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.

Mary Doria Russell is a novelist whose 1997 book The Sparrow is about first contact with intelligent aliens and the Jesuit priest who is part of an expedition to their planet. The book and its sequel, Children of God, deals with how the contact changes theology. She lives near Cleveland.

Rabbi Mark Hillel Kunis has written about Torah portions that support the idea that God created life on other worlds. He lives in Atlanta.

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 […]

Jim Funaro is an anthropology instructor at Cabrillo College in Aptos, Calif., and founder of the Contact Conference, an interdisciplinary conference on the future focused on contact with aliens. One of his main areas of interest is the cultural impacts of contact with alien life.

Albert A. Harrison is a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of Starstruck: Cosmic Visions in Science, Religion and Folklore and After Contact: The Human Response to Extraterrestrial Life.

Kathryn Denning is an associate professor of anthropology at York University  in Toronto, Canada, where she teaches a course called “Anticipating the Alien.” Her focus is on what it means to be human in the universe and she works with SETI on studying the way scientists search for aliens.

Salman Hameed is an astronomer and associate professor of integrated science and humanities at Hampshire College. He is director of the Center for the Study of Science in Muslim Societies.  He operates the science and religion blog called Irtiqa, which emphasizes debates about science in the Islamic world.

Douglas Vakoch is president of Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence, a San Francisco nonprofit research and educational organization dedicated to transmitting intentional signals to nearby stars. He has said that while there may be some problems for religion when intelligent aliens are discovered, they may not be as large as some people think.