Suraj Arshanapally, MPH, is an Indian-American storyteller and public health advocate. He started The Multicultural Man to celebrate cultural diversity and healthy masculinity through storytelling. He is also the Managing Editor for the CDC Yellow Book, an international travel medicine publication at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Suraj received his MPH in Social and Behavioral Sciences from Yale University. He believes multiculturalism and interfaith cooperation are crucial to building a healthy and peaceful society.
Chris Alexander
Chris Alexander holds a Doctor of Ministry in the area of congregational leadership and mission and is ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She was called to serve as the Associate Minister and Director of Center for Faith Studies at Countryside Community Church in Omaha NE in December of 2010. Chris lives in Omaha with her husband, Rev. Dr. Scott Frederickson, their two daughters Rachel and Maddy, and one grandson, Asher. Chris enjoys the conversation between the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam because it is rich in history, tradition, imagination and great respect.
Carrie Sue Ayvar
Carrie Sue Ayvar is a third generation, award winning, bilingual storyteller. Blending traditional, international & personal tales, Carrie Sue Ayvar takes her listeners on a journey into the imagination connecting people, languages and cultures through her stories that often flow effortlessly between Spanish and English. A Chautauqua Scholar and historic portrayal artist, she shares stories of women who have made a difference, built communities, and opened minds and opportunities. A recipient of a Scholar/Humanist Fellowship from the Florida Humanities Council, the National Storytelling Network’s Oracle Award for Service and Leadership, as well as the Chuck Larkin Distinguished Service Award from the Florida Storytelling Association, Carrie Sue has also been has been recognized for Teaching Artistry excellence with the “Sun Award” for Advancing Teaching and Learning Through the Arts - Arts4Learning/Miami and the Broward County Teaching Artist Recognition Award.
Swami Atmarupananda
Swami Atmarupananda, born in the U.S.A., discovered the Vedanta tradition of Hinduism as a teenager and developed what has become a lifelong fascination and dedication. He joined the Ramakrishna Order of India as a monk in 1969 in Chicago and subsequently spent many years in India engaged in monastic, scholarly, and spiritual training. For many years he has travelled widely in the world, giving lectures and retreats, speaking at conferences dedicated to finding a spiritual foundation for civilization, and participating in interspiritual dialog.
Currently he resides at the world headquarters of the Ramakrishna Order outside of Kolkata, India where he has been charged with bringing out a revised edition of the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda in ten volumes.
Noorjehan Asim
Noorjehan Asim is in the 12th grade at Lahore Grammar School in Defence, Pakistan. Her hobbies include debating and reading. She is particularly interested in anything related to film, music, and literature, especially Greek mythology.
Anashwara Ashok
Anashwara Ashok holds a BA (H) in Political Science from University of Delhi and Masters in Diplomacy, Law and Business from OP Jindal Global University. She has previously interned at Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, United Religions Initiative and MitKat. She has also attended Identity-based Conflict Resolution and Management at Bar-Ilan University, Israel.
Anna Arphan
Anna Arphan is a Las Vegas based freelance graphic designer who works with local businesses and organizations to create designs for print and the web. She created marketing collateral for the Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada and continues to provide them with design support. Anna subsequently developed The Interfaith Observer’s logo and website and was TIO’s digital translator, getting the words and images onto our screens. She previously worked out of Chicago where she graduated from DePaul University with an M.S. in Computer Graphics.
Hafsa Arain
Hafsa Arain is a Muslim interfaith activist, creative nonfiction writer, and Ph.D. student at Boston University. her research is focused on activism, religion, and youth culture in urban Pakistan, focusing primarily on women’s activist movements. Looking both at shifting legal and cultural norms relating to marriage and women’s access to public space, her research addresses how emerging forms of feminist activism in Pakistan reflect its postcolonial class stratification and concentrates on changing gender norms and ideals.
Prior to beginning a PhD at Boston University, Hafsa worked in student services and chaplaincy at Claremont School of Theology in California, where she also received her MA in Islamic Studies and Religious Leadership in 2014. Her master’s thesis focused on the growing presence of multinational corporations in Karachi, Pakistan, and how they have affected young women’s job possibilities, attitudes towards dating, marriage, and religion, and educational aspirations in Pakistan’s largest city. Hafsa also holds a BA in English literature and religious studies from DePaul University in Chicago.
