The Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations at the University of Florida Levin College of Law in Gainesville, Fla. works to de-stigmatize race by educating and encouraging studies and discussions on the topic. Contact director Katheryn Russell-Brown.

Gordon Bazemore teaches criminology and criminal justice at Florida Atlantic University. He has published extensively, and his research includes evaluating restorative justice programs at state and federal levels. He leads the Balanced and Restorative Justice Project, a federally funded juvenile justice program.

Amy Burdette, a sociologist at Florida State University, has conducted research into whether infidelity, marijuana use and other behaviors are more or less common among churchgoers.

Bishop Harold Calvin Ray is pastor of Redemptive Life Fellowship in West Palm Beach, Fla. Its Redemptive Life Urban Initiatives Corp. has built affordable housing.

St. John’s Community Development Corp., a project of St. John’s Baptist Church in Miami, to create affordable housing and offers home ownership counseling. It has created more than 40 homes and multifamily units.

Dixon Sutherland is the Stetson University professor of religion and ethics and has also served as director of the Christian Ethics Institute.

F. Michael Gloth is clerkship coordinator at Florida State University’s College of Medicine. Gloth has written extensively about pain management in the elderly.

Jennifer Hancock is a former executive director of the Humanists of Florida Association. She writes a freelance column on humanism for the Bradenton Herald; her Aug. 21, 2010, column discusses how humanism helped her cope with tragedies in her life.

Ryan T. Cragun is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Tampa, where he studies secularization, the nonreligious and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.