Ambassador Zion Evrony was born in Iran and immigrated with his family to Israel in 1950, when he was one year old. He spent his childhood in a ma’abarah (refugee camp), without electricity or running water. With his father unemployed, the family endured severe poverty. At age 13, Evrony was admitted to a Jerusalem boarding school for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. He went on to receive a B.A. in sociology and political science, an M.B.A, and a Ph.D. in international relations from Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1973, he joined Israel’s Foreign Service and held distinguished positions in Jerusalem and abroad, including Ambassador to Ireland, Ambassador to the Holy See, Consul General in Houston, and Consul in New York. He also served as Head of the Policy Planning Division and Director of the Cadet Course for new diplomats. In 2001, he received Awards for Excellence from both Israel’s Foreign Ministry and its Civil Service. From 1991 to 1995, Ambassador Evrony taught at the Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, and the Open University of Israel. Since his retirement, he has been an adjunct professor at universities in the United States, where he teaches courses on diplomacy, Israeli foreign policy, Judeo-Christian relations, and the Holocaust. Among his publications are Human Rights in International Relations (Hebrew; Open University Press, 2011) and Jewish-Catholic Dialogue (ed., Urbaniana University Press, 2016). He has also written opinion pieces for the New York Times and other papers focusing on the war in Gaza, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Judeo-Christian relations.

James Tyson “Jim” Currie grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Mississippi with majors in history and political science. He then attended the University of Virginia, from which he received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history. Dr. Currie is also a graduate of the Army’s Command and General Staff College and the Defense Department’s Industrial College of the Armed Forces, now the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy. He taught history at Mississippi College, Millsaps College, Jackson State University, and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at National Defense University. He was the first Historian of the U.S. Department of Education and Associate Historian of the House of Representatives. He worked for Senator Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr. as speechwriter, legislative assistant (defense and foreign policy), and staff member on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. While on the SSCI staff, he also worked for Senators David Boren and John Glenn. Dr. Currie served a total of thirty years, active and reserve, in the U.S. Army, retiring with the rank of Colonel. His military awards include the Legion of Merit, four awards of the Meritorious Service Medal, and the Army Parachute Badge. His last assignment was with the Army’s Office of Legislative Liaison. He is the author of five books and twenty-five articles, one of which was awarded the Charles Thomson Prize by the National Archives/Southern Historical Association. He is a longtime member of SAG-AFTRA (AFL-CIO) and has appeared as a background performer in the television series House of Cards and Homeland. Currie lives in Fairfax County, Virginia, with his wife Janis. They have one son, Matthew, who practices as a clinical psychologist in Maryland.

Steven Greer is Emeritus Professor at the University of Bristol Law School and Research Director at the Oxford Institute for British Islam. He studied law at the University of Oxford, Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and holds a Ph.D. in Law from the Queen’s University of Belfast. In a career spanning nearly 40 years, he has taught and delivered numerous papers throughout the UK and abroad, including in China and at Harvard Law School. He has published widely, particularly in the fields of criminal justice, human rights, and law and terrorism. Two of his books were shortlisted for prestigious prizes. He has also acted as consultant/advisor to various organizations, written for national and regional newspapers in the UK and Ireland, and appeared on numerous radio and TV stations.

Collin May is a Canadian lawyer and Adjunct Lecturer in Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine. He has published several articles and reviews on topics in political philosophy, cancel culture, professional regulation, and countering antisemitism. His writing has appeared in the National Post, Jerusalem Post, Law and Liberty, The Hub, C2C Journal, and such academic publications as Academic Questions and Society Journal. Educated at Harvard University, the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris, and Dalhousie Law School, May worked with the United Nations International Telecommunication Union and the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland, before returning to Canada to study law. In 2022, following his appointment as Chief of the Alberta Human Rights Commission, May became the target of a cancel culture campaign that cost him his job and severely damaged his career. Since that time, May has worked to combat cancellations through his writing and public advocacy.

