
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.
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.
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.