Visiting & Core Faculty - continued

(Click on name to read bio)

Osprey Orielle Lake, MA, is one of the world’s few female monument makers working with allegorical images and is the founder/artist of the International Cheemah and Mari Monument Projects, which celebrate environmental, multicultural and societal themes. Through her projects and presentations at conferences and universities around the world, Osprey explores art and new narratives as critical tools in societal transformation. She is an adjunct faculty member at two California universities, on the governing board of Praxis Peace Institute, and is the State of the World Forum’s Director of Women’s 2020 Climate Solutions Caucus.  Osprey also works internationally with social and environmental change organizations. (More about Lake) Back to Index

Maurice Lange, OMI, MDiv, at 17 journeyed to Oaxaca, Mexico to live with indigenous people. This experience, along with 40 years of life spent largely outdoors, continues to evoke a broader sense of life. Maurice is a member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. After a two year internship at Genesis Farm he now live and works near the St. louis are. He offers retreats, presentations and Earth Literacy courses which call forth a mutually enhancing human Earth relationship. Back to Index

Penny Livingston, is internationally recognized as a prominent permaculture teacher and designer. She is the Co-founder of the Regenerative Design Institute & president of Sustainable Living Designs. She specializes in education toward developing skills in creating resource rich landscapes, co-housing design, site planning, as well as edible landscaping, productive perennial farm systems, rainwater collection, pond design, natural building, water purification systems, habitat development and watershed restoration. She co-created the ecological design program and curriculum at the San Francisco Institute of Architecture as well as the Permaculture program at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center. She co-manages the Commonweal Garden, a diverse permaculture organic farm in Bolinas California with her husband James Stark. She has been invited to teach, speak and share her vision all over the world. Back to Indexudy of Science and World Religions. "McDaniel's class at Sophia is entitled: Animals, Jazz, and Poetry. (More about Livingston)

Miriam MacGillis, OP, MA, is an earth activist and artist. She co-founded Genesis Farm Learning Center in Blairstown, NJ. The farm practices biodynamic methods of agriculture and some 180 families are shareholders in its economic support. The farm is also an ecological learning center based on the vision of Thomas Berry where the focus is on how to live in the new cosmological order and, especially, how to live within the bioregional context.Back to Index

Joanna Macy, PhD, is a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. A respected voice in movements for peace, justice, and ecology, she interweaves her scholarship with four decades of activism. She has created a ground-breaking theoretical framework for personal and social change, as well as a powerful workshop methodology for its application. Joanna travels widely giving lectures, workshops, and trainings in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia. (More about Macy) Back to Index

Jay McDaniel, PhD, is Professor of Religion, Hendrix College, Chair, Department of Religion; Director, Steel Center for the Study of Religion and Philosophy, NS; Director, New Horizons: Center for Study of Science and World Religions. "McDaniel's class at Sophia is entitled: Animals, Jazz, and Poetry.

Sallie McFague, PhD, holds a Bachelor of Arts (magna cum laude) from Smith College, a Bachelor of Divinity (magna cum laude) from Yale Divinity School and Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Yale University. Dr. McFague also holds an Honourary Doctor of Letters from Smith College. She has retired as Carpenter Professor of Theology at Vanderbilt Divinity School. She is a prolific author. Her books include: Metaphorical Theology, Models of God, The Body of God, and Super,Natural Christians. Dr. McFague's most recent book is Life Abundant: Rethinking Theology and Economy for a Planet in Peril

Patricia Mische, PhD, is the Lloyd Professor of Peace Studies and World Law at Antioch College and co-founder and President of Global Education Associates, a network of people in 90 countries working to advance global systems that will assure greater peace, social justice, economic-well-being, ecological integrity, and democratic participation. She also collaborated with United Nations programs, is an activist and co-author of Toward a Human World Order, author of Star Wars and the State of Our Souls, Ecological Security and the United Nations System: Past, Present and Future, and Toward a Global Civilization.