Miriam Aniel
Miriam Aniel was born in Los Angeles, CA and raised in Charlotte, NC. She currently lives in Richmond, Virginia. A 2015 graduate of Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary, Miriam lived in New York City for four years before moving to Rishon LeTzion, Israel to serve under-resourced communities. Her appreciation of diverse spaces and places, her commitment to empathy, and her love of design have given her a unique voice and lived experience.
Seyyedeh Dr. Nahid Angha
Seyyedeh Dr. Nahid Angha is co-founder and co-director of the International Association of Sufism (IAS). She is executive editor of the quarterly journal Sufism: An Inquiry and founder of the International Sufi Women Organization. Dr. Angha is the IAS representative to the United Nations (NGO/DPI) and the first Muslim woman inducted to the Marin Women’s Hall of Fame. She is daughter of Moulana Shah Maghsoud, the twentieth-century Persian Sufi of the Uwaiysi School of Sufism, and the first woman appointed to teach in her father’s school. She was also the first woman to sit at the center circle with Muslim leaders from around the world to lead meditation at the international Sufism Symposium. Dr. Angha is widely published as a scholar, teacher, poet, and translator. Throughout this activity she has been an active leader in interfaith activities in local, national, and global arenas.
Paul Andrews
Paul Andrews was on the founding staff of the United Religions Initiative. He managed operations for URI’s first three Global Summit Conferences and helped organize URI’s 72 Hours project – 300 simultaneous local initiatives in 68 countries during the Millennium Weekend, December 30th, 1999 through January 1st, 2000.
During that time he also was the Executive Producer of Improbable Pairs, two short documentaries about pairs of people who made peace in the face of extraordinary odds. These two films, now up on You Tube (“Improbable Pairs”), have been used to trigger deep conversations about reconciliation in a wide variety of settings: in prisons – between the widows of Nepali police officers and the widows of Maoist fighters in Nepal – and by the United Nations at gatherings for child soldiers.
Paul was also the founding director of Slavyanka Russian Chorus. Founded during the latter part of the Cold War, the Chorus has been active in numerous American-Russian cross-cultural initiatives and has toured Russia and Eastern Europe five times as goodwill ambassadors.
Megan Anderson
Megan Anderson is TIO's webmaster and associate editor. She has a B.A. in mathematics and theology from the College of Saint Benedict/St. John's University where she completed an honors thesis titled “Interfaith Youth Core: Theology and Religious Commitment in One of America’s Most Prominent Youth Interfaith Organizations,” and an M.A. in Religion, Society, and Social Change from Claremont School of theology.
She is interested in the intersection of religion, social factors, justice, and the environment and how these impact efforts to promote sustainable behavior and the creation of an ecological civilization.
In addition to her work at TIO, Megan is the communications manger for The Institute for Ecological Civilization (EcoCiv) and the executive assistant at CHERP, an organization focused on carbon mitigation, environmental justice, community health, and regenerative local economies, through the deployment of solar panels to low- and middle-income households for little to no cost using a nonprofit model.
Ariella Amit
Ariella Amit is a Jewish high school senior from Los Angeles. She is the president of the Interfaith Youth Council of Los Angeles County and co-founded the Interfaith Club at her high school. She is involved in her school’s golf team, Gay Straight Alliance, and homeroom leader program, which helps incoming 6th graders adjust to middle school social and academic life. Her interests include political science, American history, social justice, and ethics. She also has a deep interest for learning languages and is currently taking Hebrew and Spanish literature courses. Ariella has a passion for Tikkun Olam, that is, repairing the world, in Hebrew, and has volunteered with her interfaith council at the Union Rescue Mission to help homeless individuals and families in Skid Row.
Sahar Alsahlani
Sahar Alsahlani is an interfaith peace activist with a background in television and radio broadcast media and entertainment. Amplifying the voices, and sharing the stories of, individuals and communities who champion for justice inspired by their moral or religious convictions is her passion. This Iraqi-American Muslim has always been active in pursuing the studies and correlations of communications as it relates to engagement in faith-based advocacy, inter-religious dialogue, peace-building, and the theory and practice of nonviolence.
