Dr. Bonnie Anderson is president of the 800+ member of the Episcopal Church’s House of Deputies, composed of elected clergy and laity from the 109 dioceses of the Episcopal Church. Some of the duties of the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops are to set policy, program direction, priorities and budget for the Episcopal Church when they meet together every three years for bicameral decision making. Dr. Anderson is a known leader and advocate for the MDGs. She was a participant in “Toward Effective Anglican Mission” in Boksburg, South Africa. She initiated, organized and implemented a “Mutual Responsibility in Mission” conference in Costa Rica last year, bringing together 8 provinces of the Anglican Communion around the achievement of the MDGs.

The Rev. Devon Anderson is executive director of Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation, the national MDG advocacy group for the Episcopal Church.

Mr. Alex Baumgarten, director of government relations for the Episcopal Church, leads the international policy and advocacy of the Episcopal Church. His lobbying portfolio includes global poverty and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), HIV-AIDS and malaria, trade, debt cancellation, Africa policy, and regional conflict. Alex is the co-author of God’s Mission in the World: An Ecumenical Study Guide on Global Poverty and the Millennium Development Goals, and leads the staff team at the Episcopal Church Center that advises the Presiding Bishop on global-poverty issues. He also serves, by appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as the U.S. representative on the Anglican Communion’s Poverty and Trade Task Force. Alex sits on the Boards of Directors for Jubilee USA and the Washington Office on Africa (WOA). He is vice chairman of the WOA board. Prior to joining the staff of the church in the spring of 2004, Alex served as a lobbyist in Washington’s nonprofit community in the areas of health policy and civil liberties, and worked as a strategist on federal and state campaigns. He is a graduate of American University and lives in Washington, DC, where he is a member of St. Paul’s Parish, K Street.

Ms. Jessica Beckerman is the co-executive director and founder of Project Muso, an organization working to improve community health in Mali by enabling women to fight poverty. She was a Fulbright Scholar to Mali. She graduated in 2006 from Brown University, where she was a National Scholar. At Brown, she studied international development and public health, and her honors thesis examined a Human Rights–Based Approach to Development. Jessica has worked in West Africa with several organizations including the groundbreaking NGO Tostan. She was selected as one of 20 Goldman Sachs Global Leaders from the United States and Canada in 2004. Jessica’s role with Project Muso involves developing, revising, and planning programs, evaluating the impact of our work, fundraising, and providing technical support to our opperational team, ADS-ML.

Rabbi Mark Diamond is Executive Vice President of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California. In that position, he directs a multi-denominational organization of 320 rabbis, and serves on the senior management team of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. Prior to assuming this position in August 2000, Rabbi Diamond served as rabbi of congregations in metropolitan San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York. He founded and coordinated "Ask a Rabbi," an acclaimed cyberspace forum answering online questions. As the Board's Executive Vice President, Rabbi Diamond has created innovative programs for colleagues and the community, including Lilmod Ve'la'asot (professional growth and development workshops for rabbis), Torah Lishmah seminars with master text teachers, and the Critical Issues Series featuring experts in the religious, educational and political spheres. The rabbi is quoted frequently in local and national media and is a leader in collaborative interfaith projects, including partnerships with Fuller Theological Seminary, Pepperdine University, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, United Methodist Church, Abrahamic Faith-Based Reconciliation Project, World Vision International, and other faith communities and organizations.

Rabbi Diamond is a past chairman of the Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders, and led the Council's February 2005 interfaith trip to Israel. He headed an interreligious delegation of 23 Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders on a January 2008 mission to the Vatican, Rome and Israel, highlighted by an audience with Pope Benedict XVI. Later that year he created the Jewish Federation's Interreligious Action Center to promote Israel education and awareness in non-Jewish faith communities. The rabbi is a past president of the East Bay Council of Rabbis. He received his Master of Arts degree in Jewish studies and rabbinical ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York.

Ms. Maha ElGenaidi is founder, president and CEO of the Islamic Networks Group. She has spoken to hundreds of schools, churches, synagogues, police departments, corporations and other public agencies. She has appeared on numerous television and radio programs and is the author of seven training handbooks on outreach for American Muslims as well as eight training modules for public institutions on “developing cultural competency with the American Muslim community.” Maha is active with many state and federal government agencies and was a former commissioner on Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante’s Commission for One California. She currently serves on the California Three Rs Advisory Committee, Santa Clara County Human Relations Commission and is an advisor to California’s Commission on Police Officers Standards and Training (POST) for cultural diversity and hate crime prevention. Maha has been recognized with numerous civil rights awards, including the “Civil Rights Leadership Award” from the California Association of Human Relations Organizations, and the “Citizen of the Year Award” from the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. She received her B.A. in Political Science and Economics from the American University in Cairo. Maha is married and lives in Santa Clara, California.

Mr. David Gist has served since 2001 as California regional organizer for Bread for the World, a collective Christian organization urging our nation’s decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad.  In that role, he mobilizes California faith communities to advocate around hunger and poverty.  Prior to joining Bread, he worked for the UCLA Oral History program, earned a master's degree in U.S. history (specializing in political reform), and worked six years for a Nicaraguan relief and development agency based in Managua.