Ronald Nakasone, Ph.D., is the director of CenterFaith, a center for interfaith research, resource, and education and Professor of Buddhist Studies at the Graduate Theological Union. His research interests are threefold: Buddhist studies and ethics, spirituality and aging, and Okinawan religion. A Buddhist cleric, Rev. Nakasone comments on such issues as cloning, organ transplants, euthanasia, and other modern dilemmas and is deeply interested in aging and spirituality issues in a religiously and culturally diverse healthcare system. He is currently editing a book on the Okinawan identity and spirituality.

Albert Nolan, OP is founding member of the Institute for Contextual Theology in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is author of the classic Jesus Before Christianity and God in South Africa. Within the perspective of the new cosmology he is an enduring presence in the work of healing the wounds of apartheid in his homeland and as a leader within his Dominican community. (More about Nolan)

Sophia Park, SNJM, Ph D, teaches religious studies at the Holy Names University and Christians spirituality at San Francisco Theological Seminary in California. Her emphasis is about indigenous spirituality such as Korean shamanism and spiritual empowerment through intercultural configuration in the global context.

Dennis Patrick O'Hara, PhD, is a chiropractor, naturopathic doctor and ethicist who teaches graduate courses in ethics and eco-theology in the Faculty of Theology at the University of St. Michael’s College, and environment and health for the Centre for Environment at the University of Toronto. He is the director of the Elliott Allen Institute for Theology and Ecology at St. Michael’s, directing masters and doctoral students with their dissertations in eco-theology.

Bill Plotkin, PhD, is a depth psychologist, guide of wilderness rites, ecotherapist, and founder of Colorado’s Animas Valley Institute. He is the author of Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World (2008) and Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche(2003). (More about Plotkin)

Margaret Paloma Pavel works in the Bay Area and internationally consulting to individuals, communities, and organizations in areas such as strategic visioning, communication, diversity, and leadership development. Dr. Pavel's organizational clients reflect a core values commitment in areas of health, justice, education, and sustainable development. Her academic background includes graduate study at the London School of Economics and Harvard University. Her dissertation, "Organizational Culture and Career Development: Gender and Leadership," was part of a five-year study of the workplace in America sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation, which culminated in the publication GOOD WORK. Dr. Pavel is a keynote presenter at national and international conferences, (e.g. ‘The Future of Education – Re-imagining Leadership’ – Japan; ‘Eco-Psychology: New Paradigms of Science’ – Mexico; and Building Sustainable Metropolitan Communities – Cairo, Egypt.) Her current research focuses on the shift from mechanistic models (pyramids) to biological models (webs) for organizational development and the restoring of sustainable communities. (More about Pavel) Back to Index

Sister Helen Prejean author of The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions and Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States which was developed into a major motion picture and also the basis for a new opera. Her organization, The Moratorium Campaign works to deepen the discourse around the death penalty and to bring about moratoria across the USA. (More about Prejean) Back to Index

Richard Rohr, OFM, is founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation. He is an internationally known speaker, and the author of many books including Simplicity: The Art of Living, and Everything Belongs and Wildman’s Journey: Reflections on Male Spirituality Back to Index

Belvie Rooks is a writer, educator and producer whose work weaves the worlds of spirituality, feminism, ecology, racial and environmental justice and a passion for dialogue. She is the producer and host of Conversations that Matter: Frontiers of Race, Cosmology, and Consciousness, which brings consciousness studies down to earth, making them real and relevant for everyday life. She is also the creator of Hey, Listen Up! Race, Cosmology and the Environment, a ground-breaking multimedia-based urban eco-literacy project and curriculum. Her published works have been included in a number of books and anthologies including My Soul is a Witness: African Women's Spirituality (Beacon Press, 1996) Back to Index

Rosemary Radford Ruether, PhD, is a theologian and historian. Her publications include Gaia and God, Women and Redemption, Sexism and God-Talk, and Women Healing Earth. (More about Ruether) Back to Index

