Authors

Greg Epstein

Humanist Chaplain @Harvard. Author of NY Times Bestselling book Good Without God: What a Billion Non-Religious People Do Believe. Directs @HarvardHumanist.

Recent Post: Humanism That Sings: Jodi Picoult and John Grant at the HCP

Recent Post: Love Your Enemies? On MLK Jr., Humanism, and Pluralism

Recent Post: The Humanist Community Project – Welcome!

James Croft

James Croft is the Research and Education Fellow at the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard, and has been working on the Humanist Community Project since its inception. He is a Cambridge and Harvard Graduate, and is currently studying for his Doctorate in the philosophy of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He was raised on Shakespeare, Sagan and Star Trek, and is a proud, gay Humanist.

Recent Post: Why Seculars Sing – A Response to Tom Flynn

Recent Post: Spreading the Gospel of Humanism – James Croft on AZ-TV

Recent Post: Goodness in the Badlands

John Figdor

Jonathan Figdor is the Assistant Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University. John came to the Humanist Community Project during his time as an MDiv student at Harvard Divinity School. While at Harvard, he pioneered the Humanist Chaplaincy Training Program at Harvard Divinity School, serving as the pilot student and helping Greg Epstein set the curriculum. Before coming to the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard, John worked as an AmeriCorps VISTA in a domestic violence shelter in rural Montana, a job he took after graduating with a B.A. in philosophy at Vassar. This summer, John will launch the Humanist Community at Stanford, serving as its Chaplain/Executive Director.

Recent Post: Harvard Humanist Commencement Celebrations!

Recent Post: Thoughts on the First Reason Rally in Washington D.C.

Recent Post: Festivus: a Secular Reason for the Season!

Kate Lovelady

Recent Post: Growing Community, Building Relationships

Ben Biber

Chaplain Binyamin Biber is an ordained Humanistic rabbi who has for a decade served a DC congregation called Machar, the Washington Congregation for Secular Humanistic Judaism. He is also currently the President of the Association of Humanistic Rabbis - North America, a member of the Rabbinic Cabinet of J Street – working for a just peace between Israel and Palestine, and a board member of the Humanist Society, the professional organization of chaplains and officiants active within the American Humanist Association (AHA).

Recent Post: The Value of Humanist Chaplaincies

Scott Rhoades

Scott Rhoades is a husband, father, atheist, Humanist, and President of the Lancaster Freethought Society in Lancaster PA. He also helps run a Facebook group called Freethought Group Organizers that allows group leaders in the freethought community to pool their knowledge and share best practices in an informal setting.

Recent Post: Ask a what? Ask an Atheist!

Recent Post: I Now Pronounce You Happily Wed…Maybe.

Recent Post: Officiating Grief

Conor Robinson

Conor is a 2010 Yale alumnus and the founder of the Yale Humanist Society (now called the Secular Student Alliance at Yale). After graduating, Conor joined Teach For America and committed to teach for two years in a low-income community. He is currently in his second year as a TFA Corps Member, working as Resource Specialist Teacher at Jose A. Castellanos Elementary School in the heart of the Salvadoran Corridor in Los Angeles. Conor is in the planning stages for Pathfinders Project: 5 humanists on a yearlong global service trip. Launch date: July, 2013 (more information at http://www.pathfindersproject.com and @pthfndrsprjct).

Recent Post: Pathfinders Project: An Introduction

Rachel Plukas

Recent Post: Making the World Smaller Through Play

Audrey Fernandez-Fraser

Audrey Fernandez-Fraser graduated from Harvard College in 2011 with a degree in Human Evolutionary Biology and a secondary field in Music. A classically-trained singer, composer, writer, and spiritual seeker, she spends her days making music, tutoring children, and exploring various religious and Humanistic philosophies and communities.

Recent Post: The Rise of Irreligion: Greg Epstein and Phil Zuckerman Speak

Recent Post: Greg Epstein vs. PZ Myers Debate!

