Professor James Benn is a scholar of Chinese religions, concentrating on Buddhism and practices surrounding self-immolation. He is a professor at Arizona State University and has written many articles on the subject and is currently finishing a book tentatively called Burning for the Buddha: Self-immolation in Chinese Buddhism.

Professor José Cabezón is a scholar of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy, especially Tibetan Buddhism. He teaches at UC Santa Barbara and is interested in bringing contemporary Western approaches to understanding religion into conversation with indigenous Tibetan theory. His recent publications include Identity and the Politics of Scholarship in the Study of Religion, co-edited with Sheila Greeve Davaney.

Professor James Dobbins is a scholar of Japanese religions, especially medieval Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism. He teaches at Oberlin College and is the author of Jōdo Shinshū: Shin Buddhism in Medieval Japan and Letters of the Nun Eshinni: Images of Pure Land Buddhism in Medieval Japan.

Professor Luis Gómez is a scholar of religion, concentrating on late Indian Buddhism and psychology of religion. He teaches at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and his research interests also include the history of religions, comparative religion, and Sanskrit literature. He is the author of The Land of Bliss, Translation of the Sukhavativyuha Sutras.

Professor Jacqueline Stone is a scholar of Japanese religions, especially medieval Japanese Buddhism. She teaches at Princeton and is the author of Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism and is currently researching Buddhist deathbed practices in Japan's premodern period. She has written articles on Buddhist eschatology, Tendai and Nichiren traditions, and Buddhism in Modern Japan.

Professor Stephen Teiser is an historian of religions, concentrating on Buddhism and Chinese religions. He teachers at Princeton and is the author of The Ghost Festival in Medieval China and The Scripture on the Ten Kings and the Making of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism. He is now finishing a book on paintings of the wheel of rebirth in Buddhist temples in India, Tibet, central Asia, and China. 

Professor Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan is an art historian of modern Asian art. She teaches at Yale and is on the Board of Directors of the College Art Association. In her work Yiengpruksawan focuses on Buddhist art and iconography with emphasis on political and social perspectives in the analysis of imagery and ritual. She is currently completing a two-volume book that examines the Buddhist cultural productions of early Kyoto from a revisionist perspective based on primary records and a critical reassessment of the role of women at court and as patrons.