Alex Rodriguez

Alex Rodriguez

Alex W. Rodríguez is a writer, trombonist, and organizer currently serving as General Coordinator for the Bhumisparsha sangha and as Board President for Buddhist Peace Fellowship. He holds a PhD in Ethnomusicology from UCLA, where his research focused on jazz clubs around the world and the communities that sustain them in Los Angeles, California; Santiago, Chile; and Novosibirsk, Siberia.

Ava Coulter

Ava Coulter

Ava Coulter is a summer editorial assistant at Lion’s Roar and student in the journalism program at the University of King’s College in Halifax. She has also written for <i><a href="https://www.thecoast.ca/">The Coast</a></i> and <i><a href="http://dalgazette.com/">The Dalhousie Gazette</a>.</i> Check her out on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/avacoulter1">@avacoulter1</a>.

Edward Tick

Edward Tick is a writer and psychotherapist specializing in healing war trauma. He is the author of six books, including the award-winning <em>War and the Soul</em> and more than 150 articles. He is recognized as one of the pioneers in treating war trauma and has served as the Pentagon’s subject matter expert on post-traumatic stress disorder and moral injury. He is the director of Soldier’s Heart, Inc., a non-profit addressing PTSD and Moral Injury.

Eric Steuer

Eric Steuer

Eric Steuer is a contributing editor at <em>Wired</em>.

Charlene Leung

Charlene Leung

Charlene Leung is chair of the Diversity Working Group for Shambhala International and a facilitator for UNtraining, an organization devoted to healing personal and social oppressions. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where her Chinese immigrant parents settled, and witnessed firsthand the discrimination and racial violence against Chinese Americans. Of dharma and diversity work, she says, "The two are inextricably linked for me." She practices Chinese medicine as a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist and teaches qigong.

Rebecca Solnit

Rebecca Solnit

Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of books on feminism, Western and Indigenous history, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and disaster.

Sophia Kamps

Sophia Kamps

Sophia Kamps is a summer intern for LionsRoar.com and a student of art history and political science at McGill University. During the school year she is a staff writer at the <em>McGill Journal of Political Studies</em> and the <em>McGill International Review.</em>

Alexander Weinstein

Alexander Weinstein

Alexander Weinstein is the director of The Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and author of the short story collection <em>Children of the New World</em>.

Finn Enke

Finn Enke

Finn Enke is a professor and the author of "Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism" (Duke University Press).

Cameron Conaway

<a href="https://cameronconaway.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cameron Conaway's</a> life was forever changed for the better thanks to a 2013 "Happy Teachers Change the World" retreat in Thailand with Thich Nhat Hanh. Today, he is a mindfulness-practicing business school professor fascinated by the intersection of business, ethics, and society — and by how effective workplace feedback, or what he calls employee feedback literacy, drives improvement in every field.

John Harvey Negru

John Harvey Negru

John Harvey Negru (Karma Yönten Gyatso) is founder and president at <a href="http://sumeru-books.com">The Sumeru Press</a>, Canada’s leading independent Buddhist book publisher. He also manages <a href="http://www.canadianbuddhism.info">canadianbuddhism.info</a>, a directory of more than 600 Canadian Buddhist organizations, and has been involved in a wide variety of Buddhist community development projects over the years.

Richard Davidson

Richard Davidson

Neuroscientist Richard Davidson is founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he has pioneered the study of how meditation practices affect the brain. He was recently elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

Hondo Lobley

Hondo Lobley

Hondo Lobley grew up in Northern California, currently lives in the East Bay and practices in the Jodo Shinshu tradition of his family. His grandparents and great grandparents maintained their practice through their incarceration at Amache during WWII. Hondo likes cats and martial arts.

Debra Flics

Debra Flics is a psychotherapist in private practice in New York City.  She teaches at Downtown New York Meditation Community and has served on the Teachers Council at New York Insight Meditation Center.

Jeff Bridges

Jeff Bridges

Although many people think he is The Dude, Jeff Bridges is actually a multitalented actor, singer, photographer, and activist. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for <em>Crazy Heart</em>. Read Andrea Miller's Lion's Roar magazine feature about Bridges and his friendship with Zen teacher Bernie Glassman, "<a href="https://www.lionsroar.com/the-dude-and-the-zen-master-may-2013/">The Dude and the Zen Master</a>."

Eli Brown-Stevenson

Eli Brown-Stevenson

Eli Brown-Stevenson is the director of work practice at San Francisco Zen Center.

Allen Weiss

Allen Weiss

Allen Weiss is director of Mindful USC at the University of Southern California and a senior teacher at InsightLA.