Ta’Kaiya Blaney is from the Tla’Amin First Nation and grew up along the shores of the Salish Sea in British Columbia, Canada. She has spoken at United Nations conferences, environmental events, and classrooms across Canada and internationally. As a singer-songwriter, Ta'Kaiya has performed all over the world in a wide variety of venues. Her music has also been featured in TV and film.
Tony Blair
Tony Blair served as Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1997 to 2007 and chairs The Climate Group International Leadership council. He was a staunch advocate of an interventionist foreign policy, in particular in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq. He trebled the UK’s aid programme for Africa and introduced the first environmental programme in the UK to combat climate change.
Since leaving office Tony Blair has spent most of his time on work in the Middle East, in Africa and on the fight against religiously based extremism. In the Middle East, formerly the Quartet Representative, he is now specifically focusing on building relations between Arabs and Israelis. He works in eight African countries – Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Kenya and Mozambique – through his Foundation the Africa Governance Initiative, helping the Presidents of those countries to deliver change programmes.
He has established a Foundation to combat extremism – the Tony Blair Faith Foundation – which works in over 20 countries with programmes on education and tracking extremism across the world.
He also founded and funds a Sports Foundation dedicated to boosting grassroots sport for young people in the North East of England, which includes the Sedgefield constituency he represented in Parliament.
Sarah Talcott Blair
Sarah Talcott Blair is a third-generation Christian Scientist who became involved in interfaith work during college in 1999. She has worked in the field of interfaith cooperation and understanding ever since. She served as the first Youth Programs Director for the United Religions Initiative (URI) and the coordinator of the URI’s Global Youth Cooperation Circle, involving more than 350 youth activists from 55 countries around the world.
Through her work with young people in the interfaith movement, Sarah has organized and facilitated interfaith youth programs in the U.S.A., U.K., India, Cyprus, Spain, Brazil, the Philippines, and Peru, weaving together interfaith and intercultural dialogue with community service and peacebuilding activities. She is delighted to be a first-time mommy and to have recently completed her Graduate Certificate in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University. She served as the URI's Talking Back to Hate campaign coordinator in 2013 and is currently a Restorative Justice volunteer at Montera Middle School in Oakland and a member of URI North America’s Leadership Council.
Adrian Bird
Dr. Adrian Bird currently serves as Chair of Interfaith Partners of South Carolina. He has taught in a variety of international settings, including the UK, Zimbabwe, India and the US, and currently lives with his family in Columbia, SC. Dr. Bird is currently Affiliate Professor of Church History at Union Presbyterian Seminary, Charlotte.
Anju Bhargava
Anju Bhargava is a risk and strategic business transformation management consultant. She is the only Hindu American appointed to President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Advisory Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and Secretary Janet Napolitano's Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council and was the only Indian-American to serve in the Clinton administration's Community Builder Fellowship initiative. She is the founder of Hindu American Seva Charities, which is becoming a national movement for Hindu faith-based community service programs addressing social justice issues. A Vedantic teacher, she strives to combine philosophy and practice from a contemporary view and is active in interfaith collaboration. She was a founding member of the New Jersey Corporate Diversity Network, former president of Asian Indian Women in America, and a Trustee of Council for a Parliament of World Religions. Bhargava is a graduate of Stella Maris College, Madras University India, and Rutgers University.
Rev. Diane Berke
Diane Berke is the Founder and Spiritual Director of One Spirit Learning Alliance and One Spirit Interfaith Seminary in New York City. Ordained as an interfaith minister in 1988, Rev. Berke has been a widely respected pioneer in developing interfaith ministry education. She is a member of the core faculty of the Institute for Sacred Activism, a founding member of the Community of the Mystic Heart, and a member of the Contemplative Alliance initiative of the Global Peace Initiative of Women. Diane is the author of two books, Love Always Answers and The Gentle Smile, as well as several educational reference manuals. A psychotherapist and spiritual counselor in private practice for over thirty years, Diane is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in the State of New York, a Diplomate of the American Psychotherapy Association, and a workshop and retreat leader on spiritual development throughout the United States and internationally.
