Alexander Astin, is Allan M. Cartter Professor of Higher Education Emeritus at the University of California , Los Angeles and Founding Director of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. He has served as Director of Research for both the American Council on Education and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. He is also the Founding Director of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program, an ongoing national study of some twelve million students, 250,000 faculty and staff, and 1,800 higher education institutions. He has also been elected to membership in the National Academy of Education, a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University , and a recipient of eleven honorary degrees.

Albert Bandura, is the David Starr Professor of Sopcial Science in Psychology at Stanford University. His major area of focus is Personality. Bandura received his M.A. degree in 1951 and his Ph.D. degree in clinical psychology from the University of Iowa in 1952 under the direction of Arthur Benton (but his genealogy goes back to William James!!). He went on to a postdoctoral internship at the Wichita Guidance Center. In 1953, Bandura joined the faculty at Stanford University, where he has remained to pursue his career. In 1964, Bandura became a full professor at Stanford and was elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association. During the 1969/70 academic year he spent a year as Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. In 1974 Stanford awarded him an endowed chair and he became David Starr Jordan Professor of Social Science in Psychology. During 1976/77, he served as chairman of the Department of Psychology (1976/77). In 1977, Bandura published the ambitious Social Learning Theory, a book that dramatically altered the direction psychology was to take in the 1980s. Bandura's books related to self-efficacy were especially important to the field.

Mario Beauregard is currently associate researcher at the Departments of Psychology and Radiology, and the Neuroscience Research Center, Université de Montréal. He earned a B.Sc. in psychology (1985) and a Ph.D. in neuroscience (1992) from Université de Montréal. Dr. Beauregard completed two postdoctoral fellowships in experimental neuropsychology, the first one at the University of Texas at Houston (1992-94), and the second one at the Montreal Neurological Institute (McConnell Brain Imaging Centre), McGill University (1994-96). He is the author of more than 100 scientific publications in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry. Dr. Beauregard has been selected in 2000 by the World Media Net as one of the “One hundred pioneers of the 21st century.” He has recently edited and co-authored a book titled Consciousness, Emotional Self-Regulation and the Brain (2004). This book has been published by the John Benjamins Publishing Co. in the Advances in Consciousness Research series. His work about the neural correlates of the mystical experience in Carmelite nuns, and the effects of volition on the emotional brain has received international media coverage. Other major research interests involve the mind-brain question and the neurobiology of spiritual transformation. With the science writer Denyse O’Leary, Dr. Beauregard is presently working on a popular book titled The Spiritual Brain (Harper San Francisco, publication date: March 2007).

Brenda L. Cole is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI). She has conducted research on the role of spirituality and existential issues in the adjustment to chronic illnesses, including cancer and heart disease. She has also written on related topics: defining the concepts of spirituality and religion, spiritual surrender as a paradoxical means to control, forgiveness, and the design of spiritually-integrative interventions. She has developed and tested two scales to assess two distinct aspects of spirituality within the process of coping with illness, and is developing a study on the effects of a spiritually-focused meditation program for people coping with metastatic melanoma. Cole received her Ph.D. from Bowling Green State University.

Harold D. Delaney is Professor of Psychology at the University of New Mexico. He is an expert in research methodology and applied statistics and co-author of the graduate textbook Designing Experiments and Analyzing Data.  He has collaborated on more than ten federally funded research projects, most having to do with the treatment of substance abuse. With William Miller, he coordinated the national psychology panel for a multi-disciplinary project on the nature of the human person funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.  This project resulted in the volume, edited by Miller and Delaney, entitled Judeo_Christian Perspectives on Psychology:  Human Nature, Motivation, and Change, which was published in 2005 by the American Psychological Association.  He received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina.

Alvin C. Dueck is Chair for Integrative Dialogue between Theology and Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary’s School of Psychology in Pasadena, CA. He is also active in the Travis Research Institute at Fuller. Dueck received his Ph.D. from Stanford University. He studied theology at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, University of Notre Dame, Yale University and Cambridge University Divinity School. His research interests include religious transformation in psychotherapy and computational analysis of meaning. He is the author of Between Jerusalem and Athens: Ethical Perspectives on Culture, Religion and Psychotherapy(1995), and a review editor for the Journal of Psychology and Theology and the Journal of Psychology and Christianity.

Susan Folkman is Professor of Medicine at the University of California-San Francisco, and the Director of the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine and the Osher Foundation Distinguished Professor of Integrative Medicine. She was appointed to these positions in 2001.  Dr. Folkman received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1979, where she worked with Richard Lazarus until coming to UCSF in 1988, where she joined the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS).  She was appointed Professor of Medicine in 1990 and co-director of CAPS in 1994. She is internationally recognized for her theoretical and empirical contributions to the field of psychological stress and coping.  Her work over the past 18 years has focused on stress and coping in the context of chronic illness and especially on issues having to do with caregiving and bereavement. Her more recent research focuses on mind-body approaches to care. Dr. Folkman’s research has been supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Nursing Research, and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.  She served on the NIH/NIMH National Advisory Mental Health Council.  She has chaired or been a member of various NIH study sections, served on committees of the Institute of Medicine and NIH workgroups, and was co-chair of the American Psychological Association task force on ethics in research with human participants. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society.   In 1997, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, for her contributions to coping theory and research.

Edward F. Foulks, member of the advisory board for the Spiritual Transformation Scientific Research Program, is the Sellars-Polchow Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology and Associate Dean of Graduate Medical Education at Tulane University School of Medicine. He is the current president of the Orleans Parish Medical Society and past-president of The Mental Health Association in Metropolitan New Orleans. Winner of numerous awards for his work in psychiatry, Foulks is a leading advocate for an inclusive, cross-cultural perspective in mental health care. His recent publications include Personality Disorders and Culture: Clinical and Conceptual Interactions (1998) and the "Cultural Issues" section for the Encyclopedia of Psychotherapy (2002).

John Frank, is a Fellow with the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Population Health Program, and is a Professor at the University of Toronto in the Department of Public Health Sciences. As a physician-epidemiologist, with special expertise in prevention, his main area of interest is the biopsychosocial determinants of health status at the population level. He was the founding Director of Research at the Institute for Work & Health in Toronto from 1991 until 1997, and is currently a Senior Scientist there. In late 2004, Dr. Frank was seconded, part-time, to advise the new Public Health Agency of Canada on scientific advisory structures for a national Network of Collaborating Centres in Public Health. On February 24, 2005, he was presented with the John F. Hasting Award; by the Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto, for "Excellence in Service to the University and the Community".

Alejandro Garcia-Rivera is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley and a member of the core doctoral faculty at Graduate Theological Union in systematic and philosophical theology.

Michael Gazzaniga, is the author of several popular books, including "The Ethical Brain," and "Mind Matters," Gazzaniga was recently elected a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. Professor Gazzaniga has played a seminal role in the development of human neuroscience, particularly the emergence of cognitive neuroscience. He is now Director of the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind, University of California - Santa Barbara and professor of psychology and was, until this spring, the David T. McLaughlin Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth where he directs the college's Center for Cognitive Neuroscience.

Peggy C. Giordano is Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology at Bowling Green State University. Her research focuses on causal processes associated with delinquency involvement during the adolescent period. She has conducted a series of long-term follow-ups of normative and delinquent youth as they have matured. These focus on variations in adult criminal involvement and factors associated with more successful outcomes, including the role of religion in effective life changes. Her research has been published in journals such as the American Journal of Sociology, Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, and Journal of Health and Social Behavior. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota.

David Gortner is Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology at Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley and Director of Center for Anglican Learning & Leadership.

William Grassie is founder and executive director of the Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science [www.metanexus.net]. Metanexus currently runs some 300 projects at universities in 36 countries. Grassie also serves as executive editor of the Institute's online magazine and discussion forum with over 140,000 monthly page views and over 6000 regular subscribers in 57 different countries. He has taught in a variety of positions at Temple University, Swarthmore College, and the University of Pennsylvania. Grassie received his doctorate in religion from Temple University in 1994 and his BA from Middlebury College in 1979. Prior to graduate school, Grassie worked for ten years in arms control and disarmament, social service and advocacy organizations in Washington, D.C; Jerusalem, Israel; Berlin, Germany; and Philadelphia, PA. He is the recipient of a number of academic awards and grants from the American Friends Service Committee, the Roothbert Fellowship, and the John Templeton Foundation. He is a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

Mark Graves, Graduate Theological Union

Barbara Bradley Hagerty is the religion correspondent for National Public Radio, reporting on the intersection of faith and politics, law, science, and culture. Before that, she was the Justice Department correspondent, covering legal affairs and crime and received the 2004 Religion Newswriters Association award for radio reporting. She worked at The Christian Science Monitor for 11 years.

Frederick Hecht is Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF, and research director at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. His research interests and clinical work have focused on HIV disease. He leads the UCSF Options Project, a multi-disciplinary effort to investigate the immunologic, virologic, clinical, epidemiologic, and behavioral aspects of primary HIV, the initial stage of the infection. He is a faculty member of the HIV/AIDS Program at San Francisco General Hospital, where he maintains a clinical practice. At the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, his research focuses on mind-body interventions. He has initiated studies of yoga and HIV, and is leading a large scale randomized, controlled clinical trial of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction in early HIV infection, which is part of a Center for Excellence in Complementary and Alternative Medicine grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Philip Hefner, member of the advisory board for the Spiritual Transformation Scientific Research Program, is emeritus professor of Systematic Theology at Lutheran School of Theology, director of the Zygon Center for Religion and Science, and editor of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science. Author of over 125 scholarly articles and 7 books. Hefner is a leading figure in the field of religion and science. His books include: The Human Factor: Evolution, Culture, Religion (1993), Belonging and Alienation: Religious Foundations for the Human Future (1976), and Changing Man: The Threat and the Promise (1968). Hefner is also co-editor of When Worlds Converge: Science and Religion in the Third Millennium (2001)

Peter C. Hill, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University, in La Mirada, CA.  Dr. Hill is an active researcher in social psychology and the psychology of religion where he has authored over 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals.  His primary research interests focus on religious/spiritual measurement, positive psychological virtues such as humility and forgiveness, and the role of affect in religious or spiritual experience.  He is a past president of Division 36 (Psychology of Religion) of the American Psychological Association (APA) and was elected Fellow of the APA in 1998.  He is co-editor (with Ralph W. Hood) of Measures of Religiosity (1999) and co-author (with Ralph W. Hood and W. Paul Williamson) of The Psychology of Fundamentalism: An Intra- textual Approach.  He also co-edited (with David Benner) the 2nd edition of the Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology (1999).  Since 1989 he has served as the editor of The Journal of Psychology and Christianity.

Michael Hout,is Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley. He teaches courses on inequality and data analysis. In his research, Mike uses demographic methods to study social change in inequality, education, religion, and other sociological topics. In 2003 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Mike Hout is chair of the Graduate Group in Sociology and Demography.

Leonard M. Hummel is Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. His latest research project is entitled, "God, Evolution, Intelligent Design, and Dover, PA: A Practical Theology." He has published on European Pietism, religious coping, community and cultural psychology, and pastoral care and is the author of Clothed in Nothingness: Consolation for Suffering (Fortress Press, 2003). He is currently working on two book projects: Chance, Necessity, Love: A Practical Theology of Cancer (Westminster/John Knox Press) and Pragmatics of Religious Coping. A member of the Vanderbilt University Center of the Study for Science and Religion, he participates in the Center's Project, "Scales and Hierarchies: Implications for Science and Religion."

Dale S. Ironson, is consultant to the University of Miami project on spiritual transformation and HIV/ AIDS. He is also a management consultant in Silicon Valley working with leaders to help create high performance organizations. He has taught  on the psychology of consciousness. He was an Associate Professor of Psychology at Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire and served as the Academic Director of External Degree programs at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology.

Gail Ironson is Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Miami. She specializes in behavioral medicine and has served as the president of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. She is a fellow in the Society of Behavioral Medicine and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, and serves on the editorial boards of several journals. She has conducted extensive research in the areas of behavioral medicine with HIV, cancer, and cardiac patients, and has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an M.D. from the University of Miami.

Byron Johnson, member of the advisory board for the Spiritual Transformation Scientific Research Program, is Professor Sociology and Director of the Center for Religious Inquiry Across the Disciplines (CRIAD) as well as director of the National Domestic Violence Fatality Review Initiative, both at Baylor University.  He is a Senior Fellow at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey.  Professor Johnson’s research focuses on quantifying the effectiveness of faith-based organizations to confront various social problems.  Recent publications have examined the efficacy of the “faith factor” in reducing crime and delinquency among at-risk youth in urban communities, and several studies examining the impact of faith-based programs on recidivism reduction and prisoner reentry.  Johnson has written extensively on strategic efforts to reduce family violence. Johnson has been the subject of numerous media interviews for radio, television, and newspapers including The New York Times, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Dallas Morning News, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Times, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, U.S. News and World Report, World, The National Review, The Weekly Standard, Policy Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, National Public Radio, CBS News, Fox News, and ABC World News Tonight.

Sung Joon Jang is Associate Professor of Sociology at Louisiana State University. His research focuses on the effects of family, school, peers, religion, and community on deviance and crime, especially juvenile delinquency. He has published articles in such journals as American Sociological Review, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Social Science Quarterly, American Journal of Community Psychology, Journal of Youth and Adolescence. Jang received his Ph.D. in sociology from State University of New York at Albany.

Jerome Kagan is Emeritus Professor of Psychology and former Director of the Mind, Brain, Behavior Interfaculty Initiative at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from Yale University. During the last 51 years he has studied cognitive and emotional development in children, the development of morality, the effect of surrogate care on infants and the role of temperament on social and personality development. Kagan is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He is the author of many books and chapters and has served with both government and private advisory and philanthropic groups.

Lee Anne Kaskutas,  is Associate Adjunct Professor, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley. Her fields of interest are: Self-help groups, peer support, social networks, measuring alcohol consumption, drinking during pregnancy, and treatment outcome.She is also the Director of Training  at the Alcohol Research Group in Berkeley and is the Principal Investigator of the NIAAA Training Grant “Graduate Research Training on Alcohol Problems” at the University of California, Berkeley.

Solomon H. Katz is the Principal Investigator for the Spiritual Transformation Scientific Research Program. His is former president of the Metanexus Institute and is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute. He is also Director of the Krogman Center for Research in Child Growth and Development, and Professor of Physical Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. His work in science and religion spans over 30 years, including leadership in the Institute for Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS), where he served as president, 1977 to 1979 and 1981 to 1984. He has served as co-chair and associate editor of the Zygon Publication Board and Journal since 1979. Dr. Katz was president of the Center for the Advanced Study of Religion and Science from  1989-2002 and served on the advisory board of the Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion of the AAAS. Dr. Katz has edited numerous books and series on the anthropology of food and nutrition and most recently served as editor-in-chief of the award winning international 3-volume Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, published by Scribners in 2003

Dacher Keltner received his Ph.D. from Stanford University, and for three years was a post-doctoral fellow at UC San Francisco. He is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Director of the Berkeley Center for the Development of Peace and Well-Being. His research focuses on three broad questions: the determinants and consequences of power and status; how individual differ­ences in emotion shape the individual’s relationships life course; and the forms and functions of the different positive emotions, including awe, love, gratitude, compassion. He has published more than 60 papers on these subjects.

Joan D. Koss-Chioino, member of the advisory board for the Spiritual Transformation Scientific Research Program, is now Professor Emerita in Anthropology at Arizona State University. She was formerly professor of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine, University of New Mexico and is currently research professor at George Washington University and adjunct professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Tulane Medical Center. Koss-Chioino focuses her topical interests on medical anthropology, cultural psychiatry, psychological anthropology, tropical medicine and art and ritual. She has done research in Puerto Rico, Mexico, New Mexico, among Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, and African Americans in the United States, and in Bali, Indonesia producing numerous articles and chapters and 5 books. Her current book, co-edited with Philip Hefner(to be released by Altamira Press in May, 2006) is "Spiritual Transformation and Healing: Anthropological, Theological, Neuroscience and Clinical Perspectives."

Robert F. Kraus is Professor of Psychiatry and Anthropology at the University of Kentucky. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Wisconsin and received psychiatric training at Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute. His graduate training in anthropology was at the University of Pennsylvania. Kraus was Acting Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Kentucky. His research has focused on the relationship between culture and psychiatry with reference to the Arctic and Sub Arctic peoples. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in the circumpolar countries.

Jean L. Kristeller is Professor of Psychology at Indiana State University, Adjunct Associate Professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine, and Director of the Center for the Study of Health, Religion and Spirituality. Her research includes evaluating physicians' attitudes toward addressing spiritual issues, assessing the viability and effectiveness of a brief physician-delivered spirituality intervention, improving quality of life in cancer patients, and using meditation as a therapeutic modality. She is currently funded through the NIH Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine for a study of the use of mindfulness meditation in treating obesity and binge eating disorder. She received her doctorate in clinical and health psychology from Yale University.

Sandra D. Lane is Chair of the Department of Health and Wellness and Professor of Social Work in the College of Human Services and Health Professions of Syracuse University and Research Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical University. She holds a Ph.D. in medical anthropology from the University of California, San Francisco and Berkeley, and a M.P.H. in epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on gender and ethnic disparities in health. It includes work on rural Egyptian women's access to health care, traditional female genital surgeries, and disproportionate mortality rates. She has written more than 25 articles and book chapters, served as the Ford Foundation Reproductive Program Officer for the Middle East, and worked with the World Health Organization, UNFPA, and the Onondaga County Child Death Review Committee.

William E. Lesher is President Emeritus of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago Currently he chairs the Board of Trustees of the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions, an international interfaith organization that build harmony and understanding among religious and spiritual communities.

Monica Longmore is an associate professor in the department of sociology at Bowling Green State University. Longmore's research has focused extensively on the role of self and identity processes, and how conceptions of the self, influence or motivate behavior.  Longmore's publications have addressed ideology, power, and equity as influencing relationship processes (DeMaris and Longmore 1996).  She has written extensively on self-esteem (e.g., Gecas and Longmore forthcoming, Longmore and DeMaris 1997; Gecas and Seff 1990, 1989), depression (Seff, Gecas, and Ray 1992), and self-efficacy (Longmore, Manning, and Giordano forthcoming).  Her work on symbolic meanings  (Longmore 1998) uses theoretical developments and concepts from symbolic interactionist theory to understand behavioral choices and the individual/motivational underpinnings of significant life changes.

Michael E. McCullough is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. He received his Ph.D. from Virginia Commonwealth University. His work focuses on religion, spirituality, and virtues, how these unfold in people's lives, and how they are linked to health and well-being. He has written nearly 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. He has also authored or edited five books, including Forgiveness: Theory, Research, and Practice(2000), Handbook of Religion and Health (2001), and The Psychology of Gratitude (2005).

Reverend William L. McLennan, is an ordained minister, lawyer, professor, published author, and administrator at Stanford University in Stanford, California. He has been the Dean for Religious Life at Stanford University since January, 2001, where he also teaches at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He served as University Chaplain at Tufts University in Massachusetts from 1984-2000, and as a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School between 1988 and 2000. He received a BA degree (Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa) from Yale University in 1970, Master of Divinity and Juris Doctor degrees from Harvard Divinity and Law Schools in 1975 (Cum Laude).

Jack Miles, is a. MacArthur Fellow (2002-2007), visiting scholar at Occidental College, is a writer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times and many other publications. His book GOD: A Biography won a Pulitzer Prize in 1996 and has been translated into sixteen languages. He is Senior Fellow with the Pacific Council on International Policy, serves on the final selection committee of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and is general editor of the forthcoming Norton Anthology of World Religions. He has been Mellon visiting professor of humanities at Caltech, the director of the Humanities Center at the Claremont Graduate University, a Regents' Lecturer at the University of California, Senior Advisor to the President at the J. Paul Getty Trust, and a visiting fellow with the Committee on the Conceptual Foundations of Science, University of Chicago.

Donald E. Miller, Firestone Professor of Religion at the University of Southern California.  Donald Miller is the Executive Director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at USC as well as a professor of religion and sociology.  He is the author/editor of seven books, including Armenia: Portraits of Survival and Hope (University of California Press, 2003), Survivors:  An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide (University of California Press, 1993), GenX Religion (Routledge, 2000), Reinventing American Protestantism (University of California Press, 1997),  Homeless Families: The Struggle for Dignity (University of Illinois Press, 1993), Writing and Research in Religious Studies (Prentice Hall, 1992), and The Case for Liberal Christianity (Harper & Row, 1981). With Tetsunao Yamamori, he has recently completed a book on global Pentecostalism that is based on extensive field research in 20 developing countries.  His current research focuses on faith-based NGOs in Rwanda, Tanzania, and Armenia

Doug Oman is Adjunct Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health of the University of California, Berkeley, Division of Community Health and Human Development. His research and professional publications involve theoretical, observational and experimental studies of spirituality, religion and health, including epidemiologic studies of religious involvement and mortality, the application of social cognitive theory to religion and spirituality, and studies of effects on health professionals as well as college students from receiving training in a comprehensive nonsectarian spiritual toolkit. He has been principal investigator on several research projects, funded the National Institute of Health and others, focusing on spirituality and/or prosocial behavior.

Margaret Paloma, is Professor Emerita of sociology, at the University of Akron. She is also the author of Assemblies of God at the Crossroad and The Charismatic Movement.

Kenneth Pargament, member of the advisory board for the Spiritual Transformation Scientific Research Program is Professor of Clinical Psychology, Bowling Green State University, and Adjunct Professor in Counseling Psychology and Religion Program, Boston University. Lawrence Sullivan, Professor of the History of Religions and former Director, Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University. Robert Wuthnow, Professor of Sociology and Director, Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University.

Ted Peters is a Professor of Systematic Theology at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He has authored books dealing with the dialogue between science and religion such as Science, Theology, and Ethics (Ashgate 2003); Playing God? Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom (Routledge 2002); and For the Love of Children: Genetic Technology and the Future of the Family (Westminster/John Knox Press, 1996). He also serves as co-editor of Theology and Science published by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS).

Stephen G. Post is Professor, Department of Bioethics, Case School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, and was a Senior Research Scholar in the Becket Institute at St. Hugh's College, Oxford University. Post is Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Bioethics. He is President of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, which was founded in 2001 Dr. Post is an elected member of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Panel of Alzheimer's Disease International, and the recipient of a "distinguished service" award from the Association's National Board. Dr. Post is co-editor of Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Dialogue (Oxford University Press, 2002), and author of Unlimited Love--Altruism, Compassion, Service (Templeton Press, 2002). His most recent edited book is entitled The Science of Altruism and Health: It's Good to be Good (Oxford University Press, 2005, in preparation).

Lewis Rambo,  is the Tulley professor of Psychology and Religion at the San Francisco Theological Seminary and is on the faculty of the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA. He has been editor of Pastoral Psychology since 1984 and serves on the borard of the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion.his books include "Understanding Religious Conversion"and"Psychology of Religion: A Guide to Information Sources."

