E. Burke Rochford, Jr. is Professor of Sociology at Middlebury College in Vermont, USA. He has studied the Hare Krsna movement for over twenty years. His book on family, the second generation and the development of ISKCON is in progress. In addition to his academic studies, he has served as a member of ISKCON's North American Board of Education.
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Arcana Dasi (Alice Schumann) has been a member of ISKCON since 1984. After the fall of the Berlin wall she built up and led a centre in Eastern Germany. Since that time she has been the official chairwoman of ISKCON Germany, as well as ISKCON Germany's Minister for Communications, Food For Life and Interfaith. She organised the dialogue between ISKCON and the Enquete commission of the German government on sects and psycho groups. She is now studying Comparative Religion at the University of Bonn.
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Ravindra Svarupa Dasa (William H. Deadwyler, III) joined ISKCON in 1971 in Philadelphia, USA, where he has served for most of his devotional career. He was initiated by Srila Prabhupada in 1971 and earned a PhD in Religion from Temple University in 1980. He has been a member of the ISKCON Governing Body Commission since 1987. He is an initiating guru for ISKCON and is the Philadelphia temple president.
Ravindra Svarupa Dasa's particular focus is on educational development within ISKCON, academic preaching and spiritual counselling. His writings have been published in numerous academic publications and ISKCON publications, including ICJ and BTG. He is married, has three children and two grandchildren.
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Hrdayananda Dasa Goswami joined ISKCON in 1969 and has been a member of its Governing Body Commission since 1974. He has a BA in Study of Religion from UCLA and a PhD in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard. Hrdayananda Dasa Goswami has taught at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley (California), and was a visiting scholar in Indo-European Studies at UCLA.
He has published numerous academic articles in Journal of Vaishnava Studies, University of California Journal of Religious Studies, Harvard Oriental Series and other such journals and is the author of several books published by The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.
He is now working on various writing projects and is lecturing around the world.
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Krsna Ksetra Dasa (Kenneth Valpey), born in New York in 1950, interrupted UC Berkeley undergraduate architecture studies to becoming a fulltime missionary in ISKCON in 1972, after meeting Srila Prabhupada and being initiated that same year in Paris.
After several years of missionary work (mainly in Eastern Europe), he is now completing an MA in 'The Cultural and Historical Study of Religion' at the Graduate Theological Union (Berkeley) and is intending to take up doctoral study in Gaudiya-Vaisnava Theology (in Europe). Krsna Ksetra is also developing an ISKCON Ministry of Deity Worship. He compiled Pancaratra-pradipa, ISKCON's manual for temple worship functions.
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Thomas J. Hopkins is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin & Marshall college (Lancaster, PA, USA). He was Director of Academic Affairs at the Oxford Centre for Vaishnava and Hindu Studies for 1998-99. He is the author of The Hindu Religious Tradition and has published numerous articles and encyclopaedia entries on aspects of Indian religious life ranging from the Indus Civilization to modern Bengal Vaisnavism. His special interest in the Vaisnava devotional tradition led to his first meeting with A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami in New York in 1966, which focussed his attention on the newly emerging ISKCON movement and started a long-term study of ISKCON's history and theology.
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Gopasvami Dasa (Dr Gerard Huguet) is a disciple of Srila Prabhupada, who asked him to care for dying devotees in Vrndavana. He graduated from the Bordeaux Medical University in France in 1993 as a general practitioner after having completed a thesis on 'Palliative Care and Medical Ethics in Ancient India'. He has gained experience in palliative care at the Bordeaux Hospice, the Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai and while caring for devotees in Vrndavana, India. He now lives in Bordeaux, with his wife and three children, where he has set up a private practice. He is a congregational member of the New-Mayapur ISKCON community.
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Reinhart Hummel: Lutheran Pastor and Director of Evangelische Zentralstelle für Weltanschauungsfragen (Protestant Centre for Questions of Worldview) in Stuttgart and Berlin; Principal of a theological college in Orissa, India, for seven years. Reinhart Hummel has authored books and articles on new religious movements (especially those originating in India) and on gurus and guru movements, reincarnation and religious pluralism.
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Gaura Vigraha Dasi (Gabriela Valkova) holds an MA in Linguistics and Philology from the Sofia University 'St. Kliment Ohridski'. Since 1989 she has been serving in the North European division of The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust (NE BBT) as a translator, editor and proofreader. In 1996 she became production manager and translation consultant for about twenty East European and CIS languages in the NE BBT. In this capacity she has organised a number of translation seminars and educational programmes and has compiled manuals for translators, editors and proofreaders. Besides her service for the BBT, at present Gaura Vigraha Dasi is also managing the translation projects of Govinda-Verlag, Switzerland.
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