Donald Rothberg, PhD, is one of the nation's foremost leaders in socially engaged spirituality. He has practiced Buddhist meditation for over 25 years and has been significantly influenced by other spiritual traditions, particularly Jewish, Christian, and indigenous. Currently, Donald is directing a two-year training program in connecting individual and social transformation, "The Path of Engagement," through Spirit Rock Meditation Center and the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. His book, The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World, was named one of the best spiritual books of 2006 by Spirituality and Practice. (More about Rothberg). Back to Index

Elisabet Sahtouris, M.S., PhD, is an evolution biologist and futurist who travels. Lectures and consults all over the world to show how knowledge of biological evolution can guide us in solving problems of inequity and ecological crises. (Life Web)  Back to Index

Stephen Scharper is Assistant Professor of Religion and Environmental Studies with the Center for the Study of Religion and at Innis College at the University of Toronto where he serves as Associate of the Institute for environmental Studies. He is author of Redeeming the Time: A Political Theology of the Environment and coauthor with his wife Hilary Cunningham of The Green Bible. More about Scharper). (More about Diaz) Back to Index

Mary Schmitt, has a B.S. from Marian College of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin; a Master's degree from Marquette University, and a Ph.D. in neurophysiology from the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center.  She is currently teaching at the Sophia Center at Holy Names University, and John F.Kennedy University, Pleasant Hill. CA.  Her passion is the study of consciousness in all of nature, and especially the human role in its evolution. Back to Index

Michael S. Schneider has a B.S. Degree in mathematics and a Master's Degree in Mathematics Education, and has been teaching 33 years. He's the author of A Beginner's Guide To Constructing The Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes Of Nature, Art and Science and five related workbooks. Michael was a Fulbright-Hayes Scholar in India studying ancient mathematics and sciences. In 1993 he designed the geometry harmonizing the statues on the south side of the "Portal of Paradise" (central entrance) to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. He has worked at the United Nations, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and MTV. Presently Michael is an Adjunct Professor at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco and occasionally holds workshops for educators, artists, and children on the wonders of mathematics in nature, science, art and culture. (More about Schneider) Back to Index

John Shea, PhD, is a research professor at the Institute for Pastoral Studies at Loyola University, Chicago, and senior scholar at Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith and Ethics. He is a renowned storyteller and the author of The Legend of the Bells, Gospel Light and Elijah at the Wedding Feast and other Tales.  (More about Shea) Back to Index

Huston Smith, PhD, is a teacher of world religions and author of the international best-selling The Religions of Man. Through his landmark books and documentary films, Huston Smith has opened the eyes of the world to the "invisible geometry" that shapes human spirituality. Born in China over 80 years ago to missionary parents, Huston Smith served briefly as a pastor in the mid-west. Since the 1950s, he has held teaching positions on the faculties at MIT, Syracuse, and the University of California–Berkeley. Back to Index

Terry Smith, MA. A priest from Cincinnati has been involved in spiritual companioning and retreats for close to twenty-five years. He is presently a pastor in the Cincinnati area while continuing to companion with others and be involved in retreats. He has done graduate work in the area of spirituality at Fordham and Creighton Universities. He was a participant at Sophia Center in 2003. Back to Index

Sobonfu Somé is an internationally-known West African teacher and author of Welcoming Home Spirit and The Spirit of Intimacy. Her reliance on spirit, community and ritual that has allowed Sobonfu's personal and professional path to become on&e. Since the beginning of her journey in the West Sobonfu has traveled extensively throughout North America and Europe, conducting workshops on spirituality, ritual, the sacred and intimacy. Her work has moved African spiritual practices from the realm of anthropology, to a place alongside the world's great spiritual tradition, with a message of profound significance and practical application in the lives of Westerners. (More about Sobonfu) Back to Index

