Global Ethic Committee - Parliament of the World's Religions

Rev. Charline Manuel

Committee Chair

Charline has been an ordained Unity Minister for nearly thirty years. Currently serving as a board and leadership consultant to faith-based organizations throughout the US. Charline has been active in peace and community work, taking delegations to study at the University for Peace in Costa Rica, building wells for fresh water in Africa, building a school in Haiti, and in the US, working on community development to build affordable housing in urban areas. She served as Senior minister for over twenty years in a multicultural congregation in Miami, FL.

Charline is on the faculty of the Unity Urban Ministerial School located in Detroit, Michigan and serves on the Board of Directors of Unity World Headquarters in Missouri. In addition to serving as chair for the Global Ethic Committee, Charline currently serves as the Parliament’s secretary of the Board of Trustees.

After attending the 2004 Parliament in Barcelona, Spain, which Charline describes as a life-changing event, she has been dedicated to the mission of the Parliament and the pursuit of just and fair living conditions within local communities and around the globe. Charline currently makes her home outside of Orlando, FL.

Nitin Ajmera

Nitin Ajmera is a senior management professional and practitioner of the Digambar Jain tradition. He is Chief Financial Officer at New York Sports Club and its family of brands. He also teaches at Drexel University. He has been associated with the Jain Center of America-New York and Jain Samaj of Long Island in many capacities ranging from a teacher in Jain Sunday School, committee chair, to the President. Nitin is the Chair of the Board of the Parliament of the World’s Religions.

Sahar Alsahlani

Sahar Alsahlani has been on the interfaith scene in NYC for years, in myriad roles that promote interfaith social justice. She is a member of the Community of Living Traditions, an intentional multi-faith community, and co-chair of The Fellowship of Reconciliation, the country’s oldest interfaith organization geared toward peace and non-violence. Alsahlani is also on the board of the Parliament of the World’s Religions and Religions for Peace, USA, United Nations-affiliated NGOs; a fellow at Greenfaith, an interfaith environmental network; and a board member of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). Alsahlani perceives her work as a way to encourage civic engagement with people from different backgrounds in the five boroughs. She has been involved in justice activism as a representative of CAIR and the broader Muslim community, including environmental justice causes, such as Standing Rock, and racial justice causes, such as Ferguson and Charlottesville

Debra Boudreaux

Debra Boudreaux is a senior volunteer with the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation. She has more than 32 years of experience working on major projects related to charity, medical care, education, and humanitarian aid. Debra was previously the CEO of Tzu Chi Medical Foundation and several community advisory councils for SARS, H1N1, Ebola, and COVID-19. Debra engages with Social Work and Sustainability of Global Environmental Changes among SDG grass roots projects. She leads Buddhist and Catholic interfaith dialogues and serves as a member of the UN Multi-Faith Advisory Council. To this day, Debra has patterned her daily life on the teachings of Dharma Master Cheng Yen: “Gratitude, Respect and Love.” She carries this spirit into communities in need and all over the world.

Imam Saffet Catovic

Imam Saffet Abid Catovic has his MBA and is a long-time US Muslim Community Organizer/Activist and Environmental Leader. He was a national organizer of Bosnia Task Force – USA a coalition of the major National and Regional Muslim Organizations advocating for an end to the Genocide in Bosnia during the early 1990s. From 1992-2001 Served in various Senior level capacities in the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina including Minister Counselor at the Mission of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United Nations – NYC and Deputy Federation Contract Administrator at the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United States in DC. Currently Chair of the Parliament of the World’s Religions Climate Action Task Force and serves on the Parliament’s, Board of Trustees; Member of the Statewide Clergy Council of Faith in New Jersey (part of the Faith in Action National Network), and Board member. GreenFaith Fellow and serves as their Senior Muslim advisor; Co-founder and Chair of the Green Muslims of New Jersey (GMNJ); a founding committee member of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) Green Initiatives; Consultant to the Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change (2015); a founding member of the Global Muslim Climate Network (GMCN); Co-drafter of the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) “Fatwa” Religious ruling on fossil fuel divestment; Member of the scholars Drafting team of “Al-Mizan-Covenant for the Earth” organized under the auspices of UNEP – Faiths for Earth; Board member-Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA) Advisory group Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology; Imam and Muslim Chaplain at Drew University Madison, NJ where he also received his MA in Religion and Society, specializing in Religion and the Environment and is currently Doctorate of Ministry student. Head of ISNA’s Office for Interfaith, Community Alliances and Governmental Relations in Washington, DC.

