Enthusiastic Brights (Page 3)
Clark Adams (1969-2007)
Energetic and vivacious and a self-described "conference junkie," he participated and served in various leadership capacities across a broad spectrum of freethought organizations from local to national. Clark was immensely influential in part because he was not at all caring what label or labels a person chose for self-identity. He was a particularly driving force in building the Las Vegas Freethought Society (www.lvfs.org), of which he was president when he died. When he was vice president of Halvason, the Las Vegas area humanist group (www.halvason.org), it was the American Humanist Association's chapter of the year. Clark previously served as public relations director and president of the Internet Infidels, which runs the Secular Web (www.infidels.org), the largest and most popular freethought website in the world. He also helped co-found the Secular Coalition for America (www.secular.org). Clark kept tabs on the media, and how it presented the worldviews and actions of persons who did not share in or conform to the dominant cultural perspectives, particularly as regards religion. Clark will long be missed by American brights of many stripes, all across the nation.
Matt Cherry
Executive Director of the Institute for Humanist Studies, Matt has spent a dozen years as a professional leader in the humanist movement in three different countries. Matt is Secretary of the United Nations NGO (non-governmental organization) Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief and also an official NGO delegate to the U.N., representing the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU). He serves as International Editor for the New Humanist magazine, published by Britain's Rationalist Press Association, for which he writes a quarterly column, "International Insight." Read his bio.
Babu Gogineni
He is is a leader in Indian humanism and now Executive Director of International Humanist and Ethical Union. Babu is international advisor to the Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or Belief, member of the management council of the International Historical Court, co-editor of three books Rationalist Essays. The Humanist Way, and International Humanist and Ethical Union, Past, Present and Future. He has translated some of Maupassant's short stories into Telugu, his mother tongue. As Executive Director of IHEU he is leading the world wide campaign to rescue Dr. Shaikh, victim of Pakistan's barbaric blasphemy laws.
Amy Alkon
The Advice Goddess is an award-winning, hilarious and psychologically sound syndicated advice column that runs in over 100 newspapers across the U.S. and Canada. For five years, Amy also penned "Ask Amy Alkon," a popular advice column that ran exclusively in the New York Daily News. Although the column reads as humor, it's based in science, psychology, evolutionary psychology, and ethics. She has made numerous television and radio appearances, including ones on Politically Incorrect, Good Morning America, The Today Show, NPR, CNN, MTV, and Entertainment Tonight.
Paul Geisert
He was a biology teacher in Chicago in the 60s, a professor in the 70s, an entrepreneur and writer in the 80s, and a co-developer of learning materials and web sites in the 90s. (You are invited to visit a small Brights-related project, Teaching about Religion: Focus on Freethought.) Paul is creator of the noun, bright, which he coined as a result of his being invited to the "Godless March on Washington" in 2002. Although he did attend, so as to be part of the diverse array of people there in support its civil rights goals, Paul determined no longer to be willingly characterized as someone whose complex outlook could be summed up in reference to anyone's religion, and certainly not as somehow lacking. He is now Co-Director of The Brights' Network.
Sheldon Lee Glashow
He is a Nobel Laureate and University Professor at Boston University. He did his doctoral studies at Harvard University, and his post-doctoral work at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, CERN, and CalTech. He taught physics at Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley before joining the faculty at Harvard University, where he remained from 1966-2000. He shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Abdus Salam and Steven Weinberg for his contributions toward a unified theory of weak and electromagnetic interactions.
Vincent M. Wales
He is an author and web essayist, having over 200 freethought-related articles online in The Atheist Attic. He founded the Freethought Society of Northern Utah during his years in that state. He also answers questions about atheism on AllExperts.com and was the original guide for About.com's site on Agnosticism/Atheism. His novel, One Nation Under God, addresses the growing problem of the intermingling of government and religion. Visit his author site: www.vincentmwales.com.
Ray Melnik
Ray, a systems engineer,who lives in upstate New York with his wife and two children. He and his wife are atheists and are raising caring intelligent children with an emphasis on science and music. No myths. He finds in this movement a little hope for the future.
Andrés González Cantú
He is a proud and active Mexican Bright, chess player, and a very inquisitive person since a little boy. He grew up in a home where all opinions were debated respectfully. Thanks to his mother, he began to read books at three and, imitating his father, became a pathological reader. He is self-taught in English, German, Italian, Latin, and Koinè Greek. In high school, Andrés was strongly influenced by a teacher who was a naturalist and an inspiring teacher.
Jozef Hand-Boniakowski
Jozef has a Ph.D. Distance Education and Communications Technology and is co-editor and publisher of Metaphoria. A writer, and thirty-year veteran teacher, he is in a lifelong activist, twice elected Justice of the Peace (Wells VT), he founded the American Mootist Organization (AMO), implemented a free meals program (NJ) and an alternative Memorial Day service (NJ and VT). A member Industrial Workers of the World and both Vermont and National Education Associations, Jozef is a poet and dulcimer player, pen and ink mosaic artist who has been an amateur radio operator WB2MIC since 1963. A member of Veteran for Peace, in 2004 he was awarded the national VFP's peacemaker award.
Christer Sturmark
Author, lecturer, venture capitalist and chairman of the Swedish Government IT-political Strategy Group. Christer studied computer science at the University of Uppsala and 1996 he founded one of the major Internet companies in Europe. Today he is involved in different companies, including music software company NoteHeads, together with Per Gessle (Roxette) and Björn Ulvaeus (ABBA). Since more than ten years, he has been writing and speaking about the global network society and it´s social and cultural apects.. Today he is involved in the political work to keep Sweden a number one network society in the world. You can read more about Christer and his current work at www.sturmark.se.