Timothy Wyatt is an independent scholar with an interest in religious history.

Tsuneo Kawakami is Senior Researh Fellow at PHP Institute in Kyoto, Japan. Previously he was a staff writer at Nikkei, Inc. and a junior research fellow at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture. After receiving his M.A. in Sociology from the University of Essex in 2001, he completed his Ph. D. on Japanese new religious movements at Lancaster Unversity in 2008. He is currently interested in the religious aspects of Japanese business culture. His recent publication is Bijinesusho to Nihonjin (Business books and the Japanese, 2012, in Japanese).

At the time of writing, Venetia is a PhD candidate and Teaching Fellow in the Studies in Religion Department at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her thesis explores the interactions between other-than-human identity, spirituality, popular culture, and the Internet. She has published on a number of subcultures, including the Otherkin, the Therianthropy community, mermaid cosplayers, Soulbonders, and Bronies. She lectures on a variety of subjects, from fandom to ancient mythology, the history of monotheism, the ‘world religion’ paradigm, atheism and secularization, new religious movements, and the relationship of religion to new media. Currently, she is the Social Media Editor for the Religious Studies Project – http://www.religiousstudiesproject.com/.

Eric Pellish is a recent graduate of Case Western Reserve University with degrees in Religious Studies and Electrical Engineering. He wrote his honors undergraduate thesis on the intersection of biblical and constitutional hermeneutics, focusing on post World War II American political, cultural, and religious development and transformation. Eric is currently working for Accenture in their Systems Integration Consulting workforce.

Eugene V. Gallagher is the Rosemary Park Professor of Religious Studies at Connecticut College. He is a co-general editor of Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions and associate editor of Teaching Theology and Religion. He is the author of The New Religious Movements Experience in America (2004), co-author, with James D. Tabor, of Why Waco? Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America (1995), and co-editor, with W. Michael Ashcraft, of the five volumes of Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in the United States (2006).

Fabiola Lopez Chesnut, originally from Morelia, Mexico, teaches high school Spanish in Richmond and is also a photographer specializing in religious imagery from Latin America. Her photographic work appears in Andrew Chesnut, Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint (Oxford University Press, 2012) and in “Santa Muerte: Mexico’s Devotion to the Saint of Death” (Huffington Post, January 7, 2012).

G. William Barnard is a professor in the department of religious studies at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. Barnard received his PhD from the University of Chicago. He is the author of Living Consciousness: The Metaphysical Vision of Henri Bergson (State University of New York Press, 2011) and Exploring Unseen Worlds: William James and the Philosophy of Mysticism (State University of New York Press, 1997); and is coeditor of Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism (Seven Bridges Press, 2002). He is also the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters that primarily focus on the philosophical and psychological implications of nonordinary states of consciousness. He is currently working on a monograph of the Santo Daime religious tradition.

GARY SHEPHERD AND GORDON SHEPHERD

Gary Shepherd is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Oakland University (Michigan), where he taught courses in research methods, social psychology, social theory and the sociology of religion.

Gordon Shepherd is Professor of Sociology at the University of Central Arkansas. where he teaches courses in statistics, social movements, social theory and the sociology of religion.

Together, the Shepherds have co-authored four books and numerous scholarly articles on both The Family International and Mormonism. Their books include A Kingdom Transformed: Themes in the Development of Mormonism (1984), Mormon Passage: a Missionary Chronicle (1998), Talking with the Children of God: Prophecy and Transformation in a Radical Religious Group (2010) and Binding Earth and Heaven: Patriarchal Blessings in the Prophetic Development of Early Mormonism (2012).

George D. Chryssides is Honorary Research Fellow in Contemporary Religion at the University of Birmingham, England, and was Head of Religious Studies at the University of Wolverhampton until 2008. He has published extensively, principally on new religious movements, and his edited anthology Heaven’s Gate: Postmodernity and Popular Culture in a Suicide Group was published by Ashgate in 2011.

Grace Yukich is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Quinnipiac University. Her research, writing, and teaching explore questions about how immigration is changing the relationship between religion and politics in the United States. Her first book, One Family Under God: Immigration Politics and Progressive Religion in America, was published in 2013 with Oxford University Press. Her work has also appeared in journals like Social Problems, Sociology of Religion, and Mobilization as well as in edited volumes like Sanctuary Practices in International Perspectives. In addition to her more traditional publications, her writing has appeared at The Immanent Frame, a blog on secularism, religion, and the public sphere, where she is a contributing editor. She is also editor-in-chief of Mobilizing Ideas, a blog publishing conversations between social movement scholars and activists. Her current research examines how social change efforts in Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim communities in the U.S. are challenging conventional wisdom about how and why Americans engage in religious activism, particularly exploring how transnational connections shape religious activism.