Dr. William Galston holds the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program. A former policy advisor to President Clinton and presidential candidates, Galston is an expert on domestic policy, political campaigns, and elections. His current research focuses on designing a new social contract and the implications of political polarization.

Dr. Galston is the author of eight books and more than 100 articles in the fields of political theory, public policy, and American politics.  His books include The Practice of Liberal Pluralism (2004), and Public Matters (2005).  A winner of the American Political Science Association’s Hubert H. Humphrey Award, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. Additionally, Dr. Galston is a frequent commentator on NPR and writes a weekly column for the Wall Street Journal.

Michael J. Gerson is the Roger Hertog senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His work focuses on issues of global health and development, religion and foreign policy, and the democracy agenda. He is the author of Heroic Conservatism (HarperOne, October 2007), a columnist syndicated with the Washington Post Writers Group, and a contributor to Newsweek. He serves on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, the Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Conscience, and on USAID’s Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid.

Before joining the Council in July 2006, Mr. Gerson was a top aide to President George W. Bush as assistant to the president for policy and strategic planning (February 2005-June 2006). Prior to that appointment, he served in the White House as deputy assistant to the president and director of presidential speechwriting (January 2001 to July 2002) and assistant to the president for speechwriting and policy advisor (July 2002 to February 2005). Mr. Gerson joined Bush’s presidential campaign in early 1999 as chief speechwriter and senior policy adviser. He was previously senior editor covering politics at U.S. News and World Report. Mr. Gerson was a speechwriter and policy adviser for Jack Kemp and a speechwriter for Bob Dole during the 1996 presidential campaign. He has also served Senator Dan Coats from Indiana as policy director. Mr. Gerson is a graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois. He grew up in the St. Louis area and now lives with his wife and sons in northern Virginia.

Dr. D. Michael Lindsay is a sociologist who specializes in issues surrounding leadership, religion, and culture. The author of several books and scholarly articles, Lindsay has recently completed the nation’s largest and most comprehensive study on people of faith who are public leaders. He holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University.

Dr. Andrew Newberg is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is board certified in internal medicine and nuclear medicine.

His research largely focuses on how brain function is associated with various mental states—in particular, religious and mystical experiences. His research has included brain scans of people in prayer, meditation, rituals, and trance states, as well as surveys of people’s spiritual experiences and attitudes. He has also evaluated the relationship between religious or spiritual phenomena and health, and the effect of meditation on memory. Andrew has also used neuroimaging research projects to study aging and dementia, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, depression, and other neurological and psychiatric disorders. He holds an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

David Brooks became an op-ed columnist for The New York Times in September 2003. He is currently a commentator on “The PBS News Hour,” NPR’s “All Things Considered” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” His most recent book, The Road to Character, published in April, became a number-one New York Times bestseller. He is also the author of The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, and On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense.  Brooks also teaches at Yale University, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He worked at The Wall Street Journal for nine years, and his last post at the Journal was op-ed editor. Prior to that, he was posted in Brussels, covering Russia, the Middle East, South Africa and European affairs. He also served as a senior editor atThe Weekly Standard for nine years, as well as contributing editor for The Atlantic and Newsweek.