Helen Rose Ebaugh is a professor of sociology at the University of Houston who specializes in the sociology of religion as well as religion and new immigrants.

Charles Marsh is a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia and director of the university’s Project on Lived Theology, which aims “to understand the way theological commitments shape the social patterns and practices of everyday life.”

Tracey Meares is a professor at Yale Law School in New Haven, Conn. She has given several presentations on the relationship between black churches and communities and organized a conference on “Faith-Based Initiatives and Urban Public Policy.”

Peter Dobkin Hall is a lecturer in public policy and a senior research fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He does research on social welfare policy and civic engagement and has held a teaching appointment in the Divinity School.

Rebecca Sager is an assistant professor of sociology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. She wrote Faith, Politics, and Power: The Politics of Faith-Based Initiatives (Oxford, 2010).

John DiIulio Jr. is a professor of politics, religion and civil society at the University of Pennsylvania and was the first director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. A frequent speaker and writer on faith-based social services, he is co-editor of What’s God Got to Do With the American Experiment? (Brookings, 2000).

Patricia Telesco is the co-author of Sacred Beat: From the Heart of the Drum Circle. She has been participating in drum circles for many years and lives in Amhearst, N.Y. Contact via Bonni Hamilton, director of publicity for Red Wheel/Weiser.

Rabbi Rayzel Raphael leads drum circles in Philadelphia.

Jan Gregory was an adjunct professor of liturgy, worship and spirituality at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn., where she taught a course in drumming and worship.