Throughout his life, J. J. Penniman has immersed himself in humanist education. As an amateur Classics scholar, he has sung Homer in the original Greek to both public and scholarly audiences, lectured at the Classical Association of New England Summer Institute, and published an original translation of an anciently debated passage in Plato’s Timaeus for The Classical Journal. As a psychoanalyst, now in his 46th year of practice, he has published in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytic Quarterly, and the Journal of Clinical Psychoanalysis. He trained psychology interns and psychiatric residents in psychoanalytic therapy for thirty years. In a lighter vein, the author, as a middling bridge player, produced a feuilleton for The Daily Bulletin, the newspaper of the American Contract Bridge League Championships. He also devotes two hours weekly to math. Penniman and his wife live in the shadows of New Hampshire’s Presidential Range.

John Staddon is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology, and Professor of Biology Emeritus, at Duke University. He obtained his BSc at University College, London, and Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology at Harvard University, while also doing research at the MIT Systems Lab. He has done research at Oxford University (UK), the University of São Paulo at Riberão Preto, the University of Mexico, Ruhr Universität, Universität Konstanz, and the University of Western Australia. He is a fellow of several scientific organizations and holds an honorary doctorate from the Université Charles de Gaulle, Lille 3, France. He is a past editor of the journals Behavioural Processes and Behavior & Philosophy. His experimental and theoretical research is on the evolution and mechanisms of learning in humans and animals; he has also written on the history and philosophy of psychology, economics, and biology. Staddon frequently engages with such public policy issues as education, evolution, traffic control, IQ, the science, law, and politics of smoking, and the effects of social and psychobiological processes on financial markets. In 2021, the Wall Street Journal profiled him as a leading commentator on the current problems of science.

Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at the Heritage Foundation. He writes and speaks on immigration, foreign policy, and other issues, both at Heritage and in various national media outlets. Simon writes the weekly BorderLine column for the Daily Signal. From 1999 to 2023, Hankinson was a U.S. foreign service officer, serving in India, Fiji, Ghana, Slovakia, Togo, Marseille, Nairobi, and Washington. Prior to entering the State Department, he worked as a lawyer in London and then taught history, English, and drama at a private school in Miami. Hankinson holds a Master’s degree in Modern History from the University of St. Andrews, a degree from the College of Law in London, and a second master’s degree in International Security Affairs from the National Defense University in Washington, DC.

Aaron Rhodes was born and raised in the Southern Tier of New York State, where he attended a public school. He was further educated at Reed College and the University of Chicago, where he was awarded a Ph.D. in the Committee on Social Thought. After serving as Assistant to the President of Boston University, he worked on higher education reform projects in post-communist societies at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. In 1993, Rhodes was named Executive Director of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, a post he held until 2007. He was subsequently a co-founder of both the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and the Freedom Rights Project and was President of the Forum for Religious Freedom-Europe, from 2014 to 2025. Rhodes is the author of The Debasement of Human Rights (2018). His numerous articles and editorials have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Newsweek, Die Zeit, Law & Liberty, the National Interest, and elsewhere. The Republic of Austria made Rhodes an honorary citizen for his human rights work, and he has received the University of Chicago Alumni Association’s Public Service Citation as “one of the leading human rights activists in the world.” He lives in Hamburg, Germany with his family.

Sid Lukkassen is a Dutch historian and philosopher who has taught at Radboud University Nijmegen. He was a city councilor for the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) from 2010 to 2018 and was a policy advisor to the European Conservatives and Reformers (ECR) during the Covid-19 pandemic. Sid actively participates in the public debate with books, frequent opinion articles, and media appearances. He comes from a family of no-nonsense middle class entrepreneurs and hardworking laborers. He writes to connect, for people and country, under the motto “clarity is the ultimate sophistication.”

Olga Kenton holds a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from the University of Birmingham, where she currently teaches in the Department of Modern Languages. Born in Moscow, she moved to New Zealand in her early twenties and has lived in Hong Kong, France, and the UK, where she currently resides. As a prose writer and journalist, Olga has taught Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham and published articles with leading Russian and Eastern European filmmakers, theatre directors, actors, writers, and artists. In addition to her published creative works, Olga’s publications include reportage about the Christchurch earthquake (Discovery) and interviews with Andrey Zvyagintsev, Nikolas Pasternak-Slater, and Dolya Gavanski. Her novels include At the Edge of the World and The Girl from the House on Embankment.