Soren Glassing is a Zen Buddhist monk, and Staff Chaplain at New York Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center. He is the head chaplain on the Palliative Care team and works on the psychiatric unit. He has been practicing Zen since 1985 both in America (at Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji) and in Japan (at Shogenji, Gifu-Ken) and was the head monk and co-director of the Zen Studies Society in New York City under the name Seigan. He began training as a chaplain in 2008 with The New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care and completed his training as a resident chaplain at New York Presbyterian Hospital in 2012. Soren leads ongoing weekly meditation, spirituality, and various support groups throughout the hospital. He teaches spirituality in the healthcare setting to new medical students, mentors residents and fellows, and teaches clinicians ways to reduce stress and burnout on the job. For the past several years, Soren has presented 90-minute workshops and Personal Development Intensives at the Association for Professional Chaplain annual convention, and has taught webinars on Buddhism and the contemplative arts. He lives in New York City, and continues as a visual artist and bringing art into his chaplaincy.

Katherine Jamieson is a graduate of the University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. Her essays and articles have been published in The New York Times, Newsday, Ms. magazine, Narrative, and Orion, and anthologized in The Best Travel Writing series. She has taught writing and literature, in-person and online, at colleges and universities around the country. Katherine is a Buddhist and has practiced at Zen Mountain Monastery since 2000.

Lyla June Johnston is an Indigenous public speaker, artist, scholar and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages from Taos, New Mexico. Her messages focus on Indigenous rights, supporting youth, traditional land stewardship practices and healing inter-generational and inter-cultural trauma. She blends undergraduate studies in human ecology at Stanford University, graduate work in Native American Pedagogy at the University of New Mexico, and the indigenous worldview she grew up with to inform her perspectives and solutions. Her internationally acclaimed presentations are conveyed through the medium of poetry, music and/or speech. She is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in Indigenous Studies with a focus on Indigenous Food Systems Revitalization.

Reggie Hubbard, BA, MBA, is a leading activist, strategist, and teacher with experience in fields ranging from global marketing, digital and community organizing, government relations, international education and Presidential campaigning. Reggie holds a BA in Philosophy from Yale, and an international MBA from the Vlerick Business School in Belgium and is also a 500-hour certified yoga teacher and author of a thesis entitled, “Yoga and Spiritual Activism: Serving Humanity from a Sense of Devotion and Love.”

He teaches Members of Congress, Congressional Staff, leading progressive organizations and individuals, sharing techniques for growing peace and ease as a foundation, not an afterthought in his teaching practice, Active Peace Yoga. In July 2020, Reggie helped launch a grassroots campaign along with David Lipsius, Amy Ippoliti, Jack Kornfeld and Tara Brach called Buddhists and Yogins United in an effort to share information and inspire teachers to encourage active civic participation in the upcoming election and beyond.

Priscilla Gilman is a former professor of English literature at Yale University and Vassar College and the author of The Anti-Romantic Child: A Story of Unexpected Joy (Harper) and The Critic’s Daughter (forthcoming from Norton). She has written about autism, literature, education, and the arts for the Boston Globe, the New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, Real Simple, the Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, and Slate, and was the parenting/education advice columnist for #1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Cain’s Quiet Revolution website. Gilman speaks frequently at schools, organizations, and conferences and teaches literature classes for Yale Alumni College. She is a Nalanda Institute certified Mindfulness and Loving-Kindness meditation instructor and the mother of an autistic and a dyslexic son.