Hurunnessa Fariad is a highly respected Muslim American community leader and advocate, recognized for her remarkable ability to build bridges across diverse communities throughout the United States. A passionate champion of multifaith collaboration, she previously served as the director of outreach for the Multi-Faith Neighbors Network, where she fostered trust and understanding among clerics through civic engagement, meaningful relationships, and open dialogue.

A tireless advocate for women’s empowerment, Fariad ensures that women’s voices are heard and amplified in every sphere. She serves as the secretary of the board of directors at the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, is a board member for Women for Afghan Women, and actively participates in numerous faith-based organizations. 

Fariad is the founder and music director of The ADAMS BEAT Choir, America’s first masjid youth choir, which blends art and faith to inspire young people. She is also the founder and co-host of the Sister Act Podcast, where she and her co-hosts Sabrina Dent and Rabbi Susan Shankman, engage in candid conversations about issues such as stigma, social justice, and human rights through the lens of faith. 

Fariad has actively participated in multifaceted multifaith discussions at the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services under the last two administrations. These dialogues focused on addressing Islamophobia and antisemitism, underscoring her commitment to fostering understanding and combating prejudice at the highest levels of policymaking. 

As a former child refugee from Afghanistan, Fariad brings a unique perspective to her work, drawing on her personal journey to inspire and lead. She resides in Ashburn, Virginia, with her children, continuing to dedicate her life to building a more inclusive and compassionate society. 

Rabbi Noam Marans is American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) director of interreligious affairs, heading the agency’s global interfaith outreach and advocacy. He served as chair of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC), world Jewry's official dialogue partner with the Vatican, Ecumenical Patriarchate, World Council of Churches, World Evangelical Alliance, and other bodies. Marans has participated in multiple audiences with Pope Francis and served as the lead Jewish speaker in programs convened by the pontiff on the environment and education. He expanded AJC’s engagement with Muslims, Latino Evangelicals, and Latter-day Saints, and spearheaded constructive engagement of the controversial Oberammergau Passion Play, successfully collaborating with the play's leadership toward elimination of its historically anti-Jewish elements. Before arriving at AJC in 2001, he served for 16 years as rabbi of Temple Israel in Ridgewood, New Jersey. He earned a B.A. in political science at Columbia University and an M.A. and Rabbinical Ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He was recognized with the Seton Hall University Sister Rose Thering Award for Outstanding Service in Education for Interreligious Harmony and is a past president of the Northern New Jersey Board of Rabbis. 

Reverend Gabriel Salguero is the pastor of The Gathering Place, a Latino-led multiethnic Assemblies of God congregation in Orlando, Florida. Salguero is also the president and founder of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition (NALEC), a national coalition of several thousand evangelical congregations in the United States. He was the former Director of the Hispanic Leadership Program (HLP), and the Institute for Faith and Public Life at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is also a member of the Karsh Institute's advisory board.

Salguero is also a powerful voice on issues that affect the close to nine million Latino evangelicals in the United States. Salguero’s leadership through NaLEC offers an important voice for the growing diversity and changing demographics in our country. He has written extensively on Latino evangelicalism, immigration, racism, and multicultural congregations. Salguero has been named as one of the nation’s most prominent Latino evangelical leaders by the New York Times, Huffington Post, New York Observer, the Center for American Progress, El Diario, CNN Español, NBC Universal, Univisión, and Jorge Ramos’ Al Punto. In addition, his leadership on issues of young male education and criminal justice reform has been featured by the Discovery Channel and the Oprah Winfrey Network.  

Salguero has served on the White House Faith-Based Advisory Council, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), and the National Advisory Council of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance. He is also on the board of La Asociación Evangélica Latina (AEL) the coalition of Latin American evangelicals which is the representative body for all evangelical associations in Latin America. Salguero holds a BA in Spanish and History from Rutgers University, M.Div (magna cum laude) from New Brunswick Theological Seminary, and a doctorate in divinity (honoris causa) from Eastern Nazarene College.  Rev. Salguero lives with his wife, the Rev. Jeanette Salguero, and their two sons in Orlando. 

Louis P. Nelson, vice provost for academic outreach, is the primary advocate and representative for community engagement, public service, and academic outreach programs across the University of Virginia—in Charlottesville, across the Commonwealth, the nation, and the globe. Community Engagement includes a robust curricular program grounded in community partnerships and a commitment to the education of students for socially responsible, engaged citizenship. Public service takes place in a variety of ways across the University, from health clinics to K-12 programs to expert advice to local and state governments. 

UVA is committed to supporting research that is clearly in the public interest—especially to public well-being across the Commonwealth—through outreach programs that bring the academic resources of the University to the public. In his role as vice provost, Nelson serves as the chief advisor to the executive vice president and provost on all academic matters relating to community engagement and public service. He oversees numerous related academic units at the University, including the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, the Virginia Humanities, the Center for Liberal Arts, and the Virginia College Advising Corps. The work of his office appears on two websites, Academic Outreach and Engaged UVA. 

Nelson is also a professor of architectural history and a specialist in the built environments of the early modern Atlantic world, with published work on the American South, the Caribbean, and West Africa. His current research engages the spaces of enslavement in West Africa and in the Americas, where he is working to document and interpret the buildings and landscapes that shaped the trans-Atlantic slave trade. He has a second collaborative project working to understand UVA as a landscape of slavery. Nelson is an accomplished scholar, with two book-length monographs, three edited collections of essays, two terms as senior co-editor of Buildings and Landscapes—the leading English language venue for scholarship on vernacular architecture—and numerous articles. His books and articles have been awarded the 2017 Abbott Lowell Cummings Prize, the 2017 John Brickerhoff Jackson Prize, the 2016 Allen G. Noble Prize, the 2016 Best Essay Prize (SESAH), the 2015 Bishir Prize, and the 2010 Outstanding Book of the Year (SESAH), among others. 

Nelson's current work to document and preserve spaces of enslavement in Africa has led to a partnership with Sites of Conscience at the House of the Slaves in Senegal. He is also coeditor of a forthcoming volume on the spaces of slavery at Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village and has been a vocal supporter of the initiative to erect a monument to the University’s enslaved populations. He is also a celebrated teacher, having won a University-wide teaching award in 2007 and serving as the 2008 UVA nominee for a state-wide Outstanding Faculty Award. He is currently the president of his professional organization, the Vernacular Architecture Forum.