Tom Baughis a Transdisciplinary Ecologist with over four decades of experience in various aspects of Conservation Biology. His academic training and field experience have been enhanced and informed by work in the humanities and social sciences.  Tom is active in a number of professional organizations, reviews for several journals, maintains a blog at http://hidden-springs.blogspot.com, and can be reached via email.  Tom is the founder and President Emeritus of SCB's Religion and Conservation Biology Working Group

Shonil Bhagwat is Senior Research Fellow at School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford; and Director of MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management at the School. He holds a DPhil (PhD) in tropical forest diversity and conservation from Oxford. Over the last 10 years, he has done extensive research on sacred groves, patches of forest protected for their religious significance, in the Western Ghats, India. Currently, he is researching long-term (2000-6000 years) vegetation history of this landscape using palaeoecological techniques. This project aims to understand the origins of sacred groves and the influence of human activity on vegetation communities within these groves. He is interested in assessing the role of sacred natural sites in biodiversity conservation and their potential to enhance global protected area networks. He works in close collaboration with Alliance of Religions and Conservation and is a member of the Steering Committee of the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN) Task Force on Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas.

Calvin B. "Cal" DeWitt is professor in the Nelson Institute, University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he serves on the graduate faculties of Environment and Resources, Water Resources Management, Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development, and Limnology and Marine Science. His research includes: Wetland ecology; Conservation leadership training in southeast Asia; Wetland carbon sequestration; Strategic defense of the Endangered Species Act; and Strategic translation of conservation biology into practice by American faith communities. He received the National Wildlife Federation's "Connie" Award in 2005 as "a world-class conservationist" who "has made a huge difference with his life in bringing his work as an environmental scientist and ethicist to bear on the church's role in caring for the environment..." Earlier, he and John Houghton of the IPCC organized Climate Forum 2002 that engaged 60 leading climate scientists and evangelicals in producing the Oxford Declaration on Climate Change that brought climate concerns into U.S. faith communities.

Walt Foster is a Current Board Member and former Vice President. He is an ecologist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He has degrees in marine biology and ecology and received extensive training in meteorology and climatology during 9 years as a flight forecaster in the Navy. He was instrumental in the development of GIS and remote sensing capabilities in EPA. He spent most of the 90s managing environmental projects in Poland, the Baltic States and Russia and currently serves as the Environmental Assessment Team Leader in EPA's Regional Office in Kansas City. He is also a member of the Ecological Society of America and the International Association for Landscape Ecology.

Michelle A. Haynes is a conservation biologist conducting interdisciplinary research in the mountains of southwest China with the University of Wisconsin, as part of an NSF- Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship. She is a PhD candidate in Botany with a minor in East Asian studies, studying the impacts of policy change, climate change and grazing practices on plant diversity in alpine rangelands in the IUCN biodiversity hotspot. Her fluency in Chinese provides insight into religious and traditional ideas about the environment and current threats to biodiversity through rapid development in the region. Prior to her graduate studies, she conducted international humanitarian projects with faith-based organizations. She received her B.S. in Biology in Texas and post-baccalaureate diploma in Stewardship Ecology at the Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies. She enjoys teaching ecology and conservation to diverse audiences as well as sipping yak butter tea with Tibetan herders in the Himalayas.

Janice Lee Ser Huay graduated with a B.Sc. in Life Sciences (Biology) and M.Sc. in Biological Sciences from the National University of Singapore and recently began my PhD with the Ecosystem Management Unit from ETH Zurich. My previous research topics include the wildlife trade and dung beetle ecology in Southeast Asia and my current research focuses on the livelihood impacts of palm oil expansion in Indonesia. I began to be interested in the role of religion in conservation during my graduate studies as I saw the need to re-think the way we value the environment and a window of opportunity to change hearts and minds through beliefs. I believe that there is a lot of potential for conservation scientists to communicate the value of nature and biodiversity to religious figures and to work with them on the ground to change perceptions and attitudes towards the environment.

Dana Limpert is an ecologist and GIS analyst with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Natural Heritage Program (NHP). Her work involves mapping and analysis of rare species habitats for conservation purposes, but she also is a bat expert and reports on climate change. Dana received a B.S. in forest science from Penn State and an M.S. in ecology from the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. Her thesis involved chasing radio-tagged bats through the forests and swamps of Pocomoke and characterizing their summer roosts and habitat. Dana’s research interests now include esoteric studies with coursework at Sancta Sophia Seminary in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Her teaching focus is spiritual ecology and facilitates retreats that explore both the natural history and spiritual nature of places.

