Nina Rao first learned sacred chants as a young girl from her grandfather in south India, and the chants stayed quietly with her until she rediscovered this powerful practice with Krishna Das in New York in 1996. Since then she has been KD’s business manager and accompanies him musically. In 1998 she met her guru, Sri Siddhi Ma, in the foothills of the Himalayas and spent time with her regularly for 19 years, while Ma was in the body. 

Nina has been chanting regularly as her main practice, has recorded albums that are widely streamed and played around the world, leads chant events, studies and shares Veda chanting and spiritual texts, is a hospice volunteer, is a podcast host for Be Here Now Network, goes on yatra (pilgrimage), and is a wildlife conservationist as chairperson for Saving Wild Tigers, and hopes that everyone will make a Homegrown National Park in their home by planting native species. Nina has previously released two solo albums ‘Antaryaami’ and ‘Anubhav’, and along with the 21 Taras Collective Mantra Mala Vol. 1in 2025. She is releasing her much-anticipated third album ‘Bhumi Devi’ in 2026. Nina co-hosted and released along with 10 women wisdom leaders, the audio course and program “Sita’s Gems”, lifting Sita Devi from victim to heroine of the Ramayana.

Dr. Damon T. Berry’s research focuses on the imbrication of religious and racialized discourses that shape and inform ideologies and practices of exclusion and violence. He has published in several venues on topics such as religion and violence and the history of racist movements. He has written three monographs: Blood and Faith: Christianity in American White Nationalism, Christianity & The Alt-Right: Exploring the Relationship, and most recently, The New Apostolic Reformation, Trump, and Evangelical Politics.

An entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist, Adam Weissman was the co-founder and CTO of Applied Semantics, a software company that was acquired by Google in 2003. His interest in AI extends from his early career in computer games, to his role as an investor, and to his recent research into biologically-inspired approaches. He believes the development of machine intelligence should be matched by development of machine compassion.

His family foundation supports contemplative science, human rights, social entrepreneurship, and education. He is currently writing about the intersection of his passions for meditation, neuroscience, and AI. Adam received his BS in Physics from Caltech.

Denise Lee is a Grants and Research Coordinator with extensive experience in grants management, capacity-building, and public policy. She has worked across government, nonprofit, and consulting environments, including senior grants and program management roles, where she supported complex funding portfolios and strengthened organizational capacity. Denise brings an international perspective shaped by her educational background including study abroad at Universidad del Salvador and a longstanding commitment to public service rooted in policy, equity, and community impact. She also values mindfulness and intentional reflection as essential to sustainable leadership, effective public service, and a life well-enjoyed.

Panu Pihkala is an adjunct professor (Title of Docent) of environmental theology at the Faculty of Theology in the University of Helsinki, Finland. Pihkala is the leading Finnish scholar in eco-anxiety research, and he is known internationally as an expert in interdisciplinary eco-emotion studies. Many of his research articles from the 2020s have over 40,000 views and several hundred citations each. Pihkala has published two books in Finnish about eco-emotions and he was awarded several prizes for them, including the National Prize for Adult Education (Sivistyspalkinto) in 2018 by The Finnish Lifelong Learning Foundation (Kansanvalistusseura) and a national environmental education award in 2019 by FEE. Pihkala’s dissertation from 2014 focused on Religion and Ecology, and he has worked on the intersections of spirituality and environmental matters. Pihkala is a sought-after keynote speaker and often gives interviews to various media. He serves as an advisor in many projects, including the Finnish national eco-anxiety project for social and health sectors (2020-) and Climate Mental Health Network, with whom he worked on the popular Climate Emotions Wheel. Pihkala hosts the international podcast Climate Change and Happiness together with leading environmental psychologist Dr. Thomas Dopanuherty (climatechangeandhappiness.com). He lives in Helsinki with his family.

(photo courtesy Uzi Varon / Kirjapaja)

Lucy Christine Schultz is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of Environmental Studies at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Oregon and an MA in Philosophy and the Arts from SUNY Stony Brook. Her research revolves around questions pertaining to dialectic, philosophy of nature and environment, and the genesis of art as they are developed within the traditions of German idealism, phenomenology, and modern Japanese philosophy. She is currently working on projects drawing out the philosophical resources within these traditions for thinking through and addressing the challenges presented by climate change. Her work has appeared in journals such as Philosophy East and West, Environmental Philosophy, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, and Hegel Bulletin, and she is co-editor of Tetsugaku Companion to Nishida Kitarō (Springer Nature, 2022). Beyond the academy, Schultz serves the Chattanooga community through volunteer work at several community gardens, urban farms, and non-profit organizations whose missions relate to climate resilience and food security.

Paula Arai (Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies, Harvard University) holds the Eshinni & Kakushinni Chair of Women and Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, California. She is author of Women Living Zen, Bringing Zen Home, Painting Enlightenment: Healing Visions of the Heart Sutra, and The Little Book of Zen Healing: Japanese Rituals for Beauty, Harmony, and Love. She also co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Practice. Her current book project is supported by the Lenz Foundation: Of Mud and Lotuses: Stories of Women Liberating Dharma. Arai has received generous support for her pursuits, including from Fulbright, American Council of Learned Societies, the Mellon Foundation, and the Reischauer Institute of Harvard University. She has curated exhibits of a Japanese scientist’s Heart Sutra paintings at a number of venues around the US. Steeped in ethnographic research, she takes an embodied approach to her work and finds poetic immersive storytelling a potent medium for conveying the experiences of transformative healing she researches. An active public speaker, Arai also leads workshops on healing rituals.

Johanna Ray Vollhardt is a professor at Clark University, where she also directs the Peace and Conflict Studies program. She received her Ph.D. in Social Psychology with a concentration in the Psychology of Peace of Violence from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She served as Vice President of the International Society for Political Psychology and is a co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Social and Political Psychology. Her research focuses on how people make sense of, respond to, and resist against collective victimization.

Learn more about Johanna here.