Anthony Cruz Pantojas MATS, MALS, BCC (they/them), serves as the Humanist Chaplain and Coordinator of Africana Spirituality at Tufts University, fostering ethico-naturalist inquiry and leading community-driven projects. An advocate for Global South Humanism(s) and Freethought, their writings on meaning-making, ethics, and existential care are featured in leading journals. Recognized for advancing interbelief, civic, and secular dialogue, they co-founded the Kindling the Humanist Spark Summit in 2024, a vibrant community of practice supporting mentorship, creativity, and care for emerging humanist and secular young leaders across North America.

Sikivu Hutchinson is an American feminist, novelist, playwright and director. In 2013 she was named Secular Woman of the year and in 2020 she was a recipient of the Harvard Humanist of the Year award.

Women’s Leadership Project is a Black feminist mentoring, civic engagement and service learning advocacy program designed to educate and train young middle and high school age women in South Los Angeles to take ownership of their school-communities.

Disability Justice

EJ Sorrell (they/them) is the current choir director for Voices of Reason and a lifelong atheist passionate about making space for non-believers with marginalized identities within the movement. During their time at the University of Texas at Austin—where they earned degrees in Aerospace Engineering (B.S.) and Women’s and Gender Studies (B.A.)—they became involved with their local Secular Student Alliance (SSA) chapter, eventually serving as chapter president and as a student board member on the national SSA board of directors. In 2023 EJ was diagnosed with a genetic condition called Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, a chronic illness with a wide range of symptoms that often takes years to be correctly diagnosed. They love getting to educate people about their condition and disability in general, and they believe that creating a world that is accessible to disabled people benefits all of us.

Debbie Goddard has over two decades of experience as an organizer and activist. She became involved with the secular movement as a college student in 2000 and attended atheist, freethinker, humanist, and skeptic group meetings in Philadelphia, New York City, New Jersey, and central Pennsylvania. Her involvement increased over time: she served on local advisory boards, started a student group, edited a monthly campus freethought email newsletter, and held a work-study position at the Center for Inquiry’s office in Rockefeller Center. In 2002, she was recognized in a Beliefnet “Godless Who’s Who” list as “The Student Activist” and in the Washington Blade as an “out” nonbeliever.

She began working in the Department of Campus & Community Programs at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, NY, in 2006. After serving as a field organizer and as campus outreach coordinator, she became Outreach Director in 2012 and managed CFI’s U.S. branches and the international student outreach program. She also directed African Americans for Humanism. In 2012, she led a notable billboard and ad campaign featuring black atheists, and in 2009, she coordinated an international campaign highlighting blasphemy laws and free expression. Additionally, she was the lead organizer for the Women in Secularism 4 conference and the annual CFI Leadership Conference.

Debbie is also engaged in LGBTQ activism, civil rights work, and training new organizers in her community. She facilitates workshops and gives presentations on campaign-building, evidence-based activism, diversity and outreach, group organizing, humanism and politics, and other topics for community groups, campus groups, and national conferences across North America.

Dr. Jé Exodus Hooper who is an artist, minister and scholar from Beacon Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Summit, NJ, is providing an in-depth lens towards aesthetics, ethics, and cultural pluralism.