Lauren Becker is the Associate Director of the Council for Secular Humanism and the Marketing Director for the Center for Inquiry. She is also an environmental activist and advocate for science literacy and education. A science and nature interpreter who has taught at museums, parks, and planetariums around the country, she holds a Masters of Education in Science and the Public and has pretty much spent her whole life working to help people feel at home in the natural world.

Ophelia Benson blogs at Butterflies and Wheels, part of the Freethought Blogs network, and runs the website of the same name. She co-wrote (with Jeremy Stangroom) The Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense, Why Truth Matters, and Does God Hate Women?, and is a columnist for Free Inquiry, The Freethinker, and The Philosophers' Magazine.

Lindsay Beyerstein is the co-host of CFI’s podcast Point of Inquiry and is an award-winning investigative journalist and staff writer for In These Times. Her work has appeared in places such as The New Republic, Reuters, Slate, Salon, Ms. Magazine, and The New York Press. She is the lead writer at the Sidney Hillman Foundation, a non-profit honoring excellence in socially conscious journalism, and holds an M.A. in philosophy from Tufts University. Lindsay says she is happiest when she’s chasing a story.

Soraya Chemaly is a feminist writer, media critic and activist whose work focuses on women’s rights and the role of gender in politics, religion, and popular culture. Her writing appears in such outlets as The Guardian, Ms. Magazine, CNN, Salon, and The Huffington Post. She is a frequent radio and online commentator on Al-Jazeera, the BBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and Voice of Russia. Soraya was one of the primary organizers of a successful social media campaign demanding that Facebook recognize misogynistic content as hate speech. She is a founding organizer of the International Feminist Network, a member of the national board of Emerge America (an organization that trains democratic women to run for office) and part of the Title IX media task force. She is the recipient of the 2013 Secular Woman Activist of the Year Award and this year’s Donna Allen Award for Feminist Advocacy, granted by the Association for Educators in Journalism & Mass Communications.

Heina Dadabhoy spent her childhood as a practicing Muslim who never would have believed that she would grow up to be an atheist, secular humanist, and feminist. Heina is a contributor to the Skepchick.org network where she focuses on race, Islam, and intersectional feminism. She is currently writing A Skeptic's Guide to Islam.

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of 23 books, including New York Times best sellers. She is best known for her undercover, hands-on experience in the world of low-wage jobs in her book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, which plunged her into the nascent living wage movement, traveling to union rallies, picket lines and organizing meetings around the country. She is author of Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America, which describes what she calls “the cult of cheerfulness,” requiring Americans to “think positively” rather than to take positive action for change. The late Christopher Hitchens lauded the book, declaring, “Ehrenreich scores again for the independent-minded.” Her latest book is called Living With a Wild God. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times,Harpers, The Progressive and Time magazine, and has appeared on Oprah, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and The Joy Behar Show, to name a few. Ehrenreich studied cell biology and physics, graduating with a degree in physics from Reed College in 1963 and a Ph.D. in cell biology from Rockefeller University in 1968.

Debbie Goddard is the Director of Outreach and the Director of African Americans for Humanism. She has years of experience in volunteering and campus and community organizing. Before coming to work for CFI as a field organizer, she volunteered for CFI On Campus with local groups and on the international level as Student Publications Director and Student President. She has been involved with church-state separation and secular activism, as well as with LGBTQ and progressive issues, for over a decade.

Rebecca Goldstein is a novelist and philosopher. She received her Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University, after which she taught at Barnard College, Columbia University. The recipient of many prizes for both fiction and scholarship, in 1996 she became a MacArthur Fellow, which is commonly called the "Genius Prize." Her first novel was the critically acclaimed bestseller The Mind-Body Problem, and there have been six more works of fiction, including her latest novel, 36 Arguments for The Existence of God: A Work of Fiction. She is also the author of Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel, named one of the top science books of 2005 by Discover Magazine, and of Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity, which received the Koret International Prize for Jewish Scholarship. She has been awarded several honorary doctorates, Guggenheim and Radcliffe fellowships, and is a Humanist Laureate. Her newest book is entitled Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away.

Candace Gorham received her Bachelor’s degree in Secondary English Education from North Carolina Central University, and her Master’s in mental health counseling from Wake Forest University. Her religious background is varied, including time as a Jehovah's Witness and as a Methodist. At 18, she joined a charismatic ministry, eventually being ordained as an evangelist, prophetess, and elderess, leading extremist activities such as casting out demons, fasting for weeks at a time and faith healing. Overwhelmed by depression and stress, Candace dove into studying the Bible more than ever. She became disillusioned with its contradictions and blatant errancy, eventually realizing that she no longer believed in a deity. Candace decided to start the Ebony Exodus project, which aims to highlight the harmful effects of religion on all believers, but especially for black women. In addition to ongoing work as a counselor, Candace is a member of The Clergy Project and The Secular Therapist Project.

Melody Hensley is the Executive Director of CFI–Washington DC. She is also a CFI Certified Secular Celebrant, legally able to officiate weddings without a religious exemption in Washington, D.C. Melody has a background in volunteering and community building. She has been involved with church-state separation and secular activism, as well as reproductive rights and progressive issues, in the D.C. area for over a decade. Prior to her latest role, she served as the CFI–DC event and volunteer coordinator.