Maurizio Benazzo
Maurizio Benazzo grew up in Genova, Italy, where he spent the early part of his adult life working for the local government, creating internationally renowned social centers and writing about education and pedagogy. At an early age he began actively traveling the spiritual path, exploring the practices of Zen Buddhism, Transcendental Meditation, Yoga, Catholicism, and philosophy.
In 1985 Maurizio set out to cross the Atlantic Ocean to reach the United States on the Leudo “Felice Manin,” a 98-year-old Lateen sailboat. The journey took four months and landed Maurizio in New York City. He remained there for 17 years, pursuing a career in television and motion picture production. He has experience in all aspects of production both in front of and behind the camera, including acting, directing, cinematography, and distribution.
In 2008, Maurizio and his wife Ilya founded the Conference on Science and Nonduality, which today sponsors annual gatherings in the U.S. and Europe drawing hundreds of scientists, mystics, philosophers and artists.
Anne Benvenuti
Anne Benvenuti, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology and philosophy, an integrative scholar, a licensed clinical psychologist, a priest of the Episcopal Church, a spiritual director, and a published poet, writer, and photographer. She is a trustee on the Council of the Parliament of the World’s Religions and co-chair of its Women’s Task Force. She also serves on the U.N. NGO Committee on Mental health. Widely published, her research interests include neuroscientific models of natural spirituality and religious epistemology; implications of religious epistemology and natural spirituality for social policy and human-animal relations; and clinical integration of spirituality and health. She is a visiting scholar at Zygon Center for Religion and Science and at the Georgetown University Center for Clinical Bioethics.
Beverly M. Beltramo
Beverly M. Beltramo is a liturgical musician who lives in suburban Detroit. She is director of Spiritual Support, Oakwood Health System, in Dearborn, Michigan. She has graduate degrees in pastoral ministry and creative studies and a D.Min. from Ecumenical Theological Seminary, where her dissertation was “The Chaplain’s Role in Addressing Patient Satisfaction.”
Bev has 15 years experience as a health care chaplain, working with patients and families across the life spectrum. She currently leads a richly diverse department with Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian chaplains serving four Western Wayne County hospitals, including three trauma centers and a senior living community. The department is working towards accreditation as a Clinical Pastoral Education center and currently is supported by 100+ active Spiritual Support Volunteers.
Daniel Bellerose
Daniel Bellerose is a writer, researcher, and organizer who has been working in interfaith community building for the past four years. In 2014 he began working on founding the Global Symmetry Project, an organization which focuses on researching and promoting interfaith principles in international development work. His passion for working towards sustainable interfaith communities has led him to work with over a dozen different nonprofit organizations, from Tanzania to the Balkans, and in his local community of Harrisonburg, Virginia. In 2017 he won the Caretaker of God's Creation award at Houghton College, which recognized his commitment to sustainability in the local community, and climate advocacy abroad.
Lidiia Batig
Lidiia Batig is an alumna of the Russell Berrie Fellowship in Interreligious Studies and currently works as a Media Intern for the John Paul II Center for Interreligious Dialogue, responsible for the Center’s social media and communications. Lidiia is also a student of the Cardinal Bea Centre for Judaic Studies (Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, Italy).
She holds an MA in Religious Journalism from the Ukrainian Catholic University and an MA in Journalism from the Ivan Franko Lviv National University. Partly due to her own religion, family history and the current situation in Ukraine made religious journalism her calling.
Lidiia won a Russell Berrie Alumni Grant both in 2016-17 and 2017-18 for her project, “The School of Interreligious Dialogue.”
