Veerabhadran Ramanathan is a distinguished professor of atmospheric and climate sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and an “ordinary academician” at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Rome. His work is expected to have contributed to Pope Francis’ encyclical.

Rabbi Menachem Creditor is the spiritual leader of Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley, Calif. He is also an author, musician, teacher, and activist, and he has worked in Ghana and in the White House. He writes for the Huffington Post and the Times of Israel and blogs at menachemcreditor.org.

Rabbi Aryeh Cohen is a professor of Rabbinic Literature at American Jewish University. Rabbi Cohen has written about link between the Black Lives Matter movement and the meaning of Passover.

Manoj Mate is an associate professor of law at Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa, Calif. He is director of the Center for International and Comparative Law and also serves as a professor of political science at Whittier College.

Craig R. Smith is a professor of communication studies and director emeritus of the Center for First Amendment Studies at California State University, Long Beach. He is the author of The Four Freedoms of the First Amendment, and he is an expert on free speech and hate speech.

Anastasia Norton is manager at the strategic consulting firm Monitor 360 and former senior analyst in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center.

Karima Bennoune is a professor of international law at the University of California, Davis, and the author of Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here.

Professor Pashaura Singh is the Jasbir Singh Saini Endowed Chair of Sikh and Punjabi Studies at the University of California Riverside. He is a Sikhism expert.

Kristy Slominski is a doctoral student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is an expert on gender and sexuality in American religious history.