Ellen Birx is an authorized Zen teacher and Dharma successor of Roshi Robert Kennedy, SJ. She holds a PhD in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing from the University of Texas at Austin and is Professor Emerita at Radford University. She is the author of several books including Selfless Love (Wisdom, 2014) and Embracing the Inconceivable: Interspiritual Practice of Zen and Christianity (Orbis, 2020). She and her husband, Charles, are co-founders of New River Zen Community in Blacksburg, VA.