The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a global humanitarian aid, relief, and development nongovernmental organization. Founded in 1933 as the International Relief Association, at the request of Albert Einstein, and changing its name in 1942 after amalgamating with the similar Emergency Rescue Committee, the IRC provides emergency aid and long-term assistance to refugees and those displaced by war, persecution, or natural disaster. The IRC is currently working in about 40 countries and 26 U.S. cities where it resettles refugees and helps them become self-sufficient. It focuses mainly on health, education, economic wellbeing, power, and safety.
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (UTS) is a private ecumenical Christian liberal seminary in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, affiliated in Columbia University. Since 1928, the seminary has served as Columbia's constituent faculty of theology. In 1964, UTS also established an affiliation with the neighboring Jewish Theological Seminary of America. UTS confers the following degrees: Master of Divinity (MDiv), Master of Divinity & Social Work dual degree (MDSW), Master of Arts in religion (MAR), Master of Arts in Social Justice (MASJ), Master of Sacred Theology (STM), Doctor of Ministry (DMin), and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).
Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the academic study of religion or for leadership roles in religion, government, and service. It also caters to students from other Harvard schools that are interested in the former field. HDS is among a small group of university-based, non-denominational divinity schools in the United States.
John Harwood Hick was a philosopher of religion and theologian born in England who taught in the United States for the larger part of his career. In philosophical theology, he made contributions in the areas of theodicy, eschatology, and Christology, and in the philosophy of religion he contributed to the areas of epistemology of religion and religious pluralism.
Diana L. Eck is a scholar of religious studies who is Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies at Harvard University, as well as a former faculty dean of Lowell House and the Director of The Pluralism Project at Harvard. Among other works, she is the author of Banaras, City of Light, Darshan: Seeing the Divine Image in India, Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras, A New Religious America: How a Christian Country Became the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation, and "India: A Sacred Geography." At Harvard, she is in the Department of South Asian Studies, the Committee on the Study of Religion, and is also a member of the Faculty of Divinity. She has been the chair for the Committee on the Study of Religion. She also served on the Humanities jury for the Infosys Prize in 2019.
Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
Ronald Frank Thiemann was an American political theologian and Benjamin Bussey Professor of Theology at Harvard Divinity School. His research in large part focused on the role of religion in public life. He was dean of Harvard Divinity School from 1986 to 1998.
Michael Welker is a German Protestant theologian and a senior professor of Systematic Theology (Dogmatics).
Jacob Kehinde Olupona is a Nigerian-born American professor, writer, and scholar of religious studies. He is a professor of African Religious Traditions at the Harvard Divinity School with a joint appointment as Professor of African and African American Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. Olupona was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in April 2023.
Christian Konrad Wedemeyer is an American scholar and political and social activist.
David Wright Miliband is the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the International Rescue Committee and a British Labour Party former politician. He was the Foreign Secretary from 2007 to 2010 and the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Shields in North East England from 2001 to 2013. He and his brother, Ed, were the first siblings to sit in the Cabinet simultaneously since Lord Edward and Oliver Stanley in 1938. He was a candidate for Labour Party leadership in 2010, following the departure of Gordon Brown, but was defeated by his brother and subsequently left politics.
Roger Haight is an American Jesuit theologian and former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. He is regarded as a knowledgeable and pioneering theologian, whose experiences with censorship have led to widespread debate over how to handle controversial ideas in the Catholic church today.
Daniel Keauhou Matsu Yamashiro, also known as D. K. M. Yamashiro, is an American clergyman, author, radio and podcast host, researcher, Christian media personality, and a chaplain at MIT who survived a 400-foot (120-meter) fall from the ridge of the Nuʻuanu Pali in Honolulu, Hawaii, at 18. He is the first researcher to present aggregate data on childhood trauma as it relates to American presidents. Yamashiro also produced the first comprehensive study on American presidents that investigates the influence of religious development from a lens of trauma.
Christian fascism is a far-right political ideology that denotes an intersection between fascism and Christianity. It is sometimes referred to as "Christofascism", a neologism which was coined in 1970 by the liberation theologian Dorothee Sölle.
Joseph Mitsuo Kitagawa was an eminent Japanese American scholar in religious studies. He was professor emeritus and dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is considered one of the founders of the field of the history of religions. He is particularly known for his outstanding contributions to the study of religious traditions in Asia and intercultural understanding of the East and the West.
William Albert Graham Jr. is an American scholar of Islamic studies and the history of religion, the Murray A. Albertson Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, emeritus, and University Distinguished Service Professor, emeritus, at Harvard University.
Arthur Darby Nock was an English classicist and theologian, regarded as a leading scholar in the history of religion. He was a professor at Harvard University from 1930 until his death.
Daniel L. Overmyer was a Canadian historian of religion and academic who was Professor Emeritus in the Department of Asian Studies and the Centre for Chinese Research at the University of British Columbia. Overmyer was a pioneer in the study of Chinese popular thought, religion, and culture; popular religious sects of the late traditional and modern periods and their texts; and local rituals and beliefs practiced in villages, especially North China.
Aaron S. Gross is an American historian of religions who focuses on modern Jewish ethics, the study of animals and religion, and food and religion. He serves as a professor of theology and religious studies at the University of San Diego. He has served as cochair of the American Academy of Religion's Animals and Religion group and as president of the Society of Jewish Ethics.
Marla Faye Frederick is an American ethnographer and scholar, with a focus on the African American religious experience. Her work addresses a range of topics including race, gender, religion and media studies. She became the eighteenth Dean of Harvard Divinity School on January 1, 2024.
