Todd Glacy

Rev. Todd Glacy is an Interfaith Minister who describes himself as an Enlightenment
Advocate, Spiritual Explorer and an Instigator of Joy. He travels extensively as a
speaker, musician and workshop facilitator sharing his passion for empowering people
to live happier, healthier and more fulfilling lives.

Todd holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Berklee College of Music in Boston and a
Master’s Degree in Counseling. After working for a decade as a School Counselor, he
enrolled in the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine (ChIME) where he received his ordination
as an Interfaith Minister. He is a certified life coach, yoga instructor, drum circle
facilitator and the creator of the Gong Journeywork™ Wisdoming process. He has
recorded a number of CD’s and shares his passion of Sacred Sound and Living with
spiritual and wellness focused communities and organizations. Find out more at
www.sacredsoundandlving.com

Karl Giberson

Karl Giberson, Ph.D, is a leading scholar of science & religion and has written several books and hundreds of articles, essays, reviews, and blogs. He is the former president of the BioLogos Foundation, founded by Francis Collins to help Christians make peace with science. He is an active participant in America’s creation/evolution controversy and has published in outlets including Salon.com, Edge.org, Discover, The Weekly Standard, and Perspectives of Science & Faith. He has also written or co-authored seven books, including Worlds Apart: The Unholy War Between Science and Religion (1993); Species of Origins: America's Search for a Creation Story (2002); Oracles of Science: Celebrity Scientists Versus God and Religion (2006), published in Italian and Spanish; and Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution (2008), which was recognized by The Washington Post as a “Best of 2008” book.

Giberson is a popular speaker and has lectured about science-and-religion at Oxford University, MIT, the Venice Institute for Arts and Science, the Etore Majorana Center in Sicily, and colleges and universities in the United States. In 2006 he spoke at the Vatican on "America's Ongoing Hostility to Darwinism.” Dr. Giberson is a professor at Stonehill College and a fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation. Feel free to visit his website.

Rev. Canon Charles Gibbs

Rev. Canon Charles Gibbs has served as United Religion Initiative’s founding executive director for the past 16 years, from URI’s gestation to the present international network of more than 500 cooperation circles in 78 countries. Charles has worked with religious, spiritual and other leaders in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, been a featured speaker internationally, and written extensively about interfaith cooperation. With colleague Sally Mahé, he co-authored Birth of a Global Community (2003), a book on the birth of the United Religions Initiative. His essay “Opening the Dream: Beyond the Limits of Otherness” appears in the anthology, Deepening the American Dream. As an Episcopal priest, Charles brings to his work a strong commitment to spiritual transformation and to work for peace, justice and healing, as well as an abiding belief in the sacredness of all life on this planet.

Catherine Ghosh

Catherine Ghosh is an artist, writer, mother and editor of Journey of the Heart: An Anthology of Spiriutal Poetry by Women (2014). She has been an active practitioner and student in the Bhakti Yoga tradition since 1986, studying under Damodar Goswami of Jagannatha Puri, Orissa, India, and later trained in Svarupa-asanas with Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati in La Jolla, California. Catherine is co-founder of The Secret Yoga Institute, together with her life partner, Graham M. Schweig, PhD, and develops teaching materials for yoga workshops, such as meditation videos, which have been shown at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Catherine has served as a contributing editor for Integral Yoga Magazineand is a regular contributor to Mantra, Yoga + Health Magazine She is passionate about inspiring women to share their spiritual insights and honor their valuable voices, and does so through a Women’s Spiritual Poetry Blog she founded in 2012. A lover of nature, Catherine divides her time between her two homes in Northern Florida and Southern Virginia, delighting in the mothering of her two sons, painting, quilting, and writing poetry, among other artistic activities. You may connect with her on Facebook or email. her.

