Tola Olu Pearce is a professor of sociology and women’s and gender studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia with interests in HIV/AIDS in Africa, medical sociology and anthropology and women’s health.

Matt and Tammy Mawdsley run a house church in Springfield, Mo.

Mohammed M. Hafez is a visiting professor of political science at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He wrote the book Why Muslims Rebel: Repression and Resistance in the Islamic World, and is currently working on a book to be titled,”Suicide Bombers: Politics, Reason, and Faith in Extreme Violence.”

The Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics at Saint Louis University brings the Catholic, Jesuit tradition into interdisciplinary discourse with health care. Cynthia McKenna is the coordinator of the Center.

Brendan Sweetman is a professor of philosophy at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Mo., and the author of Why Politics Needs Religion: The Place of Religious Arguments in the Public Square.

Charles W. Fluharty, a graduate of Yale Divinity School, is president emeritus and director of policy programs at the Rural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri in Columbia.

The American Soybean Association works to develop and implement agricultural policy. Its website lists state association presidents and state associate affiliate offices.

The Rev. L. Shannon Jung is professor of town and country ministries at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. He has written about rural ministry. His books include  Hunger & Happiness: Feeding the Hungry, Nourishing Our Souls and Food for Life: The Spirituality and Ethics of Eating.

Mary Hendrickson is associate director of the Community Food Systems and Sustainable Agriculture Program at the University of Missouri.