Michael Muhammad Knight is a scholar, author and gonzo journalist whose work covers Islamic studies, American Islam, hadith literature, gender studies, race and theories of the body.

Matthew J. Cressler is a scholar, comics creator and teacher whose work focuses on religion, race and justice. He is also chief of staff for the Corporation for Public Interest Technology. He is the author of Authentically Black and Truly Catholic: The Rise of Black Catholicism in the Great Migration (NYU Press, 2017).

Gopal Patel is leading faith-based environmental activist who believes in the power of engaged religion and spirituality to address the world’s biggest climate-related challenges. He was the founder of a movement called Bhumi Global, which sought to activate Hindu youth in support of Planet Earth.

Miranda Cruz is a professor of theology at Indiana Wesleyan University, with a focus on the practical application of Christian doctrine in life and ministry. She is also the author of Faithful Politics: Ten Approaches to Christian Citizenship and Why It Matters.

Heidi Beirich is an expert on the American and European far right, including white supremacist, anti-immigrant, antigovernment and other extremist movements. In 2020, with Wendy Via, Beirich co-founded the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism to monitor and counter increasingly transnational hate movements.

Kevin Goldberg a vice president and First Amendment expert at Freedom Forum, where he works to educate the public on the importance of the First Amendment and oversees Freedom Forum’s network of experts on issues of free expression and its relation to religious and other forms of speech.

Tad Stahnke directs the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s international educational outreach as well as its Initiative on Holocaust Denial and Antisemitism. He is also an expert in international human rights law with a focus on religion-state issues and freedom of religion or belief.

Scott Atran is an anthropologist who experiments on ways scientists and ordinary people categorize and reason about nature, on the cognitive and evolutionary psychology of religion, and on limits of rational choice in political and cultural conflict. Atran has conducted fieldwork around the world, where he has interviewed the leadership and members of insurgent and […]

Grisel D’Elena is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of international relations at Florida International University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where she is an adjunct professor. She has performed fieldwork abroad with U.N. officials, refugee coalition members and ethnic minorities, specifically in Southeast Asia, where she began to investigate the Rohingya Muslim ethnic […]