 2000 at the United Nations garden. She has been at the UN since 1991, representing The Ribbon International and Pathways to Peace before representing URI, starting in 2002. Ms. Willard chaired the annual UN Department of Public Information NGO Conference in 1996. Since 2005, she has worked with member states and UN system agencies to promote interfaith dialogue and cooperation for peace. As URI’s NGO representative to the United Nation, her portfolio includes the International Day of Peace on Sept. 21 and the Tripartite Forum, a partnership with member states, UN system agencies, and religious non-government organizations (NGOs) to promote interfaith cooperation for peace. “Representing the URI at the UN affords me the wonderful opportunity to share the work of the URI with member states,” she says.

JW Windland

JW Windland is a comparative mythologist and founder of the Encounter World Religions Centre, an internationally recognized educational organization designated as a “Gift Of Service To The World” by the Parliament of World Religions. Encounter promotes religious literacy and celebrates religious diversity. It blends academic and experiential learning, focusing on four aspects of religion: people, places, practices, and philosophy. JW has more than forty years experience in the study, teaching, and first-hand encounter of world religions. In addition to an academic background in religious studies, JW has long-term friendships with practitioners, joins in their rituals and introduces thousands of people to the distilled wisdom of diverse communities in the North American mosaic. JW lectures internationally to universities, religious groups, and service and professional organizations.

Michael Zimmerman

Michael Zimmerman is the founder and director of The Clergy Letter Project, an international organization of more than 15,500 religious leaders and scientists created to demonstrate that religion and science need not be in conflict. Through The Clergy Letter Project, Zimmerman created Evolution Weekend and has nurtured its expansion around the world. Evolution Weekend is an opportunity for congregations around the globe to elevate the level of discourse about the compatibility of religion and science, thousands of congregations in 20 countries have participated.

Dr. Zimmerman, a biologist, is vice president for Academic Affairs / provost at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. He has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is the author of Science, Nonscience, and Nonsense: Approaching Environmental Literacy, published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Additionally, he has published scores of scientific papers and hundreds of opinion pieces and book reviews in the popular press. He currently writes for The Huffington Post.

Max Tegmark

Max Tegmark is a professor of physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, focused on astrophysics and cosmology. A native of Sweden, he did his graduate work at University of California, Berkeley. Subsequently he worked at the Max-Planck-Institut für Physik in Munich and, as a Hubble Fellow, was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He taught at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was tenured in 2003. In 2004 he joined the MIT faculty. His work in “precision cosmology,” combining theoretical work with new measurements to place sharp constraints on cosmological models and their free parameters, has been honored. In 2003 he shared the first prize in Science magazine’s “Breakthrough of the Year” award. He is widely published, not just in academic journals but in Scientific American, BBC, Science, and Huffington Post.

Rory McEntee

Rory McEntee is a contemplative rooted in the tradition of interspirituality and new monasticism who works at an intersection of spirituality, education, and culture. As a close friend and mentee of the late Brother Wayne Teasdale, he was part of the founding of the interspiritual movement. He is currently the administrator for the Snowmass InterSpiritual Dialogue, founded in 1984 by Father Thomas Keating. Rory works and collaborates with spiritual leaders from many different traditions and is particularly interested in deep, contemplative formation processes for young people that can emerge from collaborative and intergenerational friendships among contemplatives. He is the coauthor of New Monasticism: An Interspiritual Manifesto for Contemplative Life in the 21st Century.

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.

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 (Viking/Plume). 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 R. 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.

Adam Bucko

Adam Bucko is an activist and spiritual director to many of New York City’s homeless youth and the co-author of Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation. He grew up in Poland during the totalitarian regime and spent his early years exploring the anarchist youth movement as a force for social and political change. At 17, Adam immigrated to America where his desire to find his path towards a meaningful life led him to monasteries in the U.S. and India, where he began working with homeless youth at the “Ashram of the Poor.” Returning to the US, he worked on the streets of various American cities with young people struggling against homelessness and prostitution, eventually co-founded The Reciprocity Foundation, an award-winning nonprofit dedicated to transforming the lives of New York City’s homeless youth. Adam has also established HAB, an ecumenical and inter-spiritual “new monastic” fellowship for young people which offers formation in radical spirituality and sacred activism. Adam’s work has been featured by ABC News, CBS, NBC, New York Daily News, National Catholic Reporter, Ode Magazine, Yoga International Magazine and Sojourner Magazine.

Maurizio Benazzo

Maurizio Benazzo grew up in Genova, Italy, where he spent the early part of his adult life working for the local government, creating internationally renowned social centers and writing about education and pedagogy. At an early age he began actively traveling the spiritual path, exploring the practices of Zen Buddhism, Transcendental Meditation, Yoga, Catholicism, and philosophy.

In 1985 Maurizio set out to cross the Atlantic Ocean to reach the United States on the Leudo “Felice Manin,” a 98-year-old Lateen sailboat. The journey took four months and landed Maurizio in New York City. He remained there for 17 years, pursuing a career in television and motion picture production. He has experience in all aspects of production both in front of and behind the camera, including acting, directing, cinematography, and distribution.

In 2008, Maurizio and his wife Ilya founded the Conference on Science and Nonduality, which today sponsors annual gatherings in the U.S. and Europe drawing hundreds of scientists, mystics, philosophers and artists.

Usaama al-Azami

Usaama al-Azami is a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies. His dissertation critically examines Islamic legal and religious reform in the modern period. Born and raised in the U.K., he began seriously studying Islam in 2002. He completed his B.A. in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Oxford University in 2008 and has also studied with Muslim scholars and theologians in seminary contexts in the Middle East and Europe. His teachers have included Shaykh Mohammad Akram Nadwi, Professor Yahya Michot, Professor Tariq Ramadan, and Shaykh Muhammad Yaqoubi. He was a founding member of the Oxford University Muslim-Jewish dialogue group, MuJewz, and is a regular participant in Princeton’s Muslim-Christian dialogue. He maintains an occasional blog on The Huffington Post focusing on topics relating to religion.

Matthew Fox

Matthew Fox, born 1940, is an American priest and theologian. Formerly a member of the Dominican Order within the Roman Catholic Church, he is now a member of the Episcopal Church. Fox was an early and influential exponent of a movement that came to be known as Creation Spirituality. The movement draws inspiration from the mystical philosophies of such medieval Catholic visionaries as Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Aquinas, Saint Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, Dante Alighieri, Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa, as well as the wisdom traditions of Christian scriptures. Creation Spirituality is also strongly aligned with ecological and environmental movements of the late 20th century and embraces numerous spiritual traditions around the world, including Buddhism, Judaism, Sufism, and Native American spirituality, with a focus on “deep ecumenism.”

Fox has written more than 30 books, including Original Blessing (1983), that have sold millions of copies and by the mid-1990s had attracted a “huge and diverse following.” He was likened by academic theologians in one New York Times article to the controversial and influential 20th century Jesuit priest, philosopher and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, particularly for his interpretations of issues such as the doctrine of original sin and the Cosmic Christ and for the resulting conflicts with church authorities.

He is currently visiting scholar at the Academy of the Love of Learning in Santa Fe, New Mexico and lives in Oakland, California.