Berkley Center

Br. Reynaldo Barnido is a humanitarian worker, development strategist, and peacebuilder for the past 25 years. He is the executive director of Duyog Marawi, a church-based and interfaith dialogical response to the Marawi crisis in the Philippines in partnership with the Redemptorist missionaries. He has worked extensively with faith-based organizations, particularly Caritas. His academic training is in the fields of development communication, psychospirituality, and emergency management.

Ezra Chitando is a professor of religious studies at the University of Zimbabwe and extraordinary professor at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. He also serves as the World Council of Churches regional coordinator of ecumenical HIV and AIDS initiatives and advocacy for Southern Africa. His research includes the intersection of religion and health, sexuality, development, security, peacebuilding, gender, politics, climate change, disability, and others.

Kirsten Laursen Muth is chief executive officer of the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith & Local Communities. Her previous positions include: special advisor for leadership development and senior director for international programs at Episcopal Relief & Development and deputy director of programs at Church World Service. She has collaborated with multiple UN agencies and has worked with government, non-profit, education, and faith organizations in more than 40 countries. In recent years, she has focused on gender-based violence prevention and response of faith actors, with a special interest in women's movements.

Kalinga Tudor Silva is the chief editor of the Sri Lanka Journal of Social Sciences and professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. He is the author of Decolonization, Development and Disease: A Social History of Malaria in Sri Lanka (2014) and the lead author of "The Impact of COVID-19 on Peace Building Activities of Local Faith Actors in Sri Lanka" (2021), among other works. 

Dr. Bnar Talabani, MBE, arrived in the United Kingdom in 1998 as a refugee, having fled Saddam Hussein’s regime. She graduated from Cardiff University in 2013 and is now training as a kidney and transplant doctor. She is one of the founding members of Muslim Doctors Cymru, which was formed in 2020 to combat COVID-19 vaccine myths. She later joined Team Halo, a United Nations initiative to combat misinformation, and has also volunteered with the British Society for Immunology to create science backed content on vaccines.

Monica Tawdros is director of the Programs and Projects Department at Maat for Peace, Development, and Human Rights. Her work focuses on peacebuilding and youth empowerment, and she has participated in several events related to the role of Arab youth in peacebuilding and sustainable development. She is also a specialized trainer on countering terrorism and hate speech actions and strategies, as well as building sustainable peace through international mechanisms.