The Rev. Nancy Taylor is senior pastor of the Old South Church, a United Church of Christ congregation in Boston. In May 2006, she preached a sermon on the blessings given and received by animals.

Theodora Capaldo is president/executive director of the New England Anti-Vivisection Society, which spearheads Project R&R: Release and Restitution for Chimpanzees in U.S. Laboratories. Capaldo is a licensed psychologist, a trustee of the American Fund for Alternatives to Animal Research and past president of Psychologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Niki Behrikis Shanahan is the author of several books on animals and Christian spirituality, including There Is Eternal Life for Animals. She lives in Tyngsborough, Mass.

Roberta Kalechofsky is the founder of Jews for Animal Rights and Micah Publications of Marblehead, Mass. She participated in a panel on reaching out to religious groups at the Animal Rights 2003 conference. She requests that reporters contact her by email first and that they identify themselves fully in the subject line.

I. Carter Heyward is an Episcopal minister and a professor of theology at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass. She is the author of Flying Changes: Horses as Spiritual Teachers.

Kimberley Christine Patton is a professor of the comparative and historical study of religion at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., where she has taught a course in animals and religion. She is co-editor of A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion, Science & Ethics (2006).

David Ellwood, Scott M. Black Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University and dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is a noted expert on poverty and welfare. He is an author who co-chaired President Clinton’s Working Group on Welfare Reform, Family Support and Independence.

Mary Jo Bane is Thornton Bradshaw Professor of Public Policy and Management at Harvard University and co-coordinator of the Program on Religion and Public Life.  She is co-author of Lifting Up the Poor: A Dialogue on Religion, Poverty & Welfare Reform. A former assistant secretary for children and families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, her […]

Randy Albelda, professor of economics and senior research fellow at the University of Massachusetts’ Center for Social Policy, is an expert on poverty, particularly regarding families and women.