Dr. Mary Doak

Mary Doak (Ph.D., The University of Chicago) is Professor of Theology at the University of San Diego, where she has taught since 2007. Her recent publications include A Prophetic Public Church: Witness to Hope Amid the Global Crises of the 21st Century (Liturgical Press, 2020), and Divine Harmony: Seeking Community in a Broken World (Paulist Press, 2017), along with other books and articles on public theology, ecclesiology, and eschatology. She had the honor of serving as president of the College Theology Society from 2019-2021, and as president of the American Theological Society (Midwest) from 2007-2008.

Swami Ishatmananda

Swami Ishatmananda is a monk of the Ramakrishna Order and president of the Vivekananda Vedanta Society of Chicago and Vivekananda Monastery & Retreat in Ganges, MI. He joined the order in 1975 and was ordained in 1986. He served at Advaita Ashrama, a publication center of the Ramakrishna Order, and at the order’s educational institution in Purulia. He founded a center at Port Blair in the Andaman Islands and served as the principal of the Ramakrishna Mission School in Narottam Nagar. He has lectured widely and has published several articles.

Mr. Bruce Knotts

High impact career as director of the Unitarian Universalist Association Office at the United Nations which advocates for human rights, climate justice and demilitarization of the police. Bruce’s career included service in the US State Department with diplomatic assignments worldwide.

Bruce Co-chairs the UN Non-Governmental Organizations Committee on Human Rights; chairs the NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace and Security; and serves on the steering committee of the NGO Working Group on the UN Security Council.

Mahrukh Motafram

Mahrukh Motafram is a first generation immigrant from India who arrived in the US to pursue higher education. She graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1984 with a Master’s degree in Bio-Organic Chemistry. Further education included an Associate degree in Business and Marketing from the Waukesha County Technical College, Pewaukee, WI in 2002. She is currently pursuing a certification in Nonprofit Leadership at Seattle University, WA.

Kaleb Nyquist

Kaleb is a strategist for organizations working at the intersection of sustainability, spirituality, and democratic reform. From 2012-19 he oversaw the growth of Young Evangelicals for Climate Action as a steering committee member and civic engagement chair. He has done research on faith-based refugee resettlement in Sweden (funded by Baptist Theological Union), congregational responses to ecological despair in the United States (funded by the Louisville Institute), and the intersection of big data and democratic dysfunction (as part of a data science fellowship with the Flatiron School). He is a member of Ravenswood Evangelical Covenant Church in Chicago, where he was the youth director for seven years. With the Parliament, he has served as the 2018 Climate Action Program Associate and 2021 Virtual Convening Associate. Kaleb has a B.A. in Global Studies and Conflict Transformation from North Park University, and a Master of Divinity and a Master of Public Policy from the University of Chicago.

Dr. John Pawlikowski

Rev. Dr. John Pawlikowski is author/editor of some 15 books including “Catechetics and Prejudice”. He served four terms by presidential appointment on the board of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and served six years as president of the International Council of Christians and Jews and its Abrahamic Forum based at Martin Buber Haus in Heppenheim, Germany.

Dr. Kusumita Pedersen

Kusumita P. Pedersen is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at St. Francis College and Chair of the Interfaith Center of New York. She is also a member of the Climate Action Task Force (CATF) of the Parliament of the World’s Religions and of the Climate Working Group of the Committee of Religious NGOs at the United Nations. She is co-author of Global Ethics in Practice: Historical Backgrounds, Current Issues and Future Prospects (Edinburgh University Press, 2016) and co-editor of Faith for Earth: A Call to Action (UN Environment Programme and Parliament of the World’s Religions, 2020). Kusumita has compiled and edited librettos for two works by Philip Glass: Symphony No. 5: Bardo, Requiem and Nirmānakāya (1999) and The Passion of Ramakrishna (2006). She has been a student of Sri Chinmoy (1931-2007) since 1971 and her book Love and Transformation: The Philosophy of Sri Chinmoy is forthcoming from Lexington Books.

Dr. Nayana Shah

Dr. Nayana Shah is an international scientist –a theoretical quantum physicist– dedicated to living a conscious, compassionate and creative life illuminated by a constant inquiry of truth. Using the quantum laws of physics, her research seeks to understand how different phases and properties of matter emerge in a collection of many particles interacting with each other under different conditions. That quest is also to identify the universalities within the diversity. Taking her scientific approach and experience to exploring and uncovering truths of life has led her to a deep study and practice of spiritual principles, vipassana meditation, yoga, non-violent communication and ahimsic living (rooted in her Jain upbringing), wholistic plant-based nutrition/life-style, regenerative design, and the interconnectedness of all including earth-energy-environment. Her extensive work in different arenas has included research, teaching, mentoring, starting and leading initiatives, grassroots activism, and facilitating groups at different levels involving a range of settings and diverse backgrounds; and through all of it she is devoted to realizing her holistic vision for a harmonious world.