Recent Post: Humanist Musicians: An Interview with Quiet Company’s Taylor Muse

Amanda K. Metskas

Amanda K. Metskas is the executive director of Camp Quest, Inc. She has been involved with Camp Quest since 2003, and became executive director in 2007. Currently, Amanda focuses on providing coordination and support services to all of the Camp Quest programs. She is a co-author of Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief with Dale McGowan, Molleen Matsumura and Jan Devor. Amanda holds an M.A. in political science from Ohio State University, and a B.A. in international relations and psychology from Brown University.

Recent Post: Educating Freethinking Kids – Lessons From Camp Quest

Crystal Alburger

Crystal Alburger is a candidate for a Master of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School. As a Spiritual Activist Fellow with the Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of California from 2011 to 2012, she lobbied for the Human Right to Water and designed a program for young adults to reflect on the relationship between their values and actions. She is interested in promoting religiously pluralistic community and bringing theists and nontheists together around shared Humanist values. She considers talking to people, reading, going to church, riding her motorcycle, and cooking to be some of her most spiritually fulfilling practices.

Recent Post: Finding a Humanist Community: Part 1

Recent Post: Are You a Humanist?

Recent Post: A Home of Our Own: The Need for Humanist Societies

Sarah Chandonnet

Sarah Chandonnet is the Outreach and Development Manager at the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard.

Recent Post: May 20: The Neuroscience of Love

Recent Post: Author Mary Roach to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award

Paul LaClair

Recent Post: Our Human(ist) Narratives

Ed Clint

Ed Clint is a senior at the University of Illinois studying evolutionary psychology. He fought against religious proslytization as an atheist in the Air Force and served as President of the Illini Secular Student Alliance. He has organized and produced debates and secularist protest activity as well as cooperative transfaith efforts to effect community service and greater comity between theists and nontheists.

Recent Post: Anatomy of a Successful Humanist Ad Campaign

Kevin Watson

Kevin Watson is a humanist & atheist, gay, and more than a bit geeky. He has worked within the nonprofit community most of his adult life. His work has focused around marketing and public relations with an emphasis on online outreach strategies. He is a member of the First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis and a candidate of class 17 of the Humanist Institute. His primary focus has been on how community can be facilitated and expanded with technology. Kevin enjoys knitting, jogging, and avoiding Minnesota’s weather. He loves forcing his partner to watch movies from the 1980’s, penguins, and reading any book he can find (lately those related to theology or philosophy).

Recent Post: What Humanism ISN’T, and why the F-Word is needed

Recent Post: Why I <3 Daniel Radcliffe

Recent Post: Online Humanist Courses: there’s a site for that!

Catherine Bordeau

A native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Catherine first came to New York to work with non-profit organizations doing advocacy at the United Nations. After five years of experience of challenging structures of injustice at the international level, Catherine made a decision to focus her work closer to home. Seminary was her next step. The experience was made possible with a full tuition scholarship - the Howard Moody scholarship. Currently, Catherine is the Clergy Leader in Training at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture. Catherine received a B.A. from Cardinal Stritch University in history and women’s studies. She has a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary. Catherine lives in Park Slope with her partner Alexandra and a bi-lingual puppy named Maya. She is passionate about racial justice, gender justice, the slow food movement, sustainable development and gardening.

Recent Post: Living an Intentional Life: Ethical Culture

Sharon Moss

With over 10 years of experience as a campus and off-campus leader, Sharon Moss is the Alumni Director for the Secular Student Alliance.

Recent Post: This is How to Change the World: National Ask an Atheist Day!

Jeffrey Falick

I am a Secular Humanistic Jew and ordained rabbi. I am also an atheist with a strong attachment to secular humanistic ideas and my Jewish heritage, too. I blog at www.TheAtheistRabbi.com and I'm thrilled to be part of the Humanist Community Project!

Recent Post: Alain de Botton’s “Religion for Atheists” – A Review

Recent Post: An Atheist Rabbi (Part II)

Recent Post: An Atheist Rabbi

Ann Fuller

Rev. Ann Fuller is a Community Minister associated with the Unitarian Universalist Church of Brevard in Melbourne, Florida. She serves on the board of the Humanist Institute and as a member of their faculty she is currently co-mentoring Class 18 with John Shook.

Recent Post: I’ll bid farewell to Discovery, but never to discovery.

