The Rev. Dr. Shanta D. Premawardhana is President of the OMNIA Institute for Contextual Leadership, a global leadership training institute for religious leaders and people of faith based in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Premarawardhana is originally from Sri Lanka, where he attended seminary education, as...

Somaiya Vidyavihar was founded in 1959 with the conviction that modern education has to have its roots in strong values. It is among the largest private educational campus in Mumbai, and has 34 institutions with 39,000 students and 1,500 teaching staff. It provides value-based education alongside qu...

Canon Dr. Andrew Smith is the Director of Interfaith Relations for the Bishop of Birmingham. In 2014, at the Bishop of Birmingham’s request, Andrew set up ‘The Birmingham Conversations’ dialogue process which involved people from six different faiths discussing ‘How faith is lived in modern ...

Father Matta Zakaria currently serves as Patron of the Virgin Mary Coptic Orthodox Church in Marsa Matrouh, Egypt and serves as a representative of His Holiness Pope Tawadros II of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt in interreligious matters....

Zilka Spahić Šiljak holds PhD in gender studies, MA in human rights and BA in Religious Studies. Her scope of work includes addressing cutting edge issues involving human rights, politics, religion, gender, education and peace-building with more than fifteen years experience in academic teaching, ...

Sr. Kathleen McGarvey is a Catholic Religious Sister of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Apostles (OLA) and currently the Provincial superior of her Religious Congregation in Ireland. Kathleen earned her Doctorate Degree in Missiology from St Patrick’s College, Maynooth.  Her research focuse...

Kusumita P. Pedersen is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at St. Francis College, New York, and has has been part of the global interfaith movement for over thirty years. She is a Trustee of the Parliament of the World's Religions and serves as Co-Chair of the Interfaith Center of New York....

Pastor Zerihun Degu Menegeste was born in 1966 in Ethiopia and is the current Secretary General of the Interreligious Council of Ethiopia. Pastor Menegeste obtained a Master of Arts in Leadership from the Pan Africa Christian University, and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Bible and Theology from Addis ...

A graduate of the University of California at Davis and Stanford University, Christopher H. Peters is the President and CEO of the 7th Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples (SGF), Trustee of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, and Chairperson of the Indigenous Peoples Task Force of the Parli...

Ms. Merriam began working in the inter-faith movement in the late 1990s when she served as Vice Chair of the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders held at the United Nation in New York in the year 2000.  She subsequently convened a meeting of women religious and spiritual...