Laurie L. Patton is the dean of arts & sciences and a professor of religion at Duke University. She is an expert in Hindu mythology.

K.R. Sundararajan is a professor of theology at St. Bonaventure University in St. Bonaventure, N.Y. He is the co-editor of Hindu Spirituality II: Post-Classical and Modern.

Norris W. Palmer is an associate professor of religious studies at St. Mary’s College of California in Moraga, Calif. He wrote a chapter on Sai Baba for Gurus in America and contributed an article in 2006 to Nova Religio on how Hindus use their temples to negotiate their identity in America.

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.

John Llewellyn is professor of religious studies at Missouri State University in Springfield. He is the editor of Defining Hinduism: A Reader, a volume of essays.

Daniel Gold is a professor of South Asian religions at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. He specializes in North Indian devotional traditions.

Anne Feldhaus is a professor of religious studies at Arizona State University in Tempe. She specializes in folk Hinduism, medieval Hinduism and religious geography. Her publications include Connected Places: Region, Pilgrimage, and Geographical Imagination in Maharashtra (2003), and Water and Womanhood: Religious Meanings of Rivers in Maharashtra (1995).

Nancy Auer Falk is a professor emeritus of the department of comparative religion at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. She is the author of Living Hinduisms: An Explorer’s Guide.

Edwin F. Bryant is an associate professor of religion at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., where he teaches courses in Hindu philosophy and religion. He specializes in the Krishna tradition and the Hare Krishna movement.