Along with serving on the board of the North American Interfaith Network, Sahar is a member of the Executive Council of Religions for Peace, USA; the Board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-NY; and has contributed to the faith-based outreach of the revived Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Sahar is a Fellow at GreenFaith, and serves on the Steering Committee for the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate Change, both interfaith organizations dedicated to climate justice. Sahar has also served as a former Co-Chair of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, USA.Sahar is currently part of an international multifaith community, the Community of Living Traditions, which is geared towards the study of, practice and principles of peace building and nonviolence.
Sam Allen
Sam Allen (they/them pronouns) is a former seminary student who was been called by the Sacred when they were five years old. At that tender age, they remember praying on their knees to God. Sam's works have also been published by their local newspaper's weekly and Sam performs autobiographical pieces in their community. They live with their cat in their beloved hometown of Stockton, California. You can access Sam's portfolio at theprose.com under the author name Samal230.
Salma Albezreh
Salma Albezreh is a 16 year old sophomore who practices the Islamic faith and attends Butler High School In Vandalia, Ohio. She is a writer of spoken word poetry and loves history class and soccer. Salma is a board member of the Interfaith Forum of Greater Dayton and a board member of the Dayton International Peace Museum. She is also very active in her Muslim community, acting as a youth leader at Dayton Mercy Society. In addition, Salma is an original member of Faith In Us, an interfaith youth group focused on promoting tolerance through art.
Stephen Albert
Stephen Albert is a New Thought minister with an Interfaith Credential. He is a founding member of the Poway Interfaith team and its 2006 & 2012 president. Dr. Steve teaches Comparative Religion classes at the University of Phoenix and is the author of 14 books including: The Interfaith Manual, The Interfaith Workbook and REBOOT To Peace. He holds degrees from Penn State University, Drexel University, University of Colorado and a doctorate in Religious Studies from Emerson Institute. He and his wife Abigale planned and hosted the North American Interfaith Network’s 2017 Connect in San Diego.
Steve is a stroke and open-heart surgery survivor. During his recovery in early 2012, he created the concept of and the PowerPoint presentation for ‘New Thought Day,’ which has now become the first yearly holiday to bring together all New Thought organizations in the world.
Abdul Rahim Al-Uji
Abdul Rahim Al-Uji is a writer, actor, and storyteller. He recently became famous after participating in the political satire program “Al-Chinn” on the Lebanese channel “Al-Jadid.”
Usaama al-Azami
Usaama al-Azami read his BA in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Oxford University, and his MA and PhD in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. He came to Islamic studies after a gap year studying Arabic and Islamic studies convinced him to turn down an offer to study medicine at Imperial College London. During his undergraduate career, he also pursued Islamic studies in seminarial contexts alongside his academic studies, covering much of what would be studied in the advanced years of an Indian madrasa curriculum. He has travelled extensively throughout the Middle East, living for five years in the region. He is also an enthusiastic teacher who is very eager to support the formation of research scholars.
Born and raised in the U.K., he began seriously studying Islam in 2002. He has studied with Muslim scholars and theologians in seminary contexts in the Middle East and Europe. His teachers have included Shaykh Mohammad Akram Nadwi, Professor Yahya Michot, Professor Tariq Ramadan, and Shaykh Muhammad Yaqoubi. He was a founding member of the Oxford University Muslim-Jewish dialogue group, MuJewz, and is a regular participant in Princeton’s Muslim-Christian dialogue. He maintains an occasional blog on The Huffington Post focusing on topics relating to religion.
Marites Guingona Africa
In 1998, Marites Guingona Africa was inspired by the United Religions Initiative vision of a better world where people of diverse cultures and beliefs could come together to a common ground to engage in various forms of dialogue in the spirit of mutual respect, understanding and cooperation. In 2000, she and her interfaith friends established the Peacemakers’ Circle Foundation, Inc. in Metro Manila and engaged in the endeavor of building respectful relationships among peoples of diverse cultures and beliefs through various forms of dialogue. They were one of the many founding URI cooperation circles during its Charter signing in June 2000. In 2003, our Peacemakers’ Circle CC began to reach out to grassroots communities in Metro Manila where Muslims and Christians lived together as neighbors. Today, their peace and relationship-building work has deepened and expanded to include training Muslim, Christian and indigenous leaders from the conflict-affected communities in the war-torn southern Philippine region of Mindanao.