Dr Behrooz Sabet is a renowned scholar of religion, contemporary political thought and movements in Iran, and the conceptual and historical origins of modernity and its impact on Islam and Middle Eastern societies. He was previously a university professor, academic dean and consultant on aspects of education and culture in the Middle East. Sabet has translated and written extensively on religious, ethical, educational, philosophical and social themes. He holds a doctorate from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Cyrus Rohani is an advisor on social and economic development, and a management and education consultant. He studied at the American University of Beirut and later received an MBA from Sacred Heart University, Connecticut, USA. He worked with Shell-Qatar and later with Qatar Petroleum (oil & Gas). Rohani has given presentations in international conferences and is widely known as a pioneering figure in living and exploring the Middle Eastern cultures and religions.
Christopher Buck is an independent scholar and attorney. He publishes broadly in American studies, religious studies, Baha’i studies, Islamic studies, African American studies and Native American studies. A former university professor, Dr Buck previously taught at Pennsylvania State University (2011), Michigan State University (2000–2004), Quincy University (1999–2000), Millikin University (1997–1999) and Carleton University (1994–1996). Buck is now faculty at the Wilmette Institute, having taught/co-taught seventeen online courses since 2010. His publications include God and Apple Pie (2015); Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy (2005); Paradise and Paradigm (1999); Symbol and Secret (1995/2004); and Religious Celebrations (co-author, 2011). Buck has published various journal and encyclopaedia articles as well, along with over 100 brief articles on the Baha’i Faith. Buck currently practises law as a plaintiff’s attorney in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he lives.
Arthur Lyon Dahl is a biologist (AB, Biological Sciences, Stanford University; PhD, Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara) and environmentalist with fifty years’ international experience in environment and sustainability. He is a retired Deputy Assistant Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), where he was Deputy Director of the Oceans and Coastal Areas Programme, and Coordinator of the UN System-wide Earthwatch. He is a consultant on sustainability indicators and assessment to the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, UNESCO and UNEP. He was a Visiting Professor at the University of Brighton, and for twelve years taught advanced studies courses in sustainable development and environmental diplomacy at the University of Geneva and other universities. He participated in the United Nations Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm, was in the Secretariat of the Rio Earth Summit (1992) to help draft Agenda 21; and participated in the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg 2002) and the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20, 2012). He co-coordinated the UNEP Major Groups and Stakeholders Advisory Group on International Environmental Governance prior to Rio+20. A specialist on small islands and coral reefs, he spent many years in the South Pacific and organised the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). He is President of the International Environment Forum and on the governing board of ebbf – Ethical Business Building the Future. He has published many scientific papers and books including ‘The Eco Principle: Ecology and Economics in Symbiosis’.
Nazila Ghanea is Associate Professor of International Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford. She is a member of the OSCE Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief; serves on the Board of Governors of the Universal Rights Group and on the Editorial Board of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion; and is an associate of the Oxford Human Rights Hub. She has authored and edited several academic and UN publications, and is the co-author of the forthcoming Oxford University Press publication, Freedom of Religion or Belief: An International Law Commentary.
Ramin Jahanbegloo is a renowned Iranian Canadian philosopher. He is Professor of Political Science and Research Fellow in the Centre for Ethics at University of Toronto, and a board member of PEN Canada. He received his BA and MA in Philosophy, History and Political Science and later his PhD in Philosophy from the Sorbonne University, France. He has been a researcher at the French Institute for Iranian Studies and a fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. Jahanbegloo taught in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto from 1997–2001. He later served as the head of the Department of Contemporary Studies of the Cultural Research Centre in Tehran and, in 2006–07, was Rajni Kothari Professor of Democracy at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi, India. In April 2006, Dr Jahanbegloo was arrested at Tehran Airport and charged with preparing a velvet revolution in Iran. He was placed in solitary confinement for four months and released on bail. In October 2009, Jahanbegloo won the Peace Prize from the United Nations Association in Spain for his extensive academic works in promoting dialogue between cultures and his advocacy of nonviolence.
Ian Kluge is an independent philosophy scholar. He has published numerous lengthy articles on comparative religion and philosophy as well as on current topics such as atheism, science and religion, and meta-ethics, in addition to articles and two books on the American philosophical poet Conrad Aiken and his philosophy of consciousness. He received his BA (honours) at Notre Dame University of Nelson, BC, where he won the Governor General’s Gold Medal for nationally outstanding scholarship. He went on to graduate studies at the University of Alberta where he received an MA.
Shahrzad Sabet, PhD, is a Research Fellow specialising in international political economy at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. From 2014 to 2015, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University’s Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance. Dr Sabet has taught courses on the political economy of globalisation at Harvard University, as well as for the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the International Studies Association’s Carl Beck Award for graduate research and Harvard University’s Derek Bok Center award for distinction in teaching. Dr Sabet holds a PhD from Harvard University’s Department of Government, where she was an associate of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science, and an MPhil in Political Theory from Oxford University (Balliol College), where she studied as a Canadian Commonwealth Scholar. She earned her BA in Political Science and Economics from McGill University. She resides in Manhattan.
Deborah Clark Vance, PhD, is associate professor in and former chair of the Department of Communication and Cinema at McDaniel College, Maryland, USA, where she teaches courses in intercultural communication, gender in communication and qualitative research procedures as well as courses on media and popular culture. She earned her PhD in Intercultural Communication at Howard University and her undergraduate degree in Communication with an emphasis on media at Northwestern University.
Professor Abdul Hamid Al-Ansari is a writer and Qatari academic. He holds a PhD in Religious Politics from Al-Azhar University. He has been a professor of Islamic Studies and dean of the College of Sharia, Law and Islamic Studies at Qatar University. Al-Ansari has contributed to the development of Islamic education curricula in Qatar and the UAE and the drafting of Qatari familial legislation.
Armin Eschraghi earned an MA in Philosophy, Islamic Studies and Comparative Religion at Goethe University and a PhD in the same field. Since 2003, he has been teaching Islamic Studies, Persian and Arabic literature at Liebig University Gießen, and currently at Goethe University Frankfurt and at the Jesuit College Sankt Georgen. His main areas of research are the early development of Islamic and especially Shi‘i theology, Islamic mysticism and religious currents of the Qajar period in Iran.