Allan L. Nadler is director of Jewish studies at Drew University in New Jersey. He was trained as an Orthodox rabbi but is now unaffiliated and writes and comments extensively on Orthodox Jewish life.

Samuel C. Heilman is a sociologist at the City University of New York in New York City. He is the author of Sliding to the Right: The Contest for the Future of American Jewish Orthodoxy, which argues that the ultra-Orthodox are gaining the upper hand over the Modern Orthodox. He is also co-editor of the annual periodical Contemporary Jewry, […]

June McDaniel is a professor of religious studies at the College of Charleston in Charleston, S.C. She focuses on Hindu women’s religious rituals and mysticism and contributed a chapter about Jayashri Ma to The Graceful Guru: Hindu Female Gurus in India and the United States.

Jeffrey J. Kripal is a professor of religious studies at Rice University in Houston. His specialty is Asian religions in America, and he focuses on European and American translations or adoptions of Hindu ideas and practices. He wrote a chapter on Adi Da for Gurus in America and has published five books concerning religious mysticism.

Thomas A. Forsthoefel is an associate professor of religious studies at Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa. He is the co-editor of Gurus in America.

Mary McGee is the provost and vice president of academic affairs at Albright College in Reading, Penn. She is a former professor of religion and dean of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Alfred University in Alfred, N.Y. She has written about Hinduism and the environment and Hindu architecture.

Eliza Kent is an assistant professor of religion at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y. She specializes in Hinduism and the environment in South India.

Ariel Glucklich is an of professor of theology at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He teaches a course in Hindu religious traditions and has written several books on Hindu dharma. He is the author of Dying for Heaven: Holy Pleasure and Suicide Bombers — Why the Best Qualities of Religion Are Also Its Most Dangerous.

Melissa Farley is a clinical and research psychologist and directs the San Francisco-based Prostitution Research and Education project, which works to abolish prostitution and help prostitutes. She edited Prostitution, Trafficking and Traumatic Stress.