Michael Minch, Ph.D., is Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at Utah Valley University and Director of Summit: The Sustainable Mountain Development and Conflict Transformation Global Database. He is author of numerous books, book chapters and scholarly articles and is a regular presenter at local, state, and national conferences. Additionally, Minch helps lead international study trips and is currently working with colleagues to build The Conflict and Peace Research Center in the Balkans. Minch is also the Research Liaison for the Board of Directors of the Peace and Justice Studies Association.

Laura Finley, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Barry University. She is the author, co-author or editor of 13 books and is Series Editor for ABC-CLIO’s Crime in Popular Culture series. Finley has also authored numerous book chapters and journal articles and is a syndicated columnist with PeaceVoice. She is actively involved in a number of state, local, and national peace, justice and human rights organizations and currently serves as Publications Chair and Speaker’s Bureau Coordinator for the Peace and Justice Studies Association.

Editorial Board Members:

Randall Amster, J.D., Ph.D., is Director of the Program on Justice and Peace at Georgetown University, and serves as Executive Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Association. His articles have appeared in journals including Peace Review, Contemporary Justice Review, and the Journal of Sustainability Education. His books include Peace Ecology (Paradigm Publishers, 2014), Anarchism Today (Praeger/ABC-CLIO, 2012), and Lost in Space: The Criminalization, Globalization, and Urban Ecology of Homelessness (LFB Scholarly, 2008).

Kelly Concannon, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Nova Southeastern University. She received her doctoral degree in composition and rhetoric from Syracuse University in 2008. Her scholarship is inextricably linked to her pedagogy and practice, as she examines how to utilize classroom spaces to produce powerful and complex conditions for social justice. She has published work in journals such as the Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning, Academic Exchange Quarterly, the Journal of Advanced Composition, Enculturation, and College Literature. She participates in various community activist projects and alliances including The College Brides Walk, the South Florida Diversity Alliance, and serves as a Mentor for the Women of Tomorrow Program in Ft Lauderdale FL. She is also an active member of the College English Association and the National Council of Teachers of English.

Luigi Esposito, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Barry University in Miami Shores, FL. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on issues related to race and ethnic relations, social theory, globalization, and ethics. His research has appeared in various professional journals, including The Sociological Quarterly, The Western Journal of Black Studies, Humanity and Society, Journal of Aging and Identity, Peace Studies Journal , Studies in Symbolic Interaction, and Perspectives on Global Development and Technology. He is co-editor (with Vicente Berdayes and John W. Murphy) of the book The Body in Human Inquiry: Interdisciplinary Explorations of Embodiment. (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. 2004); and is also co-editor (with Laura Finley) of the book Grading the 44th President: A Report Card on Barack Obama's First Term as a Progressive Leader (Santa Barbara, CA; Praeger/ABC-CLIO).

Tom Hastings, Ed.D., is Assistant Professor in the Conflict Resolution Department at Portland State University. Hastings formerly served on the Governing Council of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA), is past co-chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Association, and is on the boards of both the IPRA Foundation and the Oregon Peace Institute, as well as the academic advisors committee of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. He directs PeaceVoice, a program of OPI, and has written several books and many articles about nonviolence and other peace and conflict topics. He was a Civil Rights activist in the late 1960s, a Conscientious Objector to the war in Vietnam, a safe energy activist who built and lived in a solar cabin for many years, and a peace/justice/environmental movement organizer for Waging Peace in Wisconsin for years. He is a former Plowshares prisoner, former member of the War Resisters League National Committee, and a founding member of two Catholic Worker communities and currently lives in Whitefeather Peace House.

Mark Lance is professor of philosophy and professor of justice and peace at Georgetown University. He has published widely in philosophy of language, logic, metaphysics and epistemology, moral philosophy, and political philosophy. He also writes for both academic and movement audiences on topics such as nonviolence, anarchism, movement strategy, and grassroots democracy. He was a founder and director of the Program on Justice and Peace at Georgetown University, and currently a member of its steering committee. He is currently a member of the board of the Peace and Justice Studies Association. Prof. Lance has also been active in social movements for justice and peace for over 30 years.

Michael Nagler is a widely respected scholar and advocate of Gandhi and nonviolence. Born in Brooklyn, NY he came to California in 1960 to do graduate studies in Classics and Comparative Literature at UC, Berkeley. In 1966 he accepted an appointment as Assistant Professor in those departments; later he founded the Peace and Conflict Studies Program on that campus, which is now one of the biggest in North America. He also served as chairman of the Religious Studies Program and for two years as Co-Chair of the Peace and Justice Studied Association. In 1970 he wrote Spontaneity and Tradition, an innovative study of oral poetry in the ancient world, and numerous articles on this and related subjects.

In 1983 he assisted the research for Sri Eknath Easwaran’s masterful book, Nonviolent Soldier of Islam and in 1984 he, along with several other distinguished figures, nominated Abdul Ghaffar Khan for the Nobel Peace Prize. He was instrumental in getting Teri McLuhan to create the first full film treatment of Khan, Frontier Gandhi Badshah Khan a torch for peace, which won the top award for documentary in 2009 at the International Film Festival in Abu Dhabi.

Now professor emeritus at Berkeley, he is Founder and President of the Metta Center for Nonviolence (www.mettacenter.org); and author of Our Spiritual Crisis, and The Search for a Nonviolent Future, which received a 2002 American Book Award and has been translated into Arabic, Italian, Korean, Croatian, and several other languages. His most recent book (April, 2014 at Berrett-Koehler) is The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide to Practical Action. Other writings of his have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Tikkun, among other venues, as he has spoken and written about nonviolence, meditation, and world peace for academic, religious, and general audiences for more than forty years. He has served as consultant for colleges and universities in establishing peace studies programs (Northwestern, Sonoma State, Stanford, and others).

Among other awards, he received the Outstanding Contribution to Peace Education (Peace & Justice Studies Assoc., 2003) and the Jamnalal Bajaj International Award for Promoting Gandhian Values Outside India in 2007. In 2013 he was invited to give the annual address on Gandhi’s birthday (Oct. 2) at the Gandhi Research Foundation in Jalgaon, India.

In addition to conducting many retreats and workshops on nonviolence and related through the Metta Center, he has helped to develop Roadmap, an ambitious scheme to coordinate progressive action along Gandhian lines, and is working on a major documentary on nonviolence. Metta is widely respected as a resource for Gandhian nonviolence and strategic consultation.Michael is a student of Sri Eknath Easwaran, Founder of the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation (www.easwaran.org). He has lived at the Center’s ashram in Marin County since 1970 and is a presenter for their programs of passage meditation.

Edmund Pries (PhD) is Assistant Professor of Global Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University where he teaches in the areas of Peace and Conflict Studies, Globalization and Culture and Community Engagement. His research focuses on religion and peace/conflict and on social contracts derived from citizenship oaths and military enlistment oaths. He also writes on pedagogy. Edmund is the recipient of two awards for teaching excellence. He serves on the executive of the Peace and Justice Studies Association, as consulting editor for the Conrad Grebel Review and on the advisory board of Summit: The Sustainable Mountain Development and Conflict Transformation Global Database.

Cris Toffolo is Chair of the Department of Justice Studies at Northeastern Illinois University. Prior to that, she was the Director of the Justice and Peace Studies program and an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is author of two books, The Arab League. New York: Chelsea House (2008) and Emancipating Cultural Pluralism, ed. Prescript by Crawford Young. SUNY Press (2003), as well as numerous book chapters. Toffolo is also an active member of Amnesty International USA and serves as Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Peace and Justice Studies Association (PJSA).