The Institute for Humanist Studies is based in Washington D.C., and aims to promote “humanism, a nonreligious philosophy based on reason and compassion. IHS advances human rights, secular ethics and the separation of religion and government through advocacy, innovation and collaboration.” Contact administrator Maggie Ardiente.

Allan Luks is former executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters in New York City and former director of the Institute for the Advancement of Health. He is an author of The Healing Power of Doing Good (Fawcett Columbine, 1992) and coined the phrase “helper’s high” in Psychology Today to describe feelings of well-being reported by individuals […]

Eva Fogelman is a social psychologist, psychotherapist and author of Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust (Anchor Doubleday, 1994), a Pulitzer Prize nominee. The book is based on the Rescuer Project, commissioned by the American Jewish Committee to determine whether altruism is the opposite of the authoritarian personality. Fogelman approaches altruism as a behavior […]

William Scott Green is a professor of religious studies and holds the Fain Family Endowed Chair in Judaic Studies at the University of Miami. Beyond Judaic studies, Scott Green has taught and written on philanthropy, altruism and the ethics of technologies in the late modern age.

Subhash Kak is Regents Professor and Head of Computer Science Department at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. He studies and has written extensively on Hinduism, and his research interests include computational intelligence, archaeology of the mind and the history of science.

V.V. Raman, emeritus professor of physics and humanities at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y., writes and speaks about Hinduism, ethics and altruism.

B. Alan Wallace, president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies in California, trained as a monk in Buddhist monasteries. He teaches Buddhist theory and practice in Europe and the United States and has served as interpreter for numerous Tibetan scholars. His academic training is in religious studies, physics and philosophy of science. He can be […]

Robert Thurman, professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies at Columbia University in New York, wrote “Human Rights and Responsibilities: Buddhist Views on Individualism and Altruism” in Religious Diversity and Human Rights. Thurman is also the author of The Jewel Tree of Tibet: The Enlightenment Engine of Tibetan Buddhism.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is founder and chairman of the Cordoba Initiative at the American Society for Muslim Advancement. The multifaith effort, based in New York City, seeks to increase intercultural communication and tolerance, stimulate new approaches to achieving peace and heal the relationship between Islam and America. Listen to a video posted at Beliefnet in which he discusses divine […]