Prof. Vidya Jain is a Professor of Political Science and served in the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, Rajasthan (India) for 38 years. She was Principal of Maharani College, Jaipur which is Asia’s biggest Girls College. She was also Director, Centre for Gandhian Studies, University of Rajasthan. Recently she is elected as convener of Nonviolence Commission of IPRA. She was Secretary General (2012-14) of Asia Pacific Peace Research Association (APPRA). She was also Deputy Secretary General of APPRA (2010-12). She is also a member of Board of Directors of IPRA Foundation. Vidya Jain is a well-known scholar of Gandhian, Peace and Gender Studies. She has authored 7 books and innumerable articles in journals of national and international repute. She is at the editorial board of several journals like ‘Journal of Human Security Studies’, USA. She is a member of Nonkilling Political Science Committee of the Centre for Nonkilling, Hawaii (USA). She is member of Research Committee of IPRA. She is at the selection committees of different universities and PSC’s.

Following his foreign service career as Canadian diplomat Dr. Bill (Balwant) Bhaneja was a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Ottawa. A founding member of the Center for Global Nonkilling (CGNK), he was Vice Chair of CGNK Governing Council (2008-2016) and Senior Advisor (2016). He has chaired nonkilling panels at the European Consortium for Political Research in Budapest (2005) and at the IPSA World Political Science Congress, Santiago de Chile (2009). He also co-chaired with Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire the First Global Nonkilling Leadership Forum, in Honolulu, Hawaii (2007). He is a member of the Canadian Pugwash Group, Science for Peace, Civilian Peace Service Canada and co-founder of the Canadian Department of Peace Initiative. His books include: Science and Government: Nehru Era, Quest for Gandhi: A Nonkilling Journey, and Troubled Pilgrimage: A Passage to Pakistan. He holds Ph.D. (Victoria University of Manchester), M.A. (School of International Affairs, Carleton University), and B.J. (School of Journalism, Carleton University).

Tom is one of the founders of the Center for Global Nonkilling (CGNK) 2008, which has recently expired. He served on the CGNK leadership team from 2008-2012 and served as faculty for the CGNK Leadership Academy. Prior to that he served on the Center for Global Nonviolence (CGNV) Board of Directors 2004-2006. He was Director of the Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Hawai’i Manoa in 2002-2003. He led the Agreement Zone, a public policy mediation, consensus building, facilitation, leadership coaching, and strategic futures enterprise for twenty years. He served with the National Institute for Dispute Resolution (NIDR) in Washington, D.C. from 1985, 1988-1994 and the Center for Public Dispute Resolution NJ Public Advocate from 1985-1988. He holds a B.A. mcl in Religion (’77) and a J.D. in law (’84) from Rutgers University. Tom worked in college publishing and the bookstore industry from 1976-1980. Tom’s first service in peacemaking leadership was with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) addressing rural poverty in 1972. He has served on the boards of many local, national, and global organizations including the National Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution (NCPCR), the George Mason U. Institute for Conflict Analysis & Resolution (now SCAR), the World Foundation for Environment & Development (WFED), Mercer Street Friends Center, Northern Virginia Mediation Center, NJ Burlington County Comprehensive Justice Center, and the Humboldt State U Institute for Study of Alternative Dispute Resolution.

Evelin Lindner has a dual education as a Medical Doctor and a Psychologist, with a Ph.D. in Medicine (Dr. med.) and a Ph.D. in Psychology (Dr. psychol.). She is the founding president of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (HumanDHS, humiliationstudies.org), a global community of concerned academics and practitioners who wish to promote dignity around the world. Dr. Lindner is also co-founder of the World Dignity University initiative. All initiatives are a not-for-profit labour of love based on the practice of direct solidarity and gift economy. Lindner lives and teaches globally, and is affiliated, among others, with the University of Oslo in Norway since 1997, with Columbia University in New York City since 2001 (with the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity, AC4), and since 2003 with the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris. Together with the HumanDHS network, she convenes two conferences per year, the “Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict” taking place each December at Columbia University in New York City, and the other conference in a different location each year, since 2003 in Europe (Paris, Berlin, Oslo, Dubrovnik), Costa Rica, China, Hawai’i, Turkey, Egypt, New Zealand, South Africa, Rwanda, Thailand, and India. The nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015, 2016, and 2017 gave all network members great courage.

Joám earned his Ph.D. in Social Sciences at Åbo Akademi University after following graduate and undergraduate studies in Journalism, Anthropology and Politics (Peace Studies). He has served different roles at CGNK since 2008 and also teaches seasonally at Jaume I University in Castelló and Åbo Akademi University in Vasa. Edited volumes include Global Nonkilling Leadership (2008, with Glenn Paige), Toward a Nonkilling Paradigm (2009), Nonkilling Societies (2010), Engineering Nonkilling (2011), Nonkilling Psychology (2012, with Dan Christie), Nonkilling Futures (2012, with Jim Dator) and Nonkilling Security and the State (2013).

Dr Rashida Khanam is the Director of Center for Nonkilling and Development (CNKD), an affiliate of the Center for Global Nonkilling( CGNK). She is also the Vice- Chairperson, Pora Lekha, a Social Organization, Chittagong, Bangladesh General Secretary, Dhrubo Parishad, the only Music Examination Board (Private) in Bangladesh. Member, Shadarang, a Classical Music Organization, Chittagong, Bangladesh.