Charles E. Curran is a professor of human values at Southern Methodist University. Curran teaches fundamental moral theology, social ethics, role of the Church as a moral and political actor in society, and Catholic moral theology.  

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 […]

Asifa Quraishi-Landes is a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Law and specializes in comparative Islamic and American constitutional law. She is currently focusing on modern Islamic constitutional theory. Quraishi is a 2009 Carnegie Scholar and 2012 Guggenheim Fellow.

Morgan Atkinson is a documentary filmmaker whose third film on the life of Thomas Merton, The Many Storeys and Last Days of Thomas Merton, will be released later this year and will cover the last year of Merton’s life. Atkinson’s previous films, including Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton, have appeared on PBS nationwide. He […]

Cristóbal Serrán-Pagán y Fuentes is an associate professor of philosophy and religious studies at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Ga. He is leading a daylong celebration of Thomas Merton and the Spanish mystics Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross as part of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University’s 100th anniversary celebration of […]

Kathleen Deignan is a Catholic nun, theologian, singer, composer and Merton scholar. Many of her compositions are based on the writings of Merton and are recorded by Schola Ministries in Washington, D.C. She has served on the board of directors of the International Thomas Merton Society.

Jonathan Montaldo is one of the foremost Thomas Merton scholars and interpreters of  his writings. Montaldo has served as associate director of the Merton Institute for Contemplative Living, director of a retreat center near Merton’s Abbey of Gethsemani and director of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University. Montaldo is also editor of the 10-volume Bridges to Contemplative […]

Jens Zimmermann is a professor of English and modern languages at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia, where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Interpretation, Religion and Culture. He will lecture on Thomas Merton’s humanism at Regent University’s Thomas Merton Symposium. Contact via Jennifer Watton, TWU’s media relations officer.

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.