Susan Jacoby is an author, most recently of The Great Agnostic: Robert G. Ingersoll and American Freethought. Jacoby, who began her career as a reporter for the Washington Post, has been a contributor to a wide variety of national publications, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the American Prospect, Mother Jones, the Nation, Glamour, and the AARP Bulletin and AARP Magazine. She is currently a panelist for "On Faith," a Washington Post-Newsweek blog on religion. Her bookThe Age of American Unreason, about American anti-intellectualism was a New York Times best seller.Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism was named a notable book of 2004 by the Washington Post and the New York Times.The Times Literary Supplement and The Guardian also named it an ‘Outstanding International Book of the Year.’ Wild Justice: The Evolution of Revenge was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Sarah Jones is Communications Associate at Americans United for Separation of Church and State. She has a BA in International Studies from Cedarville University in and an MA in Postcolonial Culture and Global Policy from Goldsmiths, University of London. She has presented research on political Islam and the Arab revolutions at the London School of Economics and Florida Atlantic University. Her work on has been published in The Huffington Post, the London School of Economics’ IDEAS blog, Muftah and other outlets. Having left Christian fundamentalism as a college student, Jones writes about her experiences with the Religious Right for Homeschoolers Anonymous. She sits on the Executive Board of Femin Ijtihad, a volunteer-run group that researches feminist applications of Islamic law.

Zinnia Jones is a writer and videoblogger covering secularism and LGBT rights with a focus on transgender issues. Her work has been published on Freethought Blogs and Autostraddle, and she's appeared on CNN and Al Jazeera America. She lives in Florida with her partner and two children.

Amanda Knief is the managing director and in-house counsel for American Atheists. She is the author of the public policy book, The Citizen Lobbyist. Amanda frequently speaks about constitutional law, public policy, the faith-based initiative, and women's issues in the non-theistic movement.

Leighann Lord is a stand-up comedian, writer, and actress. She is a guest co-host on NiteShift (WBAI 99.5 FM, NYC) and StarTalkRadio with Dr. Neil de Grasse Tyson. Leighann’s weekly humor blog, The Urban Erma, is the longest running column on StageTimeMagazine.com. She has also contributed to The Huffington Post. Leighann’s comedy is frequently heard on XM-Sirius Satellite Radio and she has appeared on many stand-up comedy shows including Girls Night Out (Lifetime), The Original Def Comedy All Star Jam (HBO), Premium Blend (Comedy Central), and The View (ABC). She’s performed nationwide, in the Caribbean, Europe, and for U. S. troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Miri Mogilevsky is a graduate student in social work at Columbia University. She blogs at Brute Reason, part of the Freethought Blogs network, where she covers topics such as social justice, psychology, and mental health.

Taslima Nasreen is an award-winning writer, physician, secular humanist and human rights activist known for her powerful writings on women oppression and unflinching criticism of religion, despite forced exile and multiple fatwas calling for her death. In India, Bangladesh and abroad, Nasreen’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry and memoir have topped best-seller’s list. Born in Bangladesh, she is recipient of several awards for her human rights activism, including honorary citizenships with several major world cities, and honorary doctorates from great universities. She has been granted research fellowships at Harvard and New York Universities, as well as a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship in 2009. Taslima has written 35 books in Bengali, which include poetry, essays, novels and an autobiographical series. Her works have been translated in thirty languages. Some of her books are banned in Bangladesh, and because of her ideas she has been blacklisted and banished from Bengal, both from Bangladesh and West Bengal part of India. She has been prevented by the authorities from returning to her country since 1994, and to West Bengal since 2007.

Katha Pollitt is a poet, essayist and columnist for The Nation. She has written for many publications, including the New Yorker, The Atlantic, the New York Times, and Free Inquiry, and her work appears in many anthologies. She has been an atheist since she was six. She is completing a book about abortion rights.

Amy Davis Roth (A.K.A. Surly Amy) is a 4th generation multimedia artist who resides in Los Angeles, California. She is the creator of Surly-Ramics. Her designer jewelry line is inspired by and encourages science, humanism, atheism and critical thinking. Amy is a longtime contributor to the widely popular blog Skepchick.org. She is managing editor for Skepchick's sister site that deals with the intersection between art, science and skepticism called Mad Art Lab. She loves to add her creative skills to the fight against pseudoscience and ignorance.

Mandy Velez is an Associate Editor at The Huffington Post specializing in the Parents/Family section. The Philadelphia native graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh where she dual majored in English and Communication. Her work has appeared on Latina.com, The Huffington Post, Ladies' Home Journal, VERVE Social Magazine and WHIRL Magazine. In 2012, she received the Frank E. Bolden Endowment for Excellence In Journalism from The University Of Pittsburgh. She is a proud Latina, feminist and ally of the LGBT community.

Lindy West is a writer and performer based in Seattle, WA. She currently works as a Staff Writer at Jezebel.com, where she writes about pop culture, social justice, human bodies, and weird animal attacks. Her work has also appeared in Slate, GQ, the Guardian, the Telegraph, Vulture, and MSNBC, among others.