Rev. Dr. Kathleen A. Green is Executive Director of the Yale Humanist Community and a Yale Silliman College Fellow. Her doctoral dissertation focused on collaboration between humanists and religious adherents in interfaith engagement. Dr. Green also serves on the faculty of Claremont Lincoln University’s Master of Arts in Interfaith degree program, and is an Affiliated Community Minister at the Unitarian Society of New Haven. She resides in Connecticut.
Bettina Gray
Bettina Gray has woven several careers into a rich life. She is a co-founder of North American Interfaith Network, serving on its board since 1986 and as its chair since 2008. As a television producer, she created The Parliament of Souls, 27 half-hour interviews with religious leaders and teachers, including the Dalai Lama, at the 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions. The series, which came with a companion book, was repeatedly broadcast on PBS and in 140 countries. For more videotaped interfaith interviews, go to her Creative Films. As a composer she has written numerous soundtracks for interfaith and human rights-based video productions, and she continues teaching and performing musically and is Composer-in-Residence of San Francisco's Slavyanka Russian Chorus. She has keynoted and lectured on world religions and human rights in various settings, including Mills College, University of California (Berkeley), and Graduate Theological Union, and been a consultant to the World Council of Churches regarding interfaith relations.
Jonathan Granoff
Jonathan Granoff is an international lawyer, advocate, scholar, and award winning screenwriter who serves as President of the Global Security Institute, United Nations Representative of the Permanent Secretariat of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, and Ambassador for Peace, Security and Nuclear Disarmament of The Parliament of the World’s Religions. He serves on numerous advisory and governing boards such as the International Law Section of the American Bar Association, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship, Universal Sufi Council, World Wisdom Council, Tikkun, International Association of Sufism, Middle Powers Initiative, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament working to bring the values of love, compassion, and justice into action. He is a Fellow in he World Academy of Arts and Science and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. Blessed with having lived and studied with H.H. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen since his youth he is honored with the namesake Ahamed Muhaiyaddeen.
Lanier Graham
Lanier Graham began his curatorial career at New York's Museum of Modern Art. While there he played chess with Duchamp and dedicated his first book Chess Sets (1968) to him. He later served as Curator of the National Gallery of Australia, and Curator of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, where Duchamp had his first museum retrospective in 1963. It was in Pasadena at the NSM in 1991 that Graham used works from the 1963 retrospective as the nucleus for the widely respected exhibition "Impossible Realities: Marcel Duchamp & the Surrealist Tradition."
Graham has published a large number of articles, books, and catalogues on modern art and philosophy, as well as world art and sacred symbolism, including catalogues of the work of Monet, van Gogh, Guimard, Matisse, Ernst, Duchamp, and de Kooning. Among the books he has written are Three Centuries of American Painting (1971 & 1977), The Spontaneous Gensture: Prints & Books of the Abstract Expressionists Era (1987), The Prints of Willem De Kooning: A Catalogue Raisonne (1991), and Goddess in Art (1997), which is now available in four languages.
His research field involves relationships between traditional art and modern art, especially the iconography of the transcendent. He is in the process of completing two books: Mallarme & Modern Art and Images of the Infinite:Spiritual Philosophy in Modern Art which will include his interviews with major figures of the era, including Duchamp. Both books examine Modernism as a secular search for wholeness.
He has taught Art History, Religious Studies, and Museum Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, California Institute of Asian Studies, San Francisco, Naropa Institute, Boulder, and Humboldt State University, Arcata, California. He now teaches Art History at California State University, East Bay, where he also directs the University Art Gallery. His profile appears in Who's Who in America andWho's Who in the World.
Pamela Jay Gottfried
Pamela Jay Gottfried is a rabbi, parent, teacher, and author. An inveterate Scrabble player and New York Times Crossword Puzzle fanatic, she credits her love of words to her third grade teacher and her parents, who encouraged her to develop her vocabulary through reading and using the dictionary at an early age. Rabbi Gottfried is a New York City native who moved to Atlanta in 1999. Her areas of expertise include rabbinic literature and the development of Jewish law. Since her rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1993, she has taught students of all ages in churches, colleges, community centers, schools, and synagogues.
