SOHAIL AKHTER, Board Secretary
Sohail Akhter is the founder of The Cordoba Foundation, a non-profit organization working to promote education about Islam and elderly care for Muslims in the San Francisco Bay Area. He attends South Valley Islamic Center in Gilroy, California where he served as president for two terms, leading numerous community service and interfaith events with both Jewish and Christian communities. Sohail has long been an activist for peacebuilding, community outreach and civil rights initiatives, participating regularly in interfaith dialogue and community outreach programs with organizations such as Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Islamic Networks Group (ING) and United Muslims of America Interfaith Alliance. Sohail has a degree in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and a 20-year professional career in Sales, Marketing and Corporate Development.

ROD CARDOZA, Founder and Executive Director
Rod Cardoza is a cultural, theological and linguistic anthropologist. He has published ethnographic research on Muslim ritual, and lectures internationally on Muslim-Christian dialogue. He studied Urdu language at Delhi University and Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi, India. He researched social stratification among Muslim communities in Ahmedabad, India; shamanism among Maguindanaon Muslims in rural Mindanao, Philippines; and Shi'ite mourning rituals in Gujarat, India. He worked closely with leading Muslim scholars from Delhi University and Hazrat Pir Mohammed Shah Research Centre in India to publish faith-based, peacebuilding Urdu texts which have proven instrumental in helping violent extremists pursue peace non-violently. More recently, he researched the role of Muslim cinematography in teaching Islamic knowledge in Egypt, where Rod lived with his family for two and one-half years while studying Arabic. Rod has lectured widely at universities, Bible colleges, and seminaries such as San Jose State University, Lewis & Clark College, American University DC, Biola University, Multnomah Bible College, and San Jose Bible College. Rod attends a Mennonite church in San Jose, California and is currently working on a forthcoming publication entitled, "New Paths in Muslim-Christian Dialog: Understanding Islam from the Light of Earliest Jewish Christianity," presented in Washington, DC at the Annual Conference on Muslim Peace, Justice and Interfaith Dialogue sponsored by Salam Institute for Peace and Justice, and Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

DR. ANN HOLMES REDDING
Dr. Ann Holmes Redding is the founder of Abrahamic Reunion West, a non-profit institute in Seattle committed to healing the global dysfunction of the Abrahamic family of faith. Ann holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Union Theological Seminary in New York. She served as an Episcopal priest for 25 years, and has been teaching theology at universities and seminaries since 1985, most recently as Visiting Assistant Professor at Seattle University School of Theology and Ministry where she taught courses on Synoptic Gospels, New Testament Introduction, Pauline Epistles, and Gospel of John. Ann was Assistant Professor at Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia where she taught Biblical Greek and Hebrew. She served as Associate Faculty of New York Theological Seminary where she taught courses in biblical hermeneutics, New Testament, Greek and Hebrew. Ann is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, and American Academy of Religion. Ann inherited a rich legacy in social justice from her father Louis L. Redding, Delaware's first African American lawyer who argued the historic Brown v. Board of Education case before the U.S. Supreme Court to dismantle racial segregation in the United States during the civil rights era. Ann continued her father's work with extensive activism in programs ending racism in the Episcopal church and elsewhere. Ann worships in Seattle at Al-Islam Center and at Episcopal churches, practicing both Islam and Christianity. Ann believes the two religions complement and illuminate each other. Reading the Qur'an through the lens of the Bible, and the Bible through the lens of the Qur'an, Ann embodies within herself a peaceful coexistence of Christianity and Islam. "Some people need single lenses," she says, "I need bifocals." Ann co-authored Out of Darkness, Into Light: Spiritual Guidance in the Quran with Reflections from Jewish and Christian Sources with Jamal Rahman and Kathleen Schmitt Elias. Ann is a frequent speaker at interfaith events, churches, spiritual retreats, colleges and seminaries.

DAVE WEISS, Board Treasurer
Dave Weiss is a retired executive with General Electric Nuclear Energy, where he worked for over 35 years in a variety of capacities including Senior Engineer, Engineering Manager, and Nuclear Fuel Project Manager. Dave managed $100 million contracts to produce fuel for nuclear power plants to create electricity. Dave earned his bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and his masters in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. For over thirty years, Dave has been serving his local community, building wheelchair ramps for the handicapped, and maintaining the homes of widows. Dave has also served internationally, travelling with church-sponsored building projects to Jamaica, Ecuador, San Salvador, Bolivia, France, and Ethiopia. Dave and his wife currently serve as a host family with the US-China Exchange Council for visiting government officials from China attending San Jose State University.

DR. JAMES M. FREEMAN
Dr. James Freeman is Emeritus Professor of Cultural Anthropology at San Jose State University. He holds a doctorate from Harvard University and is a former Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Dr. Freeman's rich academic career has advanced tikkun olam (repairing the world) with award-winning research on untouchability in India, and on Vietnamese refugees and immigrants in California. He is the author of numerous ethnographies including: Scarcity and Opportunity in an Indian Village; Untouchable: An Indian Life History, winner of the 1979 Choice Outstanding Academic Book; Hearts of Sorrow: Vietnamese-American Lives, winner of the 1990 American Book Award, Before Columbus Foundation, and the 1990 Outstanding Book Award, Association for Asian-American Studies; Changing Identities: Vietnamese Americans 1975-1995; and he co-authored Voices from the Camps: Vietnamese Children Seeking Asylum with Nguyen Dinh Huu. Dr. Freeman is also Co-founder and former Board Chair of both Friends of Hue Foundation and Aid to Children without Parents, charitable organizations providing assistance to children and families suffering from poverty in Vietnam.

