Miriam Levering is professor of religious studies at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, where she is the editor of Zen Inspirations: Essential Meditations and Texts and can speak about women in Zen Buddhism.

Jeffrey Samuels is an assistant professor of religious studies at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, where he has studied monastic recruitment and the training of young children as Buddhist novices. He has interviewed monks in Sri Lanka and children in training to become monks, studying how the rituals and aesthetics of Buddhist life inform their […]

Steven Heine is professor of religious studies and history and director of the Asian studies program at Florida International University in Miami, where he specializes in Japanese Buddhism and can also speak about contemporary Buddhism in the West. He is the author of White Collar Zen: Using Zen Principles to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Your Career Goals.

Mario Poceski is assistant professor of Buddhist studies at the University of Florida in Gainesville, where his work focuses on the Chan school of Chinese Buddhism.

Sheila McLaughlin is director of the Bernardin Center for Theology and Ministry at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

Michael T. Shelley is the director of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago’s Center of Christian-Muslim Engagement for Peace and Justice.

Yahya Michot is Professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations at the Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut.

Charles S. Prebish is a professor emeritus of religious studies at Pennsylvania State University. He is a co-founder of the Journal of Buddhist Ethics and can speak about the development of Buddhism in North America and the way the internet has been used to connect Buddhists worldwide.

Jin Y. Park is an assistant professor in the department of philosophy and religion at American University in Washington, D.C. She specializes in Buddhist philosophy; her doctoral dissertation was on Zen Buddhism and postmodern thought.