Rabbi Gottfried balances her love of writing with her work as a potter, fostering her creativity in a tactile world removed from the computer and Internet. She is also a founding member of 100 People of Faith, in Atlanta, and is active in several non-profit organizations that foster interfaith relations and the elimination of prejudice and poverty.
Jack Gordon
Jack Gordon is a photographer and media producer based in Washington DC. He is currently spearheading the multimedia project Faith in Action DC, which celebrates the community service work of people of faith throughout the nation's capital region. Additionally, Jack serves on the Board of the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington as a representative for the D.C. area Bahá’í community.
Rev. Claire Goodman
Rev. Claire Goodman OUnI grew up in an interfaith (Christian and Jewish) but non-observant family in wonderfully diverse New York City. Her parents left her on my own to explore and over the years she found her way to every cultural and faith community within walking distance of her home: Episcopal, Catholic, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Quaker, and more! She first became involved in a faith community at age 13 at one of the oldest Quaker meetings in the country. It was there that she took her very first Yoga class which eventually led her to Integral Yoga, a synthesis of many of the world’s great faith traditions, emphasizing that “Truth is One, Paths are Many.”
Goodman received her undergraduate degree in 1981 in Cultural Anthropology and Religious Studies at UC Santa Barbara, and although she loved her studies, she found she was more attracted to a heart-centered, practical approach than an academic one.
In 1999 Goodman completed Life Coach training and was blessed to find her way to One Spirit Interfaith Seminary, a 2-year program of study in New York City leading to ordination as an Interfaith Minister. Seminary curriculum provided a firm knowledge base in ancient and contemporary faith traditions and spiritual paths and their practices as well as ongoing experience of practical ministry. Through a workshop elective she discovered the wonderful world of creating beautiful, heartfelt wedding ceremonies for couples from varied backgrounds, and that set her on the path to the wonderful work she does now. In 2013 Goodman was privileged to be co-ordained by the Order of Universal Interfaith (OUnI) and in March 2014 she co-hosted the Big I Conference for Inclusive Theology, Spirituality and Consciousness in Phoenix.
Andrea Goodman
Rev. Andrea Goodman is an interfaith minister and co-founded The Interfaith Peace Project in 2007. Her leadership role as the President of the Board of Directors is part of her active interfaith ministry that includes Sacred Visits to various faith centers; interfaith spiritual direction; officiant of life events, retreat leader; and academic advisor to students at the Chaplaincy Institute. Andrea has a long career in employee relations and diversity, bringing spirituality to corporate work places. Her interfaith spirituality is founded in a Buddhist practice and Catholic social justice teachings.
She can be contacted at goodandrea@comcast.net.
Vincent Gonzalez
Vincent Gonzalez is a doctoral candidate in religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is writing on Evangelical Christian video games.
Elías González
Elías González studied philosophy and social sciences at ITESO and is currently doing his thesis, titled “Encuentro, re-ligación y diálogo. Reflexiones hacia un diálogo inter-re-ligioso” (“Meeting, Religion, and Dialogue: Reflections for an Interreligious Dialogue”) where he approaches the interreligious dialogue as a religious act. He collaborates with Carpe Diem Interfaith Foundation and its program, the Universal Multicultural Dialogue. He is the creator and coordinator of the “Microdiálogos” for Carpe Diem.
Elías or “Elahas,” as his friends call him, has participated in various interreligious events and rituals and has coordinated spirituals retreats and interfaith ceremonies. He has been involved in dialogue with Buddhists, Hindus, and Shamans. Elías studied Latin-American philosophy in Ecuador, and he worked in Cusco, Peru as a shaman assistant in Ayahuasca ceremonies. He has lived in spiritual communities like Janaj Pacha in Bolivia and worked with indigenous people in Rarámuri, Wixárrika, Shipibo and Quechua communities. He has written for various magazines and been a speaker at interreligious conferences.
Daniel Gómez-Ibáñez
From 1991 to 1993 Daniel Gómez-Ibáñez was the Executive Director of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, which he and others founded in Chicago in 1988. The 1993 centennial event in Chicago was probably the largest and most diverse gathering of world religious and spiritual leaders ever assembled. Dr. Gómez-Ibáñez worked with Dr. Hans Küng to produce the document Toward a Global Ethic; an Initial Declaration, signed by over 100 religious and spiritual leaders at the Parliament.