DR. AARON HAHN TAPPER
Dr. Aaron Hahn Tapper is the Co-Executive Director and Founder of Abraham's Vision, a conflict transformation organization that explores group and individual identities through experiential and political educational programs that focus on the Jewish, Muslim, Israeli, and Palestinian communities. Aaron is currently an Assistant Professor in the Theology and Religious Studies Department of the University of San Francisco, holding the Swig Chair of Judaic Studies, and is the founding Director of the university's Jewish Studies and Social Justice program, the first academic program in the country formally linking these two fields. Prior to this appointment he was on the faculty of the Religious Studies Department at California State University, Northridge. He previously lived in the Middle East for five years—four years in Jerusalem and one year in Cairo—and has traveled extensively in Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon, and Syria. Aaron received a BA in Psychology from the Johns Hopkins University, a Master's degree from Harvard Divinity School, focusing on World Religions, and a PhD in Comparative Religions from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His doctoral dissertation, "From Gaza to the Golan: Religious Nonviolence, Power, and the Politics of Interpretation," explores the relationship between the socio-political context of Israel and Palestine, religious law, and power. His interdisciplinary research interests are comparative religions, the history of religions, the interplay between politics and religion, Judaism, Islam, nonviolence, and the relationship between power and religious authority. Aaron is also a Co-Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Center for Transformative Education.

DR. AMIR HUSSAIN
Dr. Amir Hussain, a Canadian Muslim, is Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University, the Jesuit university in Los Angeles. He specializes in the study of contemporary Muslim societies in North America, and comparative theology. He is deeply committed to his students, and holds the distinction of being the only male to serve as Dean of Women at University College, University of Toronto. In both 2008 and 2009, Amir was chosen by vote of LMU students as Professor of the Year. Amir is active in academic groups such as the Canadian Society for the Study of Religion and the American Academy of Religion, where he is co-chair of the Contemporary Islam group, and serves on the steering committee of the Religion in South Asia section. He is on the editorial boards of three scholarly journals: Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life; Comparative Islamic Studies; and the Journal of Religion, Conflict, and Peace. In 2008, he was appointed as a fellow of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities. Amir's latest book, Oil and Water: Two Faiths, One God, is an introduction to Islam for North Americans. Amir has been involved in interfaith work across North America for almost three decades, working primarily with Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities. He is a signatory of the award-winning and historic letter of peace from global Muslim leaders to Christian leaders everywhere in October 2007, A Common Word Among Us and You. Amir attends the Islamic Centre of Southern California. As a Muslim from a working class background, Amir is particularly interested in issues of social and economic justice.

DR. BRIAN D. McLAREN
Brian McLaren is an author, speaker, pastor, and networker among innovative Christian leaders, thinkers, and activists. Brian is a frequent guest on television, radio, and news media programs, such as Larry King Live, Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, and Nightline. His work has also been covered in TIME Magazine (where he was listed as one of America's 25 most influential evangelicals), Christianity Today, Christian Century, The Washington Post, and many other print media. He is the author of A New Kind of Christian; More Ready Than You Realize; The Church of the Other Side; Adventures in Missing the Point (with Tony Campolo); and Finding Faith. His book A Generous Orthodoxy has been called a manifesto of the emerging church conversation. He dedicated The Secret Message of Jesus "to all who work for peace among nations, races, classes, religions, and individuals, because these people are part of something bigger and more important than we fully understand." His more recent book Everything Must Change issues a call for radical hope amidst profound global dilemmas with communities based on justice, peace, equality and compassion. Brian is actively involved in Emergent Village, which aims to "join in the activity of God in the world... as God's dreams for our world come true." He is a former Board chair for Sojourners, an organization committed to articulating the biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church, and the world. He is a founding member of Red Letter Christians, and has also served on the boards of Mars Hill Graduate School, and Off The Map.

REV. JON TALBERT
Rev. Jon Talbert is the Pastor of Compassion at Westgate Church in Saratoga, California and founder of Beautiful Day, an outreach uniting churches across denominational lines under the banner of compassion to serve communities. Beautiful Day started as an idea to answer the question: If our church burned to the ground, would the community care? Convinced it would not, Jon mobilized his church in 2004 to serve the community through generosity, compassion and justice. Jon describes Beautiful Day as "Emptying Churches. Filling needs. Imagine... if we stopped being a church of 'come and see', but instead were told 'go and be' like Jesus in our city, modeled Christ-like humility to our neighbors, and asked for nothing in return?" Soon thereafter, he mobilized other churches, local businesses, government and educational institutions, and other groups willing to serve their communities. Beautiful Day has since mobilized thousands of volunteers from over 200 churches around the US to engage in innovative community service projects ranging from public school make-overs with Teacher Survival Kits, wheelchair ramp builds for the handicapped, home makeovers for the elderly, and HIV/AIDS care in partnership with The Living Center, The Health Trust, and AIDS Coalition Silicon Valley. In 2008, Beautiful Day was the single largest participating and funding team in AIDS Walk history. Beautiful Day recently integrated recycle and reuse efforts within faith-based communities through Expressions of Green initiatives. Jon also serves as Chaplain of the San Jose Earthquakes, a professional soccer team in San Jose, California. Jon is presently completing his doctorate at George Fox University in Emerging Culture Leadership.