Mark Bomford is director of the Yale Sustainable Food Project at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. It supervises a sustainable dining program at Yale, manages an organic farm and sponsors programs on food and agriculture.

The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Connecticut is one of the world’s leading archives of social science data, specializing in data from surveys of public opinion.

The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute is operated out of Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., and regularly conducts surveys of residents of Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia as well as nationwide.

Ellen M. Umansky is a professor of religious studies at Fairfield University in Connecticut, where she teaches many courses, including one on women in Judaism. She focuses on Jewish history in the U.S. and England, leadership and women’s spirituality. She wrote the book From Christian Science to Jewish Science: Spiritual Healing and American Jews.

The Elat Chayyim Retreat Center is a place for spiritual contemplation for Jews. During the Labor Day weekend of 2006, the retreat moved from its longtime home in Accord, N.Y., to Falls Village, Conn.

Yahya Michot is Professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations at the Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut.

Janice Willis is a retired professor emerita of religion and social sciences at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. She is the author of Dreaming Me: An African American Woman’s Spiritual Journey. Read an excerpt on Beliefnet.com. Willis has talked about her journey from the segregated, revival-preacher South to a Buddhist monastery in Nepal where she began to find peace.

David Kyuman Kim is an assistant professor of religious studies at Connecticut College in New London, Conn., and director of the college’s Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity.

The Jewish Historical Society of Greater New Haven focuses on the Jewish culture and history in and around New Haven, Conn. Judith Schiff is executive director.