Omid Safi is a professor of Asian and Middle Eastern studies at Duke University, where he also directs the Duke Islamic Studies Center. He edited Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism and is a sought after source on religion, culture and interfaith issues.

Danny Fingeroth is a former editor and writer at Marvel Comics and author of Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society and The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels. Fingeroth has taught comics writing in New York and Italy.

Todd Collins is director of the Public Policy Institute at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C. The institute aims to empower Western North Carolina to effectively deal with real policy problems by mobilizing community leaders, faculty, residents and students.

Dr. Harold Koenig is a professor of psychiatry and medicine at Duke University’s Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health. He wrote the white paper for the Department of Health and Human Services on faith-based responses to natural disasters and terrorism.

Frederick Edie, a United Methodist minister, is assistant professor of the practice of Christian education at Duke Divinity School. He also directed the Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation, which invites high school students to live for two weeks in an intentional Christian community at Duke.

Paige Johnson is director of public affairs of Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina.

Kenneth Surin, professor of religion, literature and critical theory at Duke University, has written about liberation as a critical term of religious study and the relevance of Marxism.

Christine Rodriguez is the founder of East Coast Hauntings Organization, a nonprofit paranormal scientific investigation group in Washington, N.C.