Pamela Akison

Pamela Akison holds a doctorate in information science from the University at Albany. She has managed information systems in the public sector, has been an active participant in standards-setting bodies, and has had a technical web development consultancy since 1999.

John Bell

John Bell is a former UN and Canadian diplomat who was worked for over three decades in diplomacy and mediation in the Middle East. He is co-founder and director of The Conciliators Guild, an initiative dedicated to highlighting the role of underlying human motivations in politics.

Mary Ann Cammarota

Mary Ann Cammarota is a co-creator and past managing editor of the current Human Journey project. She is writer, researcher, editor, and Silicon Valley marketing consultant with an academic background in journalism, political science, philosophy and psychology. Her current interest is in what really influences our choices, from the mundane to the profound, and how increasing our understanding of this can be directed to benefit the human future.

J.C. (Chris) Cleary

J.C. (Chris) Cleary held a PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University. He was the translator or co-translator of numerous works from Zen’s Chinese history including, in collaboration with his brother Thomas, The Blue Cliff Record. He passed away on February 25, 2023.

Shawn Fuller

Shawn Fuller is a software developer for Telus Communications, in Vancouver. He facilitates groups for MenTOR, an organization that helps men transform their relationships from abusive and controlling to mutual and supporting. He is also a director for Books Over Borders, a Canadian non-profit that brings beautifully illustrated, cross-cultural stories to underserved children.

Margaret A. Caudill-Slosberg

Margaret Caudill-Slosberg, MD, PhD, MPH, was Adjunct Assistant Professor of Community and Family Medicine, Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College and Instructor in Anesthesiology, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. She has a longstanding interest in pain management and mind/body interactions and is the author of Managing Pain Before It Manages You, 4th ed. Dr. Caudill-Slosberg currently assists patients in medication-assisted-treatment of opioid addiction. She continues to have an interest in Global Health affairs.

Hafeez Diwan

Hafeez Diwan is Professor and Director of Dermatopathology at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He is the author of a number of books including How to Love Obnoxious People—and Why?: The Life-Saving Art and Science of Loving Truly Horrible People. His most recent work, co-written with his daughter Sara Diwan, is the middle-grade/young adult novel The Great Lion.

Sian Griffiths

Sian Griffiths is the managing editor for the Human Journey website. She holds a law degree from Cardiff University in the UK, working in administration and learning and development before moving into editorial production. A member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, she has collaborated with authors, businesses and charities across diverse genres, including the Idries Shah Foundation and Hoopoe Books.

George Kasabov

George Kasabov was born in Bulgaria and lives in England. An architect and product designer, he has taught at universities around the world, including University College London (UCL), Harvard and Princeton. He has worked on environmental and sustainability issues since the early 1970s.

Douglas Keefe

Douglas Keefe is a physicist (PhD, Case Western Reserve University) and Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America. His research involved physiological acoustics at Boys Town National Research Hospital and musical acoustics as Associate Professor at the University of Washington School of Music. He invented new clinical devices to diagnose conductive hearing disorders across the age span. Music is his lifelong avocation.

Sally Mallam

Sally Mallam is the current executive director of The Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge and executive editor of The Human Journey project. She also directs ISHK’s literacy outreach programs. Mallam is an artist who has exhibited in the U.S. and Britain. Born in the UK, she spent 15 years in international business and publishing prior to coming to the U.S. Her primary research focus in recent years has been the role of religion and spirituality in the development of human societies. She is the author of The Human Journey’s comprehensive overview of the impact of religious ideas throughout history.

Kathleen Mazor

Kathleen Mazor, EdD, MS is Professor Emeritus, UMass Chan Medical School. Trained in psychometrics, she has led and collaborated research focused on provider-patient communication, breakdowns in care, disclosure of medical errors, vaccine hesitancy, decision-making and health literacy. A consistent theme in her research has been to understand patients’ perspectives on health and healthcare.  She has expertise in quantitative and qualitative methods, and has studied the impact of various strategies for communicating health-related information to patients and the public, including the use of analogy to encourage vaccination.  She has over 250 peer-reviewed publications to her credit.

Steve Matthews

Steve Matthews is the founder of Matthews & Associates, a scientific and technical consulting company. He has degrees in English, Physics, and Applied Physics from Stanford University.

Robert Ornstein

An award-winning psychologist and pioneering brain researcher, Robert Ornstein was the founder of The Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge (ISHK) and the founder, executive editor and principal contributing writer of the Human Journey project until his death in 2018. Ornstein authored more than 20 books on the nature of the human mind and brain and their relationship to thought, health, and individual and social consciousness, several of which are Human Journey Featured Books. His books have sold over six million copies worldwide, have been translated into dozens of languages and used in more than 20,000 university classes.

