James William Coleman is a sociology professor at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Calif. He is the author of The New Buddhism: The Western Transformation of an Ancient Tradition.

The Rev. Ejo McMullen is resident priest at the Eugene Zendo, a Soto Zen Buddhist temple in Eugene, Ore.

Amy Hanauer is executive director of Policy Matters Ohio, a nonprofit group in Cleveland that studies public policy issues related to economics.

Judith Simmer-Brown is a professor of Buddhist studies and chairwoman of the department of religious studies at Naropa University, a college founded in the Buddhist tradition in Boulder, Colo. She can speak about American Buddhism and about Buddhist-Christian dialogue.

Juliane Schober is an associate professor of religious studies at Arizona State University. She has studied Theravada Buddhism in Myanmar, including Myanmar rituals and the veneration of icons. Schober is editor of Sacred Biography in the Buddhist Traditions of South and Southeast Asia.

The Rev. Shanta Premawardhana is president of SCUPE, based in Chicago. Previously, he served as associate general secretary for interfaith relations at the National Council of Churches. The NCC represents Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, historic African-American and Peace churches and engages in interfaith dialogue.

Donald S. Lopez Jr. is Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he is the author of Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West and editor of Critical Terms for the Study of Buddhism. Read an interview with Lopez from a university publication in which he […]

Martin Carnoy is a professor of education and economics at Stanford University.

Ron Young serves as staff consultant for the National Interreligious Leadership Initiative for Peace in the Middle East, a national organization of 2,500 American Jews, Christians and Muslims. The committee carries on programs nationwide on dialogue, education and advocacy in support of U.S. policies in the Middle East.