Dr. John Borchert is the Associate Director of the Network for the Cultural Study of Videogaming and Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro . He is interested in how religious practices and media technologies intersect across American religious histories, particularly their impact on embodiment and death. John has published work on digital religion and pedagogy and digital death practices and is currently under contract for two book projects: a textbook on religion and videogames and a manuscript on posthumanism, video games and death ritual. He is Co-Chair of the Death Dying and Beyond Unit of the American Academy of Religion, and serves on the board of the gamevironments, the only journal on religion and video gaming. 

Erica Baffelli is Professor of Japanese Studies at The University of Manchester (UK). She is interested in religion in contemporary Japan, with a focus on groups founded from the 1970s onwards. Her recent research projects focused on religion in contemporary Japan, religion and media, new and minority religions, religion, gender and violence, and Buddhism and emotions. She currently PI on a Leverhulme Research Project on "Fear and Belonging in Minority Buddhist Communities" (2023-2027). She is co-editor, with Michael Stausberg and Alexander Van Der Haven, of the open access publication Religious Minorities Online (De Gruyter).

Pauline Hope Cheong (Ph.D. Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California) is (Full) Professor at the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, and the Zebulon Pearce Distinguished Teacher of the Social Sciences, at Arizona State University. Her award-winning research on communication technologies and culture includes examining religious knowledge and authority, digital access and inequalities, and emerging technologies including Big Data, Internet of Things & Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) perceptions, practices, and policy. She has co-led funded collaborative and global research projects, with her work in more than 100 articles and books. She is the co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Digital Religion.

Damian Guzek is an associate professor at the University of Silesia in Katowice, the PI of the
project ‘Papal Authority Transformed by Changes in Communication’ (Polish NCN), and Polish coordinator of the ‘T4ERI’ Horizon 2020 project. He has been involved in several research projects in digital communication, religion, and politics. After a doctorate in Katowice, he conducted his Visby post-doc scholarship at Uppsala University and a research internship at the University of Edinburgh. He was also a RA for ‘Illiberal Turn’ project at Loughborough University, and visiting fellow at Keele University and Masaryk University. His research is driven by questions related to media consumption and digital media, religions, and political communication.

Rita Marchetti is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science of the University of Perugia (Italy), where she teaches courses in “Sociology of Digital Media” and “Media and Political System in the Digital Age”. Her main research interests are digital religion, political communication and the relationship between media and corruption. Her work has appeared in a number of peer-reviewed journals, including
Social Media + Society, Journal of Religion in Europe, The International Journal of Press Politics, European Journal of Communication, Journalism, Journalism Practice, Journalism Studies, and The Communication Review.

Carlo Nardella is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Milan, Italy. His research is primarily concerned with issues of cultural change, with particular attention to the interrelationships between religion and marketing, the transformations in the use of religious symbols, and the relationship between Catholicism and the media. He has published, among other things, the first major study on religion and advertising in Italy. Since September 2023, he has been serving as the Principal Investigator for a research project titled “Religion in Public: Forms and Dynamics of Religious Publicization in Italy” funded by Italy’s Ministry of University and Research (MURPRIN). Recipient of the British Sociological Association’s Peter B. Clarke Memorial Prize and nominee for the Harvard Society of Fellows, Nardella was visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication and the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Media, Religion and Culture.

Kerstin Radde-Antweiler is professor for the research area "Literatures and Media of Religions" at the Institute for Religious Studies and Religious Education at the University of Bremen, Germany.

Her research focuses on mediatized religion, mediatization theory, Pagan and Christian traditions and Ritual Studies.

Ruth Tsuria is an Associate Professor at Seton Hall University’s School of Communication, Media, and the Arts. Her research, which investigates the intersection of digital media, culture, and feminism, has been published in various prestigious academic outlets, such as International Journal of Communication and Social Media + Society. She is the recipient of The Inaugural Digital Religion Research Award for her contributions to the field of Digital Religion, and the 2023 Researcher of The Year Award for her impressive publication record which includes 23 articles and book chapters, and two edited books. She is currently working on her first book: Keeping Women in their (digital) Place: Exploring Jewish Online Discourse on Gender and Sexuality (Penn State University Press). In addition, Tsuria is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal for Religion, Media, and Digital Culture (LINK).

Xenia Zeiler is Professor of South Asian Studies at the Department of Cultures, Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki. Her research and teaching are situated at the intersection of digital media, culture, and society, specifically as related to India and global Indian communities. Her focus within this wider field of digital culture is video games and gaming research, in India and beyond. Closely related to and supporting this are her other major research areas: In order to understand how digital spaces such as social media or video games, and more traditional media formats such as film or TV, shape and are shaped by various actors, she researches and teaches digital religion, popular culture, cultural heritage, and mediatization processes.