Pamela Cooper-White is the Christiane Brooks Johnson Professor Emerita of Psychology and Religion at Union Theological Seminary at New York City. She is the author of The Cry of Tamar: Violence Against Women and the Church’s Response and Gender, Violence and Justice: Collected Essays on Violence Against Women.

Martin Seligman is one of the principal exponents of contemporary positive psychology. He is director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he is also a professor of psychology. He is familiar with psychological research on positive traits and virtues and can speak about gratitude research.

Todd Kashdan is a professor of clinical psychology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., where he directs the Laboratory for the Study of Social Anxiety, Character Strengths and Related Phenomena. He has researched the relationship between gratitude and well-being among Vietnam War veterans.

Jeffrey Froh is an associate professor of psychology and a school psychologist at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. He researches gratitude in young people and is a co-author of Making Grateful Kids: A Scientific Approach for Helping Youth Thrive.

Robert Emmons is a psychology professor at the University of California-Davis and director of the Emmons Lab. One of his primary interests is the psychology of gratitude and how gratitude relates to human flourishing. His books include Gratitude Works!: A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity.

The Rev. Kathy Black, a United Methodist minister, is author of A Healing Homiletic: Preaching and Disability and Signs of Solidarity: Ministry With Persons Who Are Deaf, Deafened and Hard of Hearing. She is Kennedy Professor of Homiletics & Liturgics at Claremont School of Theology in California.

W. Daniel Blair is assistant professor of American Sign Language and director of the Center for Deaf Education at California Baptist University in Riverside. His dissertation was about theological education and disability.

Craig Rennebohm founded the Mental Health Chaplaincy in Seattle in 1987. The chaplaincy provides services for the mentally ill, including homeless people, and training for congregations to support families experiencing mental illness. Rennebohm now trains others for mental health chaplaincy.

The Rev. Susan Gregg-Schroeder is a United Methodist minister in San Diego and coordinator of Mental Health Ministries, an effort that grew from her own experience of depression. She is the author of a paper, “Mental Illness and Families of Faith: How Churches Can Respond.”