Rabbi Yoel Kahn serves as the rabbi for Congregation Beth El in Berkeley, California. He is an author and has spoken at conferences and in other venues about Reform decision making, spirituality, and issues of sexuality, feminism, and theology.

Rabbi Mychal Copeland is the Director of InterfaithFamily/Bay Area. She has worked in the University of California, Los Angeles, and Stanford University Hillels over the past 13 years.

Carole Straw is a professor at Mount Holyoke College specializing in late antique and medieval history, church history, classical traditions and Christianity, martyrdom, and monasticism. She is also the author of two books.

Morgan Atkinson is a documentary filmmaker whose third film on the life of Thomas Merton, The Many Storeys and Last Days of Thomas Merton, will be released later this year and will cover the last year of Merton’s life. Atkinson’s previous films, including Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton, have appeared on PBS nationwide. He […]

Cristóbal Serrán-Pagán y Fuentes is an associate professor of philosophy and religious studies at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Ga. He is leading a daylong celebration of Thomas Merton and the Spanish mystics Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross as part of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University’s 100th anniversary celebration of […]

Jens Zimmermann is a professor of English and modern languages at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia, where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Interpretation, Religion and Culture. He will lecture on Thomas Merton’s humanism at Regent University’s Thomas Merton Symposium. Contact via Jennifer Watton, TWU’s media relations officer.

Gary Hall is a Methodist presbyter who teaches practical theology at the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education in Birmingham, England. He has written widely about Mertonian spirituality and will lead a guided retreat based on Thomas Merton’s spirituality as part of the yearlong celebration of Merton’s centenary.

Christine M. Bochen is a professor of religious studies at Nazareth College in Rochester, N.Y. She is a founding member and past president of the International Thomas Merton Society and co-editor of The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia.