Morten Schlütter (PhD, Yale University) is Associate Professor and Departmental Executive Officer (Chair) of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Iowa, and the former Director of the University of Iowa Center for Asian and Pacific Studies. He is the author of How Zen Became Zen: The Dispute over Enlightenment and the Formation of Chan Buddhism in Song-Dynasty China (University of Hawai’i Press, 2008), which focuses on crucial developments within Chan [Jpn.: Zen] Buddhism that came to dominate Chinese monastic Buddhism by the twelfth century. He is the co-editor of Readings of the Platform Sūtra (Columbia University Press, 2012), and the author of many articles on Chinese Buddhism and Chan. He is currently working on a book manuscript that traces the evolution of Chinese Chan through different versions of the Platform Sūtra.

Meenakshi Gigi Durham is Professor and Collegiate Scholar in the University of Iowa’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Florida. Her research addresses gender and sexuality in the media, emphasizing embodiment, intersectional identities, transnational feminisms, and sexual violence. Her articles have appeared in leading communication journals, and she serves on many editorial boards. Her books include MeToo: The Impact of Rape Culture in the Media, Technosex, The Lolita Effect, and Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks.  Among her numerous honors are the May Brodbeck Award Distinguished Achievement Award for Faculty and the President and Provost Award for Teaching Excellence from the University of Iowa, as well as the Teresa Award for the Advancement of Feminist Scholarship from the International Communication Association.

My research area is music education and well-being with a focus on music in prisons (from an abolitionist perspective), songwriting, and collaborative communities. I am creating connections among many researchers across the U.S. through the Justice Arts Coalition and recent Arts in Prison conferences and across the globe interested in music education in prisons, currently in Germany, Scotland, England, Brazil, Belgium, Norway, Australia, and hoping to continue to build this network. I am also very interested in peacebuilding and music education, and restorative & transformative justice.

In order to support the needs of gifted and talented learners, I work primarily with educators who want to better understand best practices in gifted education. I teach or supervise courses that explore the identification of gifted learners and the curriculum and programming that meets their needs. All coursework aligns with one or more sets of national standards in the field as provided by the National Association of Gifted Children, although work with international educators has to be responsive to their settings. My research interests include attitudes of teachers toward talented children, and how those attitudes can expand to include essential practices such as the acceleration of high-ability learners.

With Harvard B.A. (1970) and University of Michigan J.D. (1975). Reitz is currently the Edward L. Carmody Professor of Law and Director of the Masters (LLM) and Doctoral (SJD) Degree Programs at the College of Law and the Director of the Visiting Scholars Program. At Iowa since 1983 (full professor since 1988), Reitz teaches comparative law, introduction to U.S. law for foreign-trained lawyers, and administrative law and focuses his scholarship especially on (1) the way in which differences in countries’ political economies are correlated with differences in their legal systems, (2) the development of the rule of law, especially after communism or other authoritarian forms of government, and (3) comparative administrative law. Titular Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law; Past President of American Society of Comparative Law, 2010-2012. Permanent Visiting Professor, Zhejiang University Law School in Hangzhou, China (since 2008); Visiting Professor, Universities of Muenster (1994) and Freiburg (1996), Germany; and the Victoria University in Wellington (2002), New Zealand. Has lectured on U.S. and comparative law topics in China, Hungary, India, Nigeria, Poland, Rumania, Russia, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Vietnam.

I was trained in Pediatrics and genetics and have been on the Faculty since 1984. My clinical work was in caring for newborns and families with inherited disorders, I held appointments in the CCOM, CPH, COD, CON and CLAS and taught undergraduates, graduate students and medical students. I retain a very active research career and have been funded by NIH for over 30 years and directed the graduate PhD program in genetics for ten years. We played a substantial role in the development of the Human Genome Project, identified the first genes with defects causing cleft lip and palate, and am an author on over 530 peer-reviewed articles. I chaired two NIH study sections, was a member of the Scientific Council for the NHGRI and served on the Advisory Committee to the Director of NIH. I was an elected president of the 8000+ member American Society of Human Genetics, is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and a Fellow of the AAAS. Our research work is highly interdisciplinary and International. I took a leave of absence from 2014 to 2018 to serve as the Deputy Director for Family Health at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation where my work focused on building programs to address maternal and child health disorders in Africa and South Asia.

Helen H. Shen, Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Asian and Slavic Languages and Literatures, The University of Iowa, USA. Currently she also serves as Chair for the SAT Subjest (Chinese) Test Committee, College Board; serves on the Editoral Board for the two journals: Chinese as a Second Language and Chinese as a Second Langauge Research.Her major research areas are Chinese L2 literacy development and reading education. Website: www.myweb.uiowa.edu/hshen

Dr. Caplan is the Richard and Nancy Christiansen Professor in International Oral Health Education and Research at the UI College of Dentistry. In that capacity he is involved in several international initiatives involving UI dental students, faculty, and colleagues at other institutions.

I am a poet, nonfiction writer, translator, and editor, and much of my work concerns my travels abroad. I have written books on the 1990 World Cup in Italy, the wars of succession in the former Yugoslavia, and the spiritual home of Eastern Orthodox monasticism. As director of the International Writing Program, I have undertaken cultural diplomacy missions to more than fifty countries. And every fall I have the good luck to host thirty-some distinguished poets and writers from around the world.

My interests include environmental humanities; urban studies with an emphasis on African-American, American Indian, and Asian American history and cultures; and environmental justice. Alternatives to binary thought and violence have always driven my theoretical and practical commitments.

My research is interdisciplinary as it circulates at the crossroads of Francophone Studies (cultural theory, cinematic, visual, and performing arts of the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, and West Africa); Suzanne Césaire; postcolonial ecocriticism; slave memorials; comparative postcolonial museum studies; critical ocean studies; intangible cultural heritage in the Global South and UNESCO.

My primary teaching and research areas are Family Law and International Family Law, with a particular interest in cross-border children's law and children's rights. I chair the board of the US branch of International Social Service (ISS-USA) and have attended treaty negotiation and review meetings in The Hague and elsewhere on the Hague Children's Conventions.