Brother David Steindl-Rast, OSB, PhD, is author of Gratefulness, The Heart of Prayer, A Listening Heart, Belonging to the Universe (with Fritjof Carra) and The Music of Silence (Sharon Lebell). A member of Mount Saviour Benedictine Community, Br. David has been involved in the renewal of monastic life and contemplative prayer, both East & West, for more than three decades. (A Network for Grateful Living)Back to Index

Donald Rothberg has practiced insight meditation since 1976. A long-time organized, teacher, and board member for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Donald also directs an 18-month interfaith program in socially engaged spirituality for SayBrook Graduate School. He has been influenced by Tibetan practice and by Jewish, Christian, and indigenous traditions, and has written on transpersonal psychology, including co-editing (with Sean Kelly) Ken Wilber in Dialogue: Conversations with Leading Transpersonal Thinkers. Back to Index

Brian Swimme, PhD, is a cosmologist, and the author of Hidden Heart of the Cosmos, Universe Story (with Thomas Berry), The Universe is a Green Dragon and the video series The Canticle of the Cosmos and Earth’s Imagination. He is a professor on the graduate faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies. (More about Swimme) Back to Index

Mary Evelyn Tucker, PhD, is a professor of religion at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where she teaches courses in world religions, Asian religions, religion and ecology, and religion and nature writers. (More about Tucker). Back to Index

Mark Wallace, PhD, graduate of The University of Chicago, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religion and member of the Interpretation Theory Committee and the Environmental Studies Committee at Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania. He has authored Finding God in the Singing River: Christianity, Spirit, Nature, Fragments of the Spirit: Nature, Violence, and the Renewal of Creation, The Second Naïveté: Barth, Ricoeur, and the New Yale Theology, edited Paul Ricoeur's Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination. Back to Index

Francis Weller MA,is a psychotherapist, workshop leader and community builder. He has been actively involved in creating community-based study exploration of traditional knowledge. His focus is on recovering a connection with our ancestral roots and on translating the essential wisdom of indigenous traditions into our modern culture. He is the founder and director of WisdomBridge, which offers workshops, trainings and consultations on the recovery of the indigenous soul. He has two Master's degrees and is currently completing a book entitled Unforgotten Wisdom: Reclaiming Our Indigenous Soul. Back to Index

Eric Weiss MFT,PhD, is a professor of Philosophy and Cosmology at the Sophia Center of Holy Names University and at the California Institute of Integral Studies; he is also a psychotherapist in private practice. He explores the evolutionary story with a perspective informed, on the one hand, by Western philosophy, psychology and science and, on the other hand, by a deep knowledge of Eastern philosophy and yogic psychology grounded in the teachings of Buddhism and in the works of the great twentieth century mystic and philosopher, Sri Aurobindo. Back to Index

Miriam Therese Winter, MMS, PhD, is a Medical Mission Sister, a Professor of Liturgy, Worship and Spirituality at Hartford Seminar in Connecticut. She is the author of 15 books and gold record "Joy Is Like the Rain."Books include: Woman Words, Woman Wisdom and Woman Witness, Defecting in Place, The Chronicles of Noah and Her Sisters,The Singer and the Song, and her most recent book, Eucharist With A Small "e". (More about Winter) Back to Index

Gail Worcelo, CP, MA, is a Passionist Nun originally from St. Gabriel's Monastery in Clarks Summit,. PA. She is currently co-founding, along with Bernadette Bostwick, a new monastic community—Green Mountain Monastery—with the guidance and support of Thomas Berry. The mission of this new community is the health and protection of Earth. Gail has been a student of Thomas Berry for the past 23 years. Back to Index

Mary Jane Zimmerman, Trusting the Universe: A Journey of Healing and Reconnection which analyzes the imbalance in Western culture from the perspective of “Dine” thought. Interested in the bridge between native sciences and western sciences, she studies Native ways of knowing and healing with traditional “Dine” elder Leon Secatero, as well as continuing her studies in cognitive science and evolutionary psychology. She currently teaches literature and honors classes at Central New Mexico Community College in Albuquerque, NM. Back to Index