Christopher Jain Miller is the co-founder, Vice President of Academic Affairs, and Professor of Jain and Yoga Studies at Arihanta Institute. He completed his PhD in the study of Religion at the University of California, Davis and is also a Visiting Researcher at the University of Zürich's Asien-Orient-Institut and Visiting Professor at Claremont School of Theology where he co-developed and co-runs a remotely available Masters Degree Program focusing on Engaged Jain Studies. His current research focuses on Engaged Jainism and Modern Yoga, and he is the author of a number of articles and book chapters concerned with Jainism and the practice of modern yoga. Christopher is the author of Embodying Transnational Yoga: Eating, Singing, and Breathing in Transformation (Routledge 2024), as well as co-editor of the volumes Engaged Jainism: Critical and Constructive Approaches to the Study of Jain Social Engagement (SUNY 2025) and Beacons of Dharma: Spiritual Exemplars for the Modern Age (Lexington 2020).

Cogen Bohanec is an Assistant Professor in Sanskrit and Jain Studies at Arihanta Institute where he teaches Sanskrit language, and Jain philosophy and its applications, and Sanskrit and other languages. He is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Claremont School of Theology (CST), and he has taught numerous classes on South Asian Religions and Sanskrit at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley. Dr. Bohanec specializes in comparative dharma traditions, philosophy of religion, and Sanskrit language and literature, and has numerous publications in those areas. He has a PhD in “Historical and Cultural Studies of Religion” with an emphasis in Hindu Studies from GTU, and he also holds an MA in Buddhist Studies from the Institute of Buddhist Studies at GTU.

Dr. Nitin Shah is Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at Loma Linda University Health and a prominent leader of the Jain community. Dr. Shah has devoted his life to serving the underprivileged worldwide. Over the past 32 years, he has organized and led hundreds of humanitarian missions across 27 countries, personally traveling to 19 of them. His work has focused on providing essential medical care to underserved populations, driven by a deep commitment to global health equity.

Arpit Mehta, an Advisory Board Member for Arihanta Institute, is CE) and Co-Founder of Data Intellect, Director of Bioinformatics at Northwell Health and a PhD candidate in computer science at Florida International University. He has over 20 publications in the field of Genomics, notably in Cancer and Covid-19 research. His research interest expands to application of Artificial intelligence in Genomics and Microbiome research.

Arpit is currently on the Advisory board of Young Jain Professionals (YJP) and has served on executive board of Young Jains of America(YJA), YJP and Jain Education Research Foundation (JERF). He has been a member of Jain Center of South Florida for over a decade. During JAINA and YJA conventions, Arpit has given sessions on "Jainism and Science" and is highly motivated to understand concepts of Jainism in modern perspective. His hobbies include Hiking, Cricket, Meditation and Traveling.
 

Parveen Jain, PhD is the founder, CEO and Chairman of Arihanta Institute, and the author of An Introduction to Jain Philosophy. He had an exciting career of over thirty years as founder and chief executive of multiple technology companies, and a senior executive role at McAfee, the cyber security company, and in 2014, he retired from active corporate life to devote his full time to philanthropic activities.

Parveen has always cherished philanthropy and has held leadership roles in various non-profit organizations. He has been a long-time trustee of the International Mahavira Jain Mission, where he has been deeply involved with the growth of Siddhachalam, the first Jain tīrtha outside of India, from its founding. He led the team to build the Jain Temple in the San Francisco Bay Area, has served as chairman and president of Jain Center of Northern California, and continues to be an active advisor. Previously, he was a founding director of the Sunnyvale Hindu Temple, served as a trustee of the American Foundation for the Blind, was a founding team member of the South Asian Heart Center, and served as a founding director of Stanford Center for Asian Health Research and Education (Stanford-CARE).

Parveen is most passionate about furthering the initiatives inspired by Ācārya Sushil Kumar in the service of Jain tradition: promoting the message of nonviolence, creating Jain educational platforms, and applying Jain principles to everyday life among the growing global Jain community, for current and future generations.
 