Alisse Garner Metge received a B.S. in Conservation Biology and Molecular Biology from Brigham Young University and an M.S. in Wildlife Resources from the University of Idaho. Her primary professional interest is conservation genetics, though she also spent several years working in human diagnostic genetics and disease gene discovery. Over the last several years, she has turned her research focus to the science-religion interface, especially as it relates to conservation. Her publications include work in both conservation genetics and in conservation-religion relationships. Alisse lives with her husband and two daughters in Spokane, WA, where she pursues independent research in science-religion issues.

Linda Olsvig-Whittaker is a conservation biologist working for the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, located in Jerusalem.  She has a doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology (Cornell, 1980) and has worked extensively on patterns of biological diversity in Mediterranean landscapes.  As coordinator for scientific data in the INPA, she is currently working on conservation bioinformatics, and is the Israel focal point for the BioCASE and GBIF data network systems.  During 2008-2012 she is the lead Israeli participant in the European Biodiversity Observation Network (EBONE), a project under the EU 7th Framework.  She also serves as the communications officer for the SCB Asia Section.

Claudia Rutte is a German behavioural ecologist studying the evolutionary roots of cooperative behaviour and applying this knowledge to nature conservation. For her diploma in Biology at the University Erlangen-Nürnberg she studied the foraging strategies of free-ranging Sooty mangabeys in Taï Nationalpark, Ivory Coast. For her PhD at the University of Bern she used game theory to specify strategies that maintain cooperation among selfish individuals, both in theoretical models and in experiments with non-human animals. The last years she spent in South India where she studied sacred groves and lived on an organic coffee farm. Currently she is setting up a database on sacred natural sites in order to gather systematic information on these informal institutions of resource preservation. With help of the database she aims to investigate the relevance of sacred natural sites for biodiversity conservation, how the local communities manage to cooperate and alleviate the tragedy of the commons, and what kind of threats these institutions face today.

Kashif Sheikh is an internationally awarded biodiversity scientist with fifteen lively years of ecology, conservation and nature exploration experience gained in a variety of environments such as high mountains, man-made reservoirs, wild wetlands, tundra, distinctive deserts and forests of the world. Kashif did ground-breaking doctoral research on avifauna of Karakorums. His special interests are in biodiversity economics, conservation education, rural economies, threatened species and protected areas; and his work involves local and indigenous people as integral part of conservation and mitigation efforts. He has extensively consulted with government, industry and rural stakeholders developing a deep understanding of the influence of faith & religion in biodiversity management. He has served IUCN and WWF as expert biodiversity professional and remained extensively engaged with multilateral governmental institutions. At the Canadian Circumpolar Institute, he made valuable contributions to the sustainable use and conservation programs in the Canadian Arctic. He is keenly involved with the planning and evaluation of various community-based environmental and industrial programs in Canada. Currently, he is also serving SCB’s Asia BoD; and is a member of ASPB, TWS, IUCN’s SSC and CEM. He remains fully committed with regional and international issues of cultural and natural heritage and biodiversity science.

Molly Steinwald brings unique perspective, real and sustained determination and experience, passion, and substantial connections to help close the religion-environment divide: it is one of her major life goals. As third oldest of 12 children raised in a scientifically-wary, non-environmentally-oriented family, as daughter to a non-profit Christian book publisher who is well-connected with and highly-respected by numerous influential Catholic leaders (see http://www.sophiainstitute.com for Sophia Institute Press), Molly is now a PhD candidate in Zoology, a Project Dragonfly (http://www.projectdragonfly.org) instructor at the Cincinnati Zoo, has 10 years of college-level teaching experience to majors and (many scientifically- and environmentally-wary) non-majors, broad field- and lab-based ecology research training, is Affiliate Council member of the International League of Conservation Photographers (http://www.ilcp.com), is rapidly becoming a successful nature and science photographer herself, and has done interdisciplinary and public speaking on relationships between people/spirituality and environment/science for several years, among other projects. Please see http://www.mollysteinwald.com.