Mary Nichols was appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as chairman of the California Air Resources Board in July 2007, returning to the same position she held under Gov. Jerry Brown from 1978 to 1983.

Nichols has devoted her entire career in public and private, not-for-profit service to advocating for the environment and public health. She has previously served as assistant administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Air and Radiation under the Clinton administration, secretary of the California Resources Agency from 1999 to 2003, and director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment.

An accomplished social entrepreneur with expertise in health care, labor issues and public policy, Cheryl Dorsey was named president of Echoing Green in May 2002. She is the first Echoing Green Fellow to lead this global nonprofit, which has awarded more than $28 million in start-up capital to over 450 social entrepreneurs worldwide since 1987.

Dorsey received her education at Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges where she earned a degree in history and science in 1985. In 1992, while training to be a pediatrician at Harvard Medical School, she received an Echoing Green Fellowship. With it, she launched the Family Van, a community-based mobile health unit that provides basic health care and outreach services to at-risk residents of inner-city Boston neighborhoods.

Contemporary and historical religion’s most prolific author, Karen Armstrong is a highly sought-after lecturer around the world, and is called upon by governments, universities, and church and secular organizations alike to educate about the world’s religions and to inform regarding their place in the modern world. A former Roman Catholic nun, she was educated at Oxford and has taught at London University and London’s Leo Baeck College for the Study of Judaism. Her writings include A History of God: From Abraham to the Present, the 4000 Year Quest for God; Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths; The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; Islam: A Short History; The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions; and Muhammad: A Prophet For Our Time. She has been honored around the world especially as a bridge-builder between the Abrahamic Faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Her most recent work is A History of the Bible.

Born in Jamaica, West Indies, Glenford Mitchell received a BA in Business Education from Shaw University, a Master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, and a Lit.D (hon.) from the National College of Education in Evanston, Illinois. The author of numerous articles and pamphlets, he co-authored and co-edited the book The Angry Black South (New York: Corinth Books, 1962). In 1962-63, he was assistant editorial director of Maryknoll Publications and executive secretary of the Maryknoll Book Club in New York. He later served as assistant editor of Africa Report magazine (1963-67) and as managing editor of World Order Magazine (1967-1982). Mr. Mitchell was an instructor in English and Journalism at Howard University (1966-1967). He is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists and was active in Rotary International in Wilmette, Illinois from 1968 to 1982.

Bhikkhu Bodhi is an American Buddhist monk, originally from New York City, who holds a PhD in philosophy from Claremont Graduate School. In late 1972 he received monastic ordination in Sri Lanka, where he lived for over twenty years. From 1984 until 2002 he was the editor for the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy, and has translated numerous texts from the Pali Canon into English, among them the complete Samyutta Nikaya. He now lives at Chuang Yen Monastery in upstate New York and teaches there and at Bodhi Monastery in northwest New Jersey. In 2008, together with several of his students, Ven. Bodhi founded Buddhist Global Relief, a nonprofit charity supporting hunger relief and education in countries suffering from chronic poverty and malnutrition.

Vasudha Narayanan is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Florida and a past President of the American Academy of Religion (2001-2002). She was educated at the Universities of Madras and Bombay in India and at Harvard University. Her fields of interest are the Sri Vaishnava tradition; Hindu traditions in India, Cambodia, and America; visual and expressive cultures in the study of the Hindu traditions; and gender issues. She is currently working on Hindu temples and traditions in Cambodia. Dr. Narayanan and the University of Florida have created the nation’s first Center for the Study of Hindu Traditions (CHiTra) to encourage the research, teaching, and public understanding of Hindu culture and traditions.

Diana L. Eck is professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, and a member of the faculty of the Harvard Divinity School. Her academic work has a dual focus—India and America—and in both cases she is interested in the challenges of religious pluralism in a multi-religious society. Her work on India includes the books Banaras: City of Light and Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India. Since 1991, she has headed the Pluralism Project, which explores and interprets the religious dimensions of America's new immigration; the growth of Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, and Zoroastrian communities in the United States; and the new issues of religious pluralism and American civil society. The Pluralism Project's award-winning CD-ROM, On Common Ground: World Religions in America, was published in 1997; her book A New Religious America: How a "Christian Country" Has Become the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation was published in 2001. Her book Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey From Bozeman to Banaras is in the area of Christian theology and interfaith dialogue. It won the Grawemeyer Book Award in 1995, and a 10th-anniversary edition was published in 2003.

The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane, D.D. has presided as the Eighth Bishop of Washington, D.C. since 2002. As Bishop of Washington, Bishop Chane serves 93 congregations and 45,000 members in the District of Columbia and in the Counties of Prince George's, Montgomery, Charles, and Saint Mary's in Maryland. An active member of many boards and advisory committees, including the American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, The University Council Committee On Religious and Spiritual Life at Yale University, The Episcopal Church Publishing Company, and The Virginia Theological Seminary, Bishop Chane serves as Co-Chair of the "Bishops Working for a Just Society" Coalition and on the Episcopal Church's Committee on National Affairs. He serves on a Global Anglican Task Force investigating human rights violations in the Kingdom of Swaziland, Africa, and his diocese has established a partnership with the Anglican Church of the Province of Southern Africa.

Dr. Hanan Mikhail Ashrawi is the Founder and Executive Committee Chair of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, MIFTAH, and an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Founder and board member of the National Coalition for Accountability and Integrity, AMAN, Dr. Ashrawi is also founder and Commissioner of the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) and served as its first Commissioner General. As head of the previous PLC’s Special Committee on Reform and Coordinator of the Steering Committee of the National Reform Committee, Dr. Ashrawi was actively engaged in the planning and implementation of programs and systems of reform, accountability, and the rule of law. From 1996-1998 she served as the Minister of Higher Education and Research. Dr. Ashrawi was also a member of the Political and Diplomatic Committees during the Intifada and the negotiations. In 1991, she was named Official Spokesperson of the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Process and a member of the Leadership Committee.

Dr. Galia Golan is Professor Emerita and former head of the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. She presently leads the program in Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution in the School of Government, Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya. At Hebrew University she was the founder of Israel’s first program in women’s studies and head of the Lafer Center for Women’s Studies, as well as the head of the Mayrock Center for Soviet and East European Research. She is a leader of Peace Now (the Israeli Peace Movement), Bat Shalom (of the Jerusalem Link, a Palestinian and Israeli Women’s Joint Venture for Peace), and the International Women’s Commission for a Just Peace. She also serves on the Council of Pugwash and on the editorial board of The Palestine-Israel Journal and is a member of the executive committee of Meretz (Social Democratic Party).