Tineke Nugteren is an associate professor of humanities and culture studies at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. She studies religious diversity and religious behavior, with an emphasis on rituals. She serves as treasurer for the European Society for the Study of Religion.

Thomas McConkie is the founder and director of Lower Lights Sangha, a meditation community in Salt Lake City. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and trained in Buddhist meditation.

Hugh Byrne directs the Center for Mindful Living, a meditation community in Washington, D.C. He is also a teacher for Insight Timer, a meditation app for smartphones.

Nalika Gajaweera is a cultural anthropologist who specializes in the intricate relationships between religion, race, gender, ethics and social justice, drawing on research conducted in Sri Lanka and the United States. She is assistant director of the Humanities Center at the University of California, Irvine.

Wakoh Shannon Hickey is an assistant professor of religious studies at Alfred University in New York. She serves as co-chair of the American Academy of Religion’s Buddhism in the West unit.

Jon Kabat-Zinn is the executive director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He also leads the school’s stress reduction clinic and offers training on mindfulness and stress reduction.

Jaime Kucinskas is an assistant professor of sociology at Hamilton College in New York. She studies religion, inequality and the mainstreaming of Buddhist meditation, and she recently published The Mindful Elite, which is about the elite leaders behind the mindfulness movement.