Mark Regnerus is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas, where he is also a Faculty Research Associate with the Population Research Center. He received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina in 2000. Regnerus’ key research interests concern the influence of religion and religious change on adolescent and young adult behavior. His work offers a developmental, intergenerational way of looking at how religion plays a significant role in socialization processes, attitude formation, decision-making, and risk-aversion. Specifically, his current research involves examining the influence of religion on adolescent sexual behavior and family well-being. His recent work has been published in such journals as Social Forces, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Social Psychology Quarterly, The Sociological Quarterly, Review of Religious Research, and Social Science Research. His study of religious influences on the educational resilience of at-risk youth was featured in the USA Today, Washington Post, and Time Magazine. Twice awarded the Best Article from the American Sociological Association’s section on the Sociology of Religion, Regnerus is also a collaborator on the Lilly Endowment-funded National Study of Youth and Religion.

Elizabeth A.R. Robinson is Research Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan's Addiction Research Center in the Department of Psychiatry. She is currently investigating long-term spiritual and religious changes in recovery from alcoholism, through funding from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) of NIH. She had previously received funding from the Fetzer Institute and NIAAA to investigate short-term changes in spirituality and religiousness in a treatment sample of alcoholics. Projects under development include studying the behavioral, psychological, and neurophysiological impact of mindfulness meditation on relapse in depression and in alcoholism. Her research interests are identifying and utilizing factors that foster therapeutic change. She has published papers on life-changing spiritual and religious experiences in alcoholics, gender differences and sleep problems among substance abuse treatment seekers, family stress and coping with severe mental illness, and the effect of supportive health education. She received her Ph.D. in psychology and social work from the University of Michigan, as well as her MSW and MPH.

Eleanor Rosch is a professor in the Psychology Department and the Cognitive Science Program at the University of California, Berkeley. She is known for her psychological research in concepts and categories and for more recent work on implications of the Eastern meditation traditions and psychology of religions. Books include Cognition and Categorization (with B.B. Lloyd) and The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (with F. Varela & E. Thompson).

Robert A. Rubinstein is Professor of Anthropology and International Relations in the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.  He holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the State University of New York, Binghamton and a Master of Science in Public Health from the University of Illinois, Chicago.  His medical anthropology research focuses on racial and ethnic disparities in health, culture and infectious disease, and the health consequences of conflict. His political anthropology research focuses on conflict management, peacekeeping and humanitarian interventions. He has done field research in Belize, Mexico, Egypt and the United States.  His publications include more than 70 articles and book chapters and five books, including Science as Cognitive Process. Among the many organizations to which he has been a consultant are the United States Institute of Peace, the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the International Islamic Center for Population Studies and Research, Al Azhar University.

Jeffrey Samuels is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Western Kentucky University where he teaches courses on Asian religions, cultures, and languages. His primary area of research is the Theravada Buddhist traditions of Sri Lanka and Thailand, with specialization in Buddhist education, the formation of monastic identity, and the concept of social service in contemporary Sri Lanka. He has published peer-reviewed articles and given academic presentations on various topics of Buddhist monasticism, such as monastic recruitment, monastic training, conceptions of social service, caste affiliation and temple patronage, ideas of meritorious giving, and auto-driven photo-elicitation as a field method. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in history of religions.

Roberta G. Sands is Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Social Policy & Practice, where she teaches clinical social work practice, women’s issues, and qualitative research. Her research focuses on inter­generational family relations, religious change, interprofessional communication, and mental health. She is the author of Clinical Social Work Practice in Community Mental Health (1991) and Clinical Social Work Practice in Behavioral Mental Health: A Postmodern Approach to Practice with Adults, 2nd ed. (2001) and co-author of Interprofessional and Family Discourses: Voices, Knowledge, and Practice (2002). She has written over 60 articles and book reviews for social science journals as well as several book chapters. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Louisville.