Mr. Peter Lemieux is a social documentary photographer based in San Francisco, California. His work aims to provide awareness to important social issues of our times. His clients are non-governmental agencies, universities and publications concerned with social justice, global poverty and international health. He began his career in the field of international medical relief and development, when he managed the humanitarian agency VIDA. A graduate of Duke University and the University of California Haas School of Business, Lemieux is a recipient of the Dorothea Lange Fellowship for outstanding work in documentary photographer. His exhibition 'WHO KNOWS TOMORROW?' - currently on display at the World Affairs Council in San Francisco, through April 27, 2010 - spotlights the everyday realities of bare-knuckle poverty as seens through the lens of the international healthcare works of the Daughters of Charity. To learn more about his work, please visit http://peterlemieux.com.

Dr. Ian Linden is director of the Faiths Act Program at the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and an associate professor in the study of religion at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Author of seven books on Africa, religion and international affairs, he was formerly director of the respected Catholic Institute for International Relations for 15 years. He is an adviser to the Bishops Conference of England and Wales and for the Christian-Muslim Forum of the UK on international affairs and was awarded a CMG for his work on human rights in 2000.

Ms. Katherine Marshall has worked for over three decades on international development with a focus on issues facing the world’s poorest countries. She is a senior fellow at Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs and visiting professor. She is also a senior advisor for the World Bank. Her long career with the World Bank (1971–2006) involved a wide range of leadership assignments, many focused on Africa. From 2000 to 2006 her mandate covered ethics, values, and faith in development work as counselor to the World Bank’s president. She served earlier as country director in the World Bank’s Africa region, first for the Sahel region, then Southern Africa. She led the Bank’s work on social policy and governance during the East Asia crisis years. She also worked extensively on Eastern Africa and Latin America. As a long time manager she was involved in many task forces and issues, among them exercises addressing leadership issues, conflict resolution, the role of women, and issues for values and ethics. Ms. Marshall is a core group member of the Council of 100, an initiative of the World Economic Forum to advance understanding between the Islamic World and the West. She has been closely engaged in the creation and development of the World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD) and is its executive director. She speaks and publishes widely on issues for international development.

Ms. Ruth Messinger is president of American Jewish World Service (AJWS), a faith-based international human rights organization that works to alleviate poverty, hunger and disease in the developing world. In addition to its grantmaking to over 400 grassroots projects around the world, AJWS works within the American Jewish community to promote global citizenship and social justice through activism, volunteer service and education. Ms. Messinger assumed this role in 1998 following a 20-year career in public service in New York City, where she served for 12 years on the New York City Council and 8 as Manhattan borough president. She was the first woman to secure the Democratic Party’s nomination for mayor in 1997. Considered a national leader in the movement to end the genocide in Sudan, Ms. Messinger was among leading anti-genocide, peace and human rights advocates called upon to advise President Obama and the new special envoy for Sudan, General J. Scott Gration, in March 2009. In recognition of her leadership, she was recently appointed to the newly formed Task Force on Global Poverty and Development.

Ms. Leanne Rios is advocacy and communications analyst with the UN Millennium Campaign.  In that role she oversees grassroots advocacy and education campaigns including the Stand Up Campaign (September 17-19, 2010), and the Day1/Alliance for Christian Media series.  Leanne has worked for four United Nations organizations on various issues related to the MDGs, as well as has directed two national programs that focus on civil society mobilization. She has an advanced degree in Community Health and has also served as a volunteer in the Peace Corps in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Ms. Joan Rosenhauer is the Executive Vice President for U.S. Operations for Catholic Relief Services where she is responsible for leadership of the agency’s mission to help Catholics in the United States put their faith into action and answer the Gospel’s call to live as one human family. She leads CRS’ domestic programs and advocacy: faith-based actions that bring the agency’s work with those in need overseas into the lives of Catholics in the United States. Under her direction are six regional offices located across the country as well as support staff in Headquarters. Working in partnership with dioceses, parishes, colleges, universities and other Catholic organizations, CRS’ U.S. Operations builds relationships and provides concrete opportunities for U.S. Catholics to make a positive difference in the world. Prior to joining CRS, Ms. Rosenhauer spent 16 years with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), where she most recently served as Associate Director of the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development. Prior to this role, she held a variety of positions, including Special Projects Coordinator and Outreach Coordinator for the Department of Social Development and World Peace. Before joining the USCCB's Department of Social Development and World Peace, Ms. Rosenhauer worked for the Archdiocese of Washington and the USCCB’s Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Ms. Rosenhauer hails from Chicago and has a B.A. in Social Work from the University of Iowa and a master’s degree in Public Policy Management from the University of Maryland. She is the 2009 Recipient of the Harry A. Fagan Award from the Roundtable Association of Diocesan Social Action Directors.

Rev. Dr. Heng Sure is Dharma Master at the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery. He was ordained as a Buddhist monk in 1976. For the sake of world peace, he undertook an over six hundred mile pilgrimage from South Pasadena to Ukiah, repeatedly taking three steps and one bow to cover the entire journey. In the entire two years taken to make the pilgrimage, he observed a practice of total silence. Rev. Heng Sure has an M.A. in Oriental Languages from U.C. Berkeley, and a Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He serves as the Managing Director of the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery and teaches on the staff at the Institute for World Religions. He lectures on the Avamtasak Sutra at the Berkeley Monastery every Saturday evening. He is actively involved in interfaith dialogue and in the ongoing conversation between spirituality and technology.