Erik Parens is a senior research scholar with the Hastings Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit bioethics research institute. He leads investigations into disability rights and what human flourishing means in the era of gene editing. Parens is the author of Shaping Our Selves: On Technology, Flourishing and a Habit of Thinking.

John D. Loike is a research scientist in the department of biomedical engineering at Columbia University, focusing on bioethics, stem cells, cloning and the interplay between science and religion. In 2018, he co-authored a study on how to apply Jewish teachings to medical advancements like gene editing.

Taylor Branch is the author of the multivolume series America in the King Years, which covers 1954 to 1968. Branch is an expert on every aspect of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and the broader civil rights movement. He is currently working with David Simon on developing a television series based on his King books. Contact […]

Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman is the founding director of Sinai and Synapses, an organization that brings together Judaism and science, mostly through the introduction of scientists into synagogue programming. He is also a scholar of biblical and Judaic studies. Mitelman can be contacted through the Sinai and Synapses website.

Matthew Stanley is an astronomer and a professor of the history and philosophy of science at New York University. In 2016, he gave a talk at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society on the question of whether we are alone in the universe, and if we are not, what would that mean to our […]

Benjamin Blech is a rabbi and a professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University in New York City. He has written about what the discovery of intelligent alien life would mean to Judaism.

Faiyez Jaffer is an affiliate chaplain at the Center of Global Spiritual Life at New York University in New York City. He is an American-born Muslim and wrote about the travel ban’s consequences for Shiite Muslims.

Israel Tsvaygenbaum is a Russian-born Jewish artist who lives and works in Albany, N.Y. Some of his canvases depict Jewish life and history and Torah themes and stories.

Richard McBee is an artist and writer who writes and lectures frequently and widely about Jewish contemporary art. His own paintings are frequently drawn from Jewish scriptures and include numerous characters from Old Testament stories — Esther, Moses, Sarah, Abraham and many more. He lives in New York. Contact via the form on his website.