Masoumeh Rahmani is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies from University of Otago, New Zealand. She received her B. A. (Hons) in Study of Religions from Bath Spa University, UK. Her current research is focused on disaffiliation patterns from Goenka’s vipassana movement.
Massimo Introvigne, a law and philosophy graduate, is the managing director of CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religions, in Torino, Italy. He is the author or editor of some seventy books on new religious movements, Western esotericism, and religious pluralism in English, Italian, French, and other languages, including The Plymouth Brethren (2018) and Inside The Church of Almighty God: The Most Persecuted Religious Movement in China (2020), both published by Oxford University Press, and the monumental Satanism: A Social History, published by Brill in 2016. In 2011, he served as the representative of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) for combating racism, xenophobia, and intolerance and discrimination against Christians and members of other religions. From 2012 to 2015, he was the chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 2018, he is the editor-in-chief of the daily magazine on religious liberty in China and other countries Bitter Winter.
McKenzie Upoff served as a Research Assistant for the World Religions and Spirituality Project, 2016.
Adil Hussain Khan is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at Loyola University New Orleans. He holds a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He is the author of From Sufism to Ahmadiyya: A Muslim Minority Movement in South Asia with Indiana University Press. His research interests include sectarianism, orthodoxy, and Muslim identity. He is also interested in questions of authority and aspects of Islam’s intellectual tradition.
Alberto López Pulido grew up along la frontera of San Diego-Tijuana where he learned a great deal about culture and tradition in a bicultural, bilingual and binational world. His greatest influences in life has been his mother and grandfather who taught him the deep values of holistic education through their modeling and consejos of becoming gente educada and believing in the value of amor al prójimo. Alberto is a proud graduate of the University of Notre Dame’s Mexican American Graduate Studies Program that was established by Professor Julian Samora. Alberto has numerous publications in the area of Chicano Religions, Higher Education and Border Studies. His first book was a revisionist history of Los Hermanos Penitentes of New Mexico entitled: The Sacred World of the Penitentes and speaks of their values and legacy as a living sacred community in the history of the American Southwest. His second book entitled: Moving Beyond Borders is an edited volume that examines the intellectual life of Julian Samora and his impact on Chicano Studies. It speaks to the history of Chicano Studies in higher education and to the strategies and challenges of an intellectual pioneer and first Chicano Sociologist in the nation.
Alberto is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker with his directorial debut of Everything Comes From the Streets – A History of Lowriding in San Diego California and the borderlands. Everything Comes From the Streets was awarded First place @ the Barrio Film Festival and a distinguished Remi Award @ WorldFest: Houston International Film Festival. The documentary also premiered @ Cine+Mas Film Festival in San Francisco, CineFestival, San Antonio; Watsonville Film Festival ; and Ethnografilm International Film Festival, Paris, France. It secured two television Broadcasts: KPBS, San Diego, and KQED “Truly California” Series– San Francisco. Alberto has come to recognize the inherent value of contemplative practices within an ethnic studies pedagogy that empower the stories and lives of students of color in higher education along with the knowledge and truths that arise from the community from where these students come from. He continues to present and publish on this critical topic.
Alberto is currently working on a book and related articles that examine the evolution of community knowledge and expressions as a form of preservation and resistance in the history of Chicano Park in the historic barrio of Logan Heights. He is founding chair of the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of San Diego.
Alexis Liverman served as a Research Assistant for the World Religions and Spirituality Project, 2012-2013.
Amanda Telefsen is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University. She served as a Research Associate for the World Religions and Spirituality Project in 2011-2012. She is co author of several WRSP profiles.
Ann Gleig is assistant professor of religion and cultural studies at the University of Central Florida. Her research area is Asian Religions in America. She is co-editor with Lola Williamson of Homegrown Gurus: From Hinduism in America to American Hinduism (SUNY: 2013) and has published a number of book chapters and journal articles on Buddhism and Hinduism in the West. She is currently working on a monograph on North American Buddhism in postmodernity.
Ariel Chambers served as a Research Assistant for the World Religions and Spirituality Project, 2013-2014. She is co-author of the Holy Land profile.
Armand L. Mauss is professor emeritus of sociology and religious studies, Washington State University, and, more recently, visiting scholar in the Department of Religion at the Claremont Graduate University. He is author or editor of several books, including the monographs The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation (1994) and All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (2003), both published by the University of Illinois Press.