Ilona Gerbakher

Ilona Gerbakher is a scholar and author. After completing her degree as a Presidential Scholar of Islamic Theology at Harvard Divinity School, she moved to Qatar as a Georgetown Arabic Language fellow. She then moved to Morocco to complete her studies of advanced Classical and Moroccan Arabic. She is currently working in Jerusalem as a Comparative Religions fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she studies Hebrew, Aramaic, and literary Arabic. Ilona is committed to building bridges between disparate communities – Muslim and Jew, religious and secular – and believes that this will be the century of peaceful co-existence and empathic understanding among all peoples.

Jeff Gunung

Jeff Genung is a graduate of Cornell University (B.S. in Business Management). He is the co-founder and president of Contemplative Life, a non-profit organization that helps connect people with transformative practices and helps them build community with others of like mind. He has previously served as a senior executive for TechTurn, the nation’s leading computer recycling and refurbishing company. Jeff also served as a senior executive for Mutual Mobile, one of the nations’ largest and fastest-growing mobile application and design agencies. He has created strategic partnerships with some of the world’s largest companies.

Jeff has studied the contemplative practices of many great traditions as well as the development of contemporary secular practices. He is experienced in working with all age groups in engaging contemplative practices, including the development of a rite-of-passage program for young contemplatives transitioning to adulthood. He has also served many years as a hospice volunteer, integrating end-of-life practices and programs that address the contemplative needs associated with those experiencing grief and loss.

Lucy Gellman

Lucy Gellman is a reporter for the New Haven Independent and the station manager of
WNHH-LP Radio New Haven. From July 2013 through July 2015 she served as the Florence B. Selden Fellow at the Yale University Art Gallery.

Francis Geddes

Francis Geddes, D. Min., has studied and taught a variety of spiritual disciplines during the past forty years. He teaches healing in the context of contemplative prayer and interfaith spiritual exercises at retreat centers, conferences, congregations, and seminary classrooms. The title of his doctoral dissertation is Healing Training in the Church, completed at the San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, California, in 1981. He is a retired minister in the United Church of Christ and a graduate of The Program in Spiritual Direction at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in Washington D.C.; Stanford University; and the Yale Divinity School. He is the author of Contemplative Healing: The Congregation as Healing Community (2011). Dr. Geddes believes there is a natural, God-given “healing force” abroad in the universe and latent within every person. He suggests that we are all healers, but most of us are not aware of that potential.

Vicki Garlock

Vicki Garlock is the founder of World Religions for Kids, a company dedicated to improving religious literacy in children and their adults. Her kids’ books, geared to kids aged 4-10, include the award-winning We All Have Sacred Spaces, Embracing Peace: Stories from the World’s Faith Traditions, and ABCs of the World’s Religions (due out January, 2023).

Over the years, she has also written extensively for both The Interfaith Observer and Multicultural Kid Blogs, and she regularly presents at conferences for Social Studies teachers across the southeastern U.S.

Vicki received her Sc.B. in Psychology from Brown University before attending the Univ. of AL – Birmingham for her Ph.D. with dual specialties in neuroscience and cognitive development. After serving over a decade as a full-time Psychology Professor at Warren Wilson College, she accepted a position as Nurture Coordinator and Curriculum Specialist at Jubilee! Community Church in Asheville, NC. While there, she developed a multifaith curriculum for kids aged 4 through 8th grade and was ordained as their Minister of Education.

Vicki and her husband live in Asheville, NC, and they have two almost-grown children. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok (@learnreligions).

Gary Gach

Gary Gach is a Jewish Buddhist, ordained in the Order of Interbeing, practicing mindfulness in the tradition of Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. He is author of the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buddhism (3rd edition, 2009), the editor of the American Book Award-winning What Book!? Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop (1997), and translator of three books by Ko Un, hailed by Lawrence Ferlinghetti as “Korea’s greatest living Zen poet.” Gary’s work has appeared in Buddha Dharma, Evergreen Review, European Judaism, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, The New Yorker, Patheos, and Religion Dispatches. He hosts an online haiku forum for Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. He’s also Western advisor to the Buddhist Channel. Gary can be reached at his website.