Lucy Bregman is a religion professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. She researches religion and death and has taught a course on death and dying since 1979.

Ray Neun directs two New Hampshire funeral homes. He can discuss changing funeral trends and how the funeral industry has adapted to meet new consumer demands.

The Jewish Funeral Directors of America in Sterling, Va., is an international association of 100 Jewish funeral homes and 170 Jewish funeral directors.

Elizabeth Westrate wrote, produced and directed A Family Undertaking, a documentary about the home funeral movement.  

David Zinner is executive director of Kavod v’Nichum, a nonprofit resource group in the greater Washington, D.C., area that educates and advocates for Chevra Kadisha groups in North America.

Edward Searl is author of In Memoriam: A Guide to Modern Funeral and Memorial Services (Skinner House Books, 2000). He is a Unitarian Universalist minister in Hinsdale, Ill.  

Maurice Lamm is an Orthodox rabbi and lecturer at Yeshiva University in New York, N.Y. He is author of The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning (Jonathan David Publishers, 2000).

M. Macha NightMare is co-author of The Pagan Book of Living and Dying (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997) and is an expert on neo-pagan death and funerary practices. She lives in San Rafael, Calif. Contact her via her website.

Final Passages is a home-based funeral nonprofit organization in Sebastopol, Calif. They say that personally caring for the body of a loved one – washing it, dressing it and displaying it in the home – can be healing for survivors.