Afterwards he founded the Peace Council and served as its Executive Director until he retired in 2007. The Peace Council was a response to the many appeals at the 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions for effective, practical interfaith collaboration in areas of conflict.
During the fifteen years of its existence the Peace Council provided seed money for bread baking and weaving cooperatives in Mayan refugee camps, equipped indigenous health workers, helped establish a shelter for victims of child prostitution and rape in Thailand, walked with Buddhist monks through heavily-mined combat zones in Cambodia, provided medical supplies to pediatric hospitals in North Korea, worked with international organizations to advance women’s rights and opportunities, promoted the peaceful return of Muslim refugees to Kosovo, and worked with the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines, sharing the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize with many other NGOs. Other programs took the Coiuncilors to Palestine and Israel, Canada, South Korea, Northern Ireland, Mozambique, the Sudan, and even New York.
Henry Goldschmidt
Henry Goldschmidt is the director of programs at The Interfaith Center of New York (ICNY). Dr. Goldschmidt is a cultural anthropologist, community educator, interfaith organizer, and scholar of American religious diversity. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and has taught religious studies and cultural anthropology at Wesleyan University and elsewhere. He is the author of Race and Religion among the Chosen Peoples of Crown Heights (Rutgers U. Press, 2006) and the coeditor of Race, Nation, and Religion in the Americas (Oxford U. Press, 2004).
Philip Goldberg
Philip Goldberg has been studying India’s spiritual traditions for about fifty years, as a practitioner, teacher and an author. He is the author or coauthor of more than twenty books, including Roadsigns on the Spiritual Path(2006); American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation, How Indian Spirituality Changed the West (2010), which was named one of the top ten religion books of the year by both the Huffington Post and the American Library Association’s Booklist; and his latest, The Life of Yogananda: The Story of the Yogi Who Became the First Modern Guru (2018).
As a public speaker and workshop leader, he has given presentations at venues throughout the US. India and other locations, and has appeared in national media. An ordained Interfaith Minister and spiritual counselor, he is cohost of the popular podcast Spirit Matters, leads American Veda Tours to India, and blogs regularly on Spirituality & Health and Elephant Journal. His websites are www.PhilipGoldberg.com and http://www.spiritmatterstalk.com. He serves as secretary of the founding Board of Directors of The Interfaith Observer (TIO).
Mike Goggin
Mike Goggin serves the Ignatian Volunteer Corps as Regional Director for Washington, DC and Suburban Maryland after more than 20 years of working in the DC faith-based non-profit community. Highlights include six plus years of youth ministry at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in the Archdiocese of Washington, nine years of directing programs and coordinating special events for the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington (IFC), and four years as National Executive Director of the St. Vincent Pallotti Center for Apostolic Development, a lay missionary organization. He contributed a chapter to Dr. Eboo Patel’s book Building the Interfaith Youth Movement: Beyond Dialogue to Action (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), became the youngest President in the history of the North American Interfaith Network (NAIN), also in 2006, and earlier won the Outstanding Adult Leadership Award from the Office of Youth Ministry/CYO in Washington.
Ted Glick
Ted Glick has devoted 44 years of his life to the progressive social change movement. After a year of student activism Grinnell College, he left in 1969 to work full time against the Vietnam War. As a Selective Service draft resister, he spent 11 months in prison. In 1973 he co-founded the National Committee to Impeach Nixon.
For the last nine years Ted has played a national leadership role in the effort to stabilize our climate and for a clean energy revolution. He was a co-founder in 2004 of the Climate Crisis Coalition and in 2005 coordinated the USA Join the World effort leading up to December 3rd actions during the United Nations Climate Change conference in Montreal. In May, 2006 he became the national coordinator of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council and is currently National Policy Director for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. For three and a half months in the fall of 2007 he ate no solid food as part of a climate emergency fast focused on getting Congress to pass strong climate legislation, one of 20 extended fasts for social justice.
He has participated in and led hundreds of actions and been arrested seventeen times for acts of nonviolent civil disobedience. His prolific writing on the movement to which he devotes his life includes his 2000 book, Future Hope: A Winning Strategy for a Just Society (2000) and his column, "Future Hope," distributed nationally since 2000. His book Love Refuses to Quit: Climate Change and Social Change in the 21st Century (2009) is free for downloading.
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.