Phillip Shaver is the Chair of the  Department of Psychology and Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. He is a consulting review board member to Behavioral and Brain Science and editorial board member, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and New Review of Social Psycholog.he is also a  faculty member in the NIMH-sponsored Bay Area Affective Science Training. He has published a co-edited volume, Handbook of Attachment:Theory, Research, and Clinical Application.

Stephen M. Shortell is the Dean, School of Public Health, Blue Cross of California Distinguished Professor of Health Policy & Management and Professor of Organization Behavior at University of California at Berkeley. He has recently co-authored the book Health Care Management: Organization Design and Behavior, 5th edition.

Tom W. Smith is an internationally recognized expert in survey research specializing in the study of social change and survey methodology. Since 1980 he has been Co-Principal Investigator of the National Data Program for the Social Sciences and Director of its General Social Survey (GSS) at the National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago. This is the largest and longest-term project supported by the sociology program of the National Science Foundation. Smith is also co-founder and secretary general (1997-2003) of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), the largest cross-national collaboration in the social sciences. Smith has authored over 450 scholarly papers. He holds a Ph.D. in American History from the University of Chicago.

Nancy Snidman is Director of Research for the Judge Baker Children’s Center Autism Consortium. She is also a research consultant at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles. Her research for the last two decades has focused on the behavior and biology of temperament, risk factors for the development of  psychopathology in young children, and the longitudinal stability in physiological correlates of behavior. Awards include a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation in Chicago and a Research Fellowship from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of  Health Sciences and Technology. She is the author of many articles and chapters.

Michael L. Spezio is a Postdoctoral Scholar in Affective and Social Neuroscience in the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the California Institute of Technology. His scientific focus is on the brain's ability to help us make sense of the social and emotional world. He is also an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and works at the interface of science and religion on questions of human nature and ethical understanding. He is a recipient of a National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Mental Health and a Fracisco Varela Award from the Mind and Life Institute.

Carl E.Thoresen is Professor Emeritus of Education and, by courtesy, Psychology and Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. He is also Senior Fellow in the Spirituality and Health Institute (SHI) at Santa Clara University. He served as Principal Investigator of the Stanford Forgiveness Project, a large randomized trial of forgiveness training program. He has published extensively on science and psychology of forgiveness, spirituality, and health.

Charles Hard Townes is physicist and educator, was educated at Furman University, Duke, and the California Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1939), was on the technical staff of the Bell Telephone Laboratories (1939–48), and taught at Columbia (1948–59). After serving as vice president and director of research of the Institute for Defense Analyses, Washington, D.C., he was provost of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1961–66). Townes is known for his work on the theory and application of the maser, on which he obtained the fundamental patent, and other work in quantum electronics connected with both maser and laser devices. He was appointed University Professor at the University of California in 1967; in this position Dr. Townes participates in teaching, research, and other activities on several campuses of the University, although he is located at the Berkeley campus. He shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics with N. G. Basov and A. M. Prokhorov for contributions to this field. He is the 2005 recipient of the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities. Read more...

Cassandra Vieten is a research faculty member at IONS and a clinical psychologist and researcher specializing in the areas of addictions, emotion regulation, and mind-body approaches to wellness. She's also been affiliated with the California Pacific Medical Center as a behavior medicine researcher focused on developing and testing complementary mindfulness-based approaches involved in successful cessation of addictive behaviors emphasizing a strong interest in how body, mind, and spirit interact to impact physiological and psychological wellness.

W. Bradford Wilcox is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on the influence of religious belief and practice on marriage and parenting. He has published articles in The American Sociological Review, Social Forces and the Journal of Marriage and Family. His first book, Soft Patriarchs and New Men: Religion, Ideology, and Male Familial Involvement, was recently published by the University of Chicago Press. His research has also been featured in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, CBS News, and numerous NPR stations. He earned is Ph.D. at Princeton University and held research fellowships at Princeton University and Yale University.