Abed Awad is an attorney and public speaker based in New Jersey and New York. He focuses on general civil litigation, including complex matrimonial law, commercial law, Islamic law and international law. Awad has an academic knowledge of shari’a and the laws of Arab countries. He holds a J.D. and a master’s degree in Near and Middle East Studies from the University of […]

Christine M. Bochen is a professor of religious studies at Nazareth College in Rochester, N.Y. She is a founding member and past president of the International Thomas Merton Society and co-editor of The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia.

Raymond Arnold is a New York-based humanist activist and organizer of the first Secular Solstice service, a December celebration for atheists, humanists and other nonbelievers that incorporates light, darkness, ritual and song.

Joy Ladin is the author of Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey Between Genders, which documents her spiritual and physical journey from male to female. She is an English professor at Yeshiva University in New York City. Contact via the office of public affairs at Yeshiva.

Dr. Atul Gawande is a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard University, a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of several books on medicine and ethics, including Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. He has written about the balance between medical ethics and the right to a […]

Michael Austin is a communications consultant and Christian commentator. He is the spokesman for the Christian History Institute. Austin can discuss evolution-creationism debates, Christian persecution and the history of church-state relations. He lives in New York City.

Snowboarders and Skiers for Christ USA is a national Christian ministry that partners with local churches in the U.S. to focus on youth. The national office is in Dillon, Colo., but there are offices all around the nation, which it breaks down into four regions. The ministry has overseas branches in New Zealand, Switzerland, Japan, […]

Dharma Drum Mountain Buddhist Association is a U.S. based nonprofit organization founded and led by master Sheng Yen, a renowned teacher of Chan Buddhism. It aims to support scholarly research in the field of Buddhism, particularly the Chan tradition, instructing and encouraging Buddhist practitioners through its centers in the United States. Its international activities include […]

Zen Mountain Monastery, located in  Mount Tremper, N.Y., is the main house of the Mountains and Rivers order, a respected Zen Buddhist monastery and training center in the West. The sangha also includes practitioners at the Zen Center of New York and the order’s affiliate groups.