Beth Kissileff is an author and journalist based in Pittsburgh. She is a member of one of the congregations that meets at Tree of Life synagogue and, after the Oct. 27 shooting, shared stories about the religious lives of the victims she knew.

Balhair Singh Dulai is the president of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, the site of a 2012 shooting that left six people dead. The temple’s website still features a tribute to victims.

Dallas Drake is co-founder of and senior researcher at the Center for Homicide Research, which compiled a database of church shootings that occurred between 1980 and 2005.

Carl Chinn offers security training for churches and other faith-based organizations. He is the author of Evil Invades Sanctuary: The Case for Security in Faith-based Organizations.

William Chadwick is a senior instructor with the Christian Security Institute, which trains houses of worship on gun safety and other security issues. He has served as a security officer in large Christian churches.

The Rev. James E. Atwood is a retired Presbyterian pastor who serves on the board of The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. He is the author of America and Its Guns: A Theological Expose and Gundamentalism and Where It Is Taking America.

Jamie Aten is founder and executive director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College. He is an expert on religious responses to public emergencies, including hurricanes and mass shootings. Aten is also a founding signer of the Prayers and Action petition, which calls on the evangelical Christian community to do more to address gun […]

Julio Calzada is the director of social politics for the city of Montevideo, Uruguay. He previously served as secretary-general of the country’s National Drug Council and oversaw marijuana legalization there.

Maziyar Ghiabi is a professor and Director for the Centre of Persian And Iranian Studies (CPIS) at the University of Exeter. He studies politics, social history and the history of drug laws, and he is one of the co-authors of a 2018 study on Islam and cannabis.