Tommie Shelby

Tommie Shelby is a professor of African and African-American studies and of philosophy at Harvard University.

Recent Post: I Didn’t Lose Faith. I Just Don’t Have It.

Dave Muscato

Dave Muscato is a blogger, public speaker, and the Vice President of University of Missouri Skeptics, Atheists, Secular Humanists, & Agnostics (muSASHA.org). He has appeared in Rolling Stone, People, Time, The New York Times, and on MTV News, NPR, MSNBC, and Howard Stern. Muscato is a former professional evangelical Christian praise & worship musician. Since coming out as an atheist and going back to school, at 28, he is now a junior at the University of Missouri majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin. His website is DaveMuscato.com and he can be reached at mail@DaveMuscato.com.

Recent Post: It’s that time of the year: Officer elections!

Recent Post: For better interaction, make your group feel smaller

Recent Post: (Room) Size… It matters.

Andy Semler

Andy Semler is a genderqueer atheist nerd. Ze is an organizer for the St Louis Atheist Meetup Group and an active member of the Ethical Society of St Louis. Andy believes that "it gets better" only when we start making it better. Blog: http://andythenerd.tumblr.com/

Recent Post: The Parental Rights Amendment vs. the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Recent Post: Creating a More Inclusive Humanism in an Ableist World

Chris Johnson

Chris Johnson is a New York-based photographer and filmmaker. He received his undergraduate degree in film production (along with a minor in religious studies) from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. His photography has been seen in The New York Times. Chris is the recipient of the Kodak Award for Excellence in Filmmaking as well as the B.F. Lorenzetti Scholarship for Excellence in Filmmaking.

Recent Post: What brings non-believers joy and meaning?

Gordon Bonnet

Gordon Bonnet is a writer, musician, and biology teacher who currently lives in Trumansburg, New York. You can follow him on Twitter @TalesOfWhoa, and follow his blog at http://skeptophilia.blogspot.com.

Recent Post: Thoughts from a Small-Town Atheist

John Sias

John Sias is an author, retired journalist and organizer whose book, "100 Questions non-members ask about Unitarian Universalism," has sold 30,000 copies to date. For his recent leadership in volunteer and charitable organizations John received the Humanitarian award from the NH Charitable Foundation in 2006. A graduate of Colgate and Boston Universities, John directed his own public relations and marketing company for 20 years after serving as CEO and public relations director for multiple chambers of commerce.

Recent Post: 99 Q’s and A’s, Part III: Values and Ethics

Recent Post: 99 Q’s and A’s, Part II: The Issues

Recent Post: Humanism: 99 Q’s and A’s

David Beadle

Filmmaker, Blogger and all around Humanist who seeks to find the common ground between religion and Humanism. Loves Music (the one true religion), education, documentary filmmaking. Is a husband, and a father.

Recent Post: Secularism – A Short Film

Sarah Hippolitus

Recent Post: Serve at the Reason Rally!

Myra

Myra Rubinstein and her husband Leo, are full time RVers volunteering at National Parks, Historic Sites and Wildlife Refuges all over the U.S. She was previously a full-time mom, teacher, paralegal and respiratory therapist but has always been and will always be, a Humanist. She is a former Membership Chair and Vice President of the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix and will be in the 19th class of the Humanist Institute of the AHA.

Recent Post: The Who

Recent Post: I Have a Dream

Recent Post: Introducing and Reinventing

Paulo Ribeiro

Paulo Ribeiro is a member of the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, New Jersey. He is deeply committed to the values of civic service and volunteerism and was given the President's Volunteer Service Award in 2006, 2008 and 2010. He has also served as an AmeriCorps volunteer where he worked closely with a number of faith organizations to provide volunteers for direct service programs in their communities. He holds a bachelor's degree from Montclair State University in New Jersey, and he is looking to get a Masters in Divinity in order to pursue a career as an Ethical Humanist leader.

Recent Post: Starting the Mindful Journey

Juliet Graham

Mark Lindley

In the 1990s Mark Lindley was the Assistant Humanist Chaplain at Harvard. More information about him is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Lindley.

Recent Post: 21st-Century Economics: A Quick Preface to a Harvard Humanist Discussion