Kehkashan Basu
Kehkashan Basu has been impacting the global fraternity with her work on children’s rights, promoting gender quality, mitigating climate change and social upliftment. Born on 5th June, which is also World Environment Day, she feels that it was pre-ordained that she should grow up to be an eco-warrior. Spreading the message of peace, happiness and sustainability has been her passion since she was only 8 years old and she has worked tirelessly to enlist the support of children and youth across geographical boundaries. In 2013, at the age of 12, she was elected for a 2 year term as UNEP’s (United Nations Environment Programme) Global Coordinator for Children & Youth and a member of its Major Groups Facilitating Committee and she is the youngest person and the first minor, ever, to be elected into this position in the history of UNEP. She is also a United Nations Human Rights Champion for her work on protecting children’s rights.
Her internationally acclaimed work on sustainability has resulted in her appointment as the Honorary Advisor for the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development – New York, a member of KidsRights Youngsters, Global Advisory Council member of Young Men 4 Gender Equality -USA, members of World Oceans Day Global Youth Advisory Council and EarthEcho International Youth Leadership Council. She is also the youngest member of Canada’s Women in Renewable Energy forum.
Kehkashan is the founder of a youth organization, GREEN HOPE FOUNDATION, which seeks to provide a networking platform to children and youth, especially girls, to carry forward the Rio legacy through several environmental workshops and ground level projects on promoting gender equality, climate justice, stopping land degradation, biodiversity conservation, waste segregation and reversing land degradation. It now has over 1000 members across Middle East, India, Brazil, USA, Canada, Europe and SE Asia.
Dr. Ed Bastian
Training courses on InterSpiritual Meditation are taught by Dr. Ed Bastian, who holds a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies and is the founder and president of Spiritual Paths Foundation. He developed InterSpiritual Meditation process after forty years of research, study, and teaching, especially during the past decade, with over fifty esteemed teachers from Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Taoism, and Native American traditions. He is the award winning co-author of Living Fully Dying Well, author of InterSpiritual Meditation, author of Creating Your Spiritual Paths, publisher of Meditations for InterSpiritual Wisdom, and producer of documentaries on religion for the BBC and PBS. He is the former co-director of the Forum on BioDiversity for the Smithsonian and National Academy of Sciences, teacher of Buddhism and world religions at the Smithsonian, an internet entrepreneur, and translator of Buddhism scriptures from Tibetan into English.
Rabbi Sarah Bassin
Rabbi Sarah Bassin, Associate Rabbi of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, is a pluralist at her core, believing that we always have something to learn from those who are different than us – whether religiously, culturally, politically, or even Jewishly. With this passion to engage difference, Rabbi Bassin has reinvigorated Emanuel’s young professionals community and work in social justice.
Prior to joining Temple Emanuel, Rabbi Bassin served as the inaugural executive director at NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change. Under her leadership, NewGround was named one of the 50 most innovative and inspiring organizations in the Jewish community by Slingshot magazine, and its interfaith teen program was recognized by Governor Jerry Brown as California’s faith-based organization of the year in 2013. She is an alumna of the prestigious Joshua Venture Fellowship for Jewish entrepreneurs. Rabbi Bassin graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude with a BA in Religion and History from Lafayette College. In addition to rabbinic ordination, she received a certificate in Jewish non-profit management at Hebrew Union College.
Lizann Bassham
Lizann Bassham was a minister in the United Church of Christ and a witch in The Reclaiming Tradition. She was a columnist for SageWoman magazine, and a novelist whose work includes One of Another (2008), about a group of folk in the Castro district of San Francisco dealing with the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. As a playwright she explored issues of sexuality, spirituality, social justice, and social location. She crafted her music, novels, plays, and columns as a means to explore community and connection. She was also one of the campus pastors at Pacific School of Religion. Lizann died on May 27, 2018. TIO is grateful for what she contributed to our journal and to the interfaith movement more broadly.
Diana Butler Bass
Diana Butler Bass is an author, speaker, and independent scholar specializing in American religion and culture.
She holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Duke University and is the award-winning author of ten books, including Grounded: Finding God in the World —A Spiritual Revolution (HarperOne, 2015), Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening (HarperOne, 2012) and Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith (HarperOne, 2006). Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks will be released by HarperOne on April 3, 2018.