Dr. Jeffery D. Long is the Carl W. Zeigler Professor of Religion, Philosophy, and Asian Studies at Elizabethtown College, in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, where he has taught since receiving his PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School in the year 2000. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of twelve books, including Hinduism in America: A Convergence of Worlds, which won the Rajinder and Jyoti Gandhi Award for Excellence in Theology, Philosophy, and Critical Reflection from the Dharma Academy of North America in 2022. His latest book is Discovering Indian Philosophy: An Introduction to Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist Thought. His work focuses primarily on the religions and philosophies of India, mainly the Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist traditions, and on such themes as nonviolence, pluralism and its metaphysical foundations, the pedagogy of teaching Indic traditions in a Western context, religion and popular culture, and the concept of rebirth. In 2021, he received an award from the International Ahimsa Foundation for his efforts to promote nonviolence through scholarship. In the same year, he received the Ranck Award for Research Excellence from Elizabethtown College. He has spoken three times at the United Nations and appears in documentaries for PBS and the History Channel.

Shivani Bothra is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at California State University, Long Beach. Before this, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Rice University in Houston, USA, and taught as a lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She earned her doctorate from the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. Her focus is South Asian traditions, Jainism, and Nonviolence. Shivani's primary research areas are transnational Jainism, emphasizing Contemporary Jains.

Pratik Bhansali has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. He thinks taking a stand against any form of discrimination is something that forms basic decency. This stand should encompass all animals – humans and non-humans, and being a vegan is a mere logical consequence of this stand. He also sees the interconnections between all forms of oppression and their links with animals and their rights.

Jonathan Dickstein is Assistant Professor of Jain Studies at Arihanta Institute. He received a PhD in Religious Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2022. Jonathan's areas of research include Jain Studies, religion and ecology, comparative ethics, and South Asian religions.

Corinna Lhoir, M.A., is a PhD student of South Asian Studies with focus on Classical Indology at University of Hamburg (Germany) and Ghent University (Belgium), as well as an entrepreneur with her own online learning platform with focus on studies of Yoga and Sanskrit (yogastudien.de).

She holds a B.A. in Languages and Cultures of India and Tibet with focus on classical Indology from Universität Hamburg, a M.A. in Traditions of Yoga and Meditation from SOAS, University of London and a M.A. in Oriental Languages and Cultures (India) with focus on Jainism from Ghent University in Belgium.

Her research primarily concentrates on yoga in medieval Jainism. She is currently preparing a critical edition of the Yogapradīpa, a Jain medieval text on yoga and meditation, and its vernacular commentaries.

Steven M. Vose (PhD, South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and holder of the Bhagwan Suparshvanatha Professorship in Jain Studies at the University of Colorado-Denver. A historian of Jain communities in western India from the early Islamicate period to the present, his work focuses on community formation and interactions with political powers. His first book, Reimagining Jainism in Islamic India: Jain Intellectual Culture in the Delhi Sultanate (Routledge, forthcoming), is the recipient of the Edward C. Dimock, Jr. Book Prize in the Indian Humanities, awarded by the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS). His current research examines the effects of neoliberalism and globalization on transnational Jain communities.

Professor Tine Vekemans holds the Ācārya Mahāprajña Chair for Jain Studies at Ghent University. Additionally, she is a postdoctoral research fellow funded by the University’s Special Research Fund (BOF). Her approach to Jain studies combines ethnography with textual study, but always starts from practices and experiences of Jains. Over the past decade, her research touched upon diverse aspects of modern Jainism, including Jain migration history, changing lay- mendicant relations, Jainism in the digital age, and processes of knowledge transfer in the Jain diaspora. Her recent book, Digital & Diaspora – Intertwined Frontiers of Jainism, won the 2023 Bhagwan Kunthunatha Annual Best Book Award.

Joey Tuminello is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, LA, USA, and a Program Coordinator for the nonprofit organizations Farm Forward and Better Food Foundation. His research focuses on the intersection of animal, environmental, and food philosophies through the lenses of hermeneutics, pragmatism, and Jainism.