Professor Ornstein received his PhD in psychology from Stanford (1968) where his doctoral thesis won the American Institutes for Research Creative Talent Award. He was an NIMH pre and postdoctoral fellow and the recipient of multiple awards including UNESCO and UNICEF’s “Best Contribution to Psychology” and the American Psychological Foundation Media award for “increasing the public understanding of psychology.” He taught at Stanford, Harvard, and UCSF.

Archie O’Shaughnessy

Archie O’Shaughnessy holds a degree in marine biology and has worked with various endangered species around the world. He is also involved with HSLF, which is dedicated to translating and distributing his grandfather’s children’s books to kids around the world living in war zones, refugee camps and other difficult situations.

Mel Raff

Mel Raff has a BA and PhD in literature from the University of Maryland, and an MA in creative writing from the Johns Hopkins University. He has worked as an auto mechanic, a college English professor, a network and information technology specialist, and a software developer and executive.

David Sobel

David S. Sobel, MD, MPH is Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine and the Department of Clinical Science, Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine. He served as a mentor and Visiting Scholar in the Clinical Effectiveness Research Center (CERC), Stanford University and collaborated with the Stanford Patient Education Research Center on the development and evaluation of the Chronic Disease Self-Management Program.

He was Director of Patient Education and Health Promotion for Kaiser Permanente Northern California which served over 5 million members and practiced adult primary care medicine.

Dr. Sobel completed a Bachelor’s degree in psychology (University of Michigan), medical education (University of California San Francisco), medical internship (Presbyterian Hospital-Pacific Medical Center), Masters in Public Health and a residency program in General Preventive Medicine (UC Berkeley). He has been designated as an Honorary Fellow of the Society for Public Health Education.

His research and teaching interests include health behavior change, medical self-care, behavioral medicine and psychosocial factors in health. He has written ten books including The Healing Brain, Healthy Pleasures, The Mind & Body Health Handbook, Living a Healthy Life with Chronic Conditions, Living a Healthy Life with Chronic Pain, Living a Healthy Life with HIV, Building Better Caregivers,and What’s the Catch? How to Avoid Getting Hooked and Manipulated. 

Dr. Sobel’s more than 200 television appearances to educate the public about health issues include the Today Show, CNN, Hour Magazine, and a regular television news segment on the San Jose, CA ABC affiliate station. He also served as an invited delegate to the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) Congress that generated the Ottawa Charter on Health Promotion. He has provided over 500 invited keynote lectures in a variety of professional and public venues including the American Hospital Association, World Health Organization (WHO), National Institutes for Health, National Health Service (NHS UK), UC Berkeley, UCSF, Stanford, Harvard Community Health Plan, Hong Kong Hospital Authority, Chevron, Southern California Edison, Blue Cross, National Wellness Institute, and Esalen Institute.

Robert Twigger

Robert Twigger is an award winning and bestselling author of 15 books translated into 16 languages. He has won the Newdigate Prize for poetry, whose previous winners include Oscar Wilde, and the Somerset Maugham Award for Literature, whose previous winners include Doris Lessing and V.S. Naipaul.

Denise Winn

Denise Winn is a British journalist and psychotherapist,. She was formerly the editor of Human Givens Journal and of the UK edition of Psychology Today. She is the author of 11 books on psychology and medicine, including The Manipulated Mind: Brainwashing, Conditioning and Indoctrination, published by Malor Books, and co-author of five books on mental health.

John Zada

John Zada is a journalist and author who writes about politics, psychology and culture. He’s lived and worked extensively in the Middle East and has produced work for the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, CBC, Al Jazeera, BBC, Literary Review of Canada, Los Angeles Review of Books and others. He is also co-founder of The Conciliators Guild, a UK-based initiative dedicated to highlighting the role of underlying human motivations in politics. John holds a Master’s degree in international relations from the American University in Cairo and is the author of two books about human perception: In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond: In Search of the Sasquatch, and Veils of Distortion: How the News Media Warps Our Minds.

Andrew Zucker

Andrew Zucker, Ed.D. has a broad range of experience with elementary and secondary education, ranging from classroom teaching to service in the federal government. He has written extensively about mitigating the problem of scientific misinformation, and also about the use of computers and related technologies in schools. He holds graduate degrees from Stanford and Harvard universities.