She regularly speaks at conferences, consults with religious organizations, leads educational events, and teaches and preaches in a variety of venues in the United States and internationally. Her bylines include The Washington Post, The New York Times Syndicate, and The Huffington Post. She has commented widely on religion, politics, and culture widely in the media including USA TODAY, Time, Newsweek, CBS, CNN, FOX, PBS, NPR, Sirius XM, and CBC.
William Barylo
William Barylo (PhD., EHESS) is a London-based researcher in Sociology. He is passionate about how young Muslims in Europe and North America use their cultural heritage and religious ethics to improve society through arts, the environment, social and economic justice and mental health. He looks at society from a decolonial and restorative perspective. He is an awarded photographer and film-maker having directed the documentary ‘Polish Muslims: an unexpected meeting‘. In addition, he is also a blogger for the Huffington Post UK and the author of ‘Young Muslim Change-Makers‘.
As a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Warwick, his current project ‘The Diaspora Strikes Back‘ explores modes of contestation to hegemonies and imperialims amongst Sikh and Muslim millenials in Europe through arts, activism, charity, social enterprises and more.
Samira Fatma Barucija
Samira Fatma Baručija is from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She is an activist, trying to facilitate dialog, interfaith work, and reinforce the importance of living together for the sake of peace and security. Most of her work nowadays is focused on peacebuilding and creating cultures of peace. For the most of her nine-year-long experience in civil society, Samira has been an educator trying to use the platform of non-formal education to raise awareness, motivate and empower individuals and groups, reinforcing their role in the change they want to see.
The work that Samira is doing locally is done through a youth-led, youth founded organization called Youth for Peace. She is a project coordinator and an educator working on several initiatives with Youth for Peace. She is also a part of the UNDP’s Global Youth Programme as one of 16 young people from around the world, working toward fulfilling the UN’s 2030 agenda. Samira took a role of a speaker on a panel on “Promoting dialogue and reducing insecurity” during the conference in preparation for HLPF 2019: “Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies: SDG 16 implementation and the path towards leaving no one behind.”
Since 2014, Samira has been a Youth Leader for the United Religions Initiative. During the Accelerate Peace conference at Stanford University, Samira spoke on ending religiously motivated violence, stressing the importance of leaving no one behind and changing the position of the marginalized groups. She is currently holding the position of the Regional Coordinator for United Religions Initiative’s Multiregion, working on creating and promoting interfaith cooperation and building cultures of peace, justice, & healing.
Whittney Barth
Whittney Barth, assistant director of the Pluralism Project, began her work there as a research associate for our Religious Diversity News in 2010 and continues to work on projects related to the interfaith infrastructure of the United States. In addition to studying religious pluralism academically, she has worked with several interfaith organizations including the Interfaith Youth Core, the Chautauqua Institution, and the Harvard Interfaith Collaborative. As assistant director, Whittney manages student research, manages the summer research programs, provides administrative and financial oversight, and participates in a number of local and national initiatives, conferences, and events on behalf of the Project. Whittney received her BA in comparative religion and American studies with a minor in political science from Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) in 2008. She earned a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School (2011) where she completed a thesis project exploring the possibilities of integrating interfaith engagement and ecological awareness in response to the growing sense of "placelessness" in modern life.
Ramzy Baroud
Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a US-Palestinian journalist, media consultant, an author, internationally-syndicated columnist, Editor of Palestine Chronicle (1999-present), former Managing Editor of London-based Middle East Eye (2014-15), former Editor-in-Chief of The Brunei Times, former Deputy Managing Editor of Al Jazeera online. He taught mass communication at Australia’s Curtin University of Technology, Malaysia Campus. Baroud also served as head of Aljazeera.net English’s Research and Studies department. He is the author of four books and a contributor to many others; his latest volume is The Last Earth, a Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London, 2018). His books are translated to several languages including French, Turkish, Arabic, Korean, Malayalam, among others. Baroud has a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter (2015) and was a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California Santa Barbara (2016-17).