Charles Randall Paul (PhD, University of Chicago, Committee on Social Thought, 2000; M.B.A., Harvard University, 1972) is board chair, founder, and president of the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy. He has lectured widely and written numerous articles on healthy methods for engaging differences in religions and ideologies, and he is currently completing two books: Fighting about God: Why We Do It and How to Do It Better and Converting the Saints: An American Religious Conflict. He is on the board of editors for the International Journal of Decision Ethics. Dr. Paul has also had a professional career in the commercial real estate business, receiving the Phoenix Skyline Award for Excellence in Urban Development. He has been married to his wife Jann for more than forty years, and they have five children.
Eboo Patel
Eboo Patel is the founder and executive director of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), a Chicago-based institution building the global interfaith youth movement. Eboo’s core belief is that religion is a bridge of cooperation rather than a barrier of division. He has spoken about this vision at places like the TED conference, the Clinton Global Initiative, and the Nobel Peace Prize Forum, as well as college and university campuses across the country. He writes regularly for The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Huffington Post. Author of the award-winning book Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation (2007), he holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes scholar. In 2009 Eboo was named by US News & World Report as one of America’s Best Leaders of 2009.
Ana Patel
Ana Cutter Patel is the executive director of Outward Bound Peacebuilding, an international non-government organization that uses the Outward Bound approach of experiential education in the outdoors to challenge and inspire leaders from divided communities to build peace together. Check out upcoming programs, including Peace Matters: An Expedition in InterFaith Dialogue, at www.outwardboundpeace.org.
David Parks-Ramage
Rev. David Parks-Ramage, Sensei is a United Church of Christ minister with 30 years experience teaching interfaith contemplative practices. He is a Zen teacher trained in koan practice at the Pacific Zen Institute and has been educated in Spiritual Direction at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation. He is the pastor of the First UCC in Santa Rosa, California.
David's contemplative teachers over the years have included John Tarrant, Henri Nouwen, Gerald May, Tilden Edwards and Rosemary Dougherty. With his deep training in Christian Contemplative practice and Zen he finds value and teaches in each tradition. Currently, he is working on the sayings and doings of Jesus as Christian koans.
Jin Y. Park
Jin Y. Park is associate professor of philosophy and religion and founding director of the Asian Studies Program at American University. Park specializes in East Asian Zen and Huayan Buddhism, Buddhist Ethics, East-West comparative philosophy, and Buddhist encounters with modernity in East Asia. She is a founding co-chair of the International Society for Buddhist Philosophy and also serves on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Religion. Her book length publications include Buddhism and Postmodernity: Zen, Huayan and the Possibility of Buddhist Postmodern Ethics (2008), Buddhisms and Deconstructions (ed. 2006), Makers of Modern Korean Buddhism (ed. 2010), Merleau-Ponty and Buddhism (ed. 2009), and Comparative Political Theory and Cross-Cultural Philosophy (ed. 2009). Her most recent book, Reflections of a Zen Buddhist Nun: Essays by Zen Master Kim Iryŏp (2014), is a translation of a book by Korean Buddhist nun-thinker Kim Iryŏp.
Michael Pappas
Michael G. Pappas was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. He graduated from Dickinson College in 1983, after which he successively worked as a lobbyist, regional field director for a presidential campaign, and investment banker for the oldest municipal bond firm in New Jersey. In 1987, he left the world of politics and finance to enroll at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, where he graduated with honors. As an ordained priest of the Greek Orthodox Church, he served parishes in Illinois and California. During his sixteen-year ministry, he was a prolific writer, contributing articles to numerous religious and secular periodicals.
As well, Michael devoted energy to work with the homeless and further ecumenical/interfaith relationships. After transitioning from parish ministry in 2007, he was selected by the San Francisco Interfaith Council to the newly created administrative post of executive director. As executive director, Michael has helped increase the Council’s budget and programs substantially; strengthened existing and cultivated new relationships with civic leaders, NGO’s, judicatories and congregations; and significantly projected the SFIC through expanded use of technology.
His previous/current board memberships include: Mayoral appointments to the San Francisco Disaster Council and San Francisco Office of Civic Engagement's 2010 Census Complete Count Committee; San Francisco Assisi Sister City Committee, and San Francisco Human Rights Commission. Recently he was elected to serve as a trustee on United Religion’s Initiative’s Global Council.
The father of two sons and a daughter, Michael is a congregant at Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco, CA.
Parker J. Palmer
Parker J. Palmer is a writer, educator, activist, and founder and senior partner emeritus of the Center for Courage & Renewal; his latest project is The Growing Edge. His books include Healing the Heart of Democracy and Let Your Life Speak. His latest book is On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old.
In 1998, The Leadership Project, a national survey of ten thousand educators, named Palmer as one of the thirty “most influential senior leaders” in higher education and one of the ten key “agenda-setters” of the past decade. Since 2002, the Accrediting Commission for Graduate Medical Education has given annual Parker J. Palmer “Courage to Teach” and “Courage to Lead” Awards to directors of exemplary medical residency programs around the U.S.. In 2005, Living the Questions: Essays Inspired by the Work and Life of Parker J. Palmer was published, with essays from practitioners in a wide range of professions. In 2010, Palmer received the William Rainey Harper Award, whose previous recipients include Margaret Mead, Elie Wiesel, and Paolo Freire. In 2011, the Utne Reader named him one of 25 Visionaries on its annual list of “People Who are Changing the World.” In 2017, the Shalem Institute in Washington, D.C., gave him its annual Contemplative Voices Award.