Professor Willem Drees
Leiden
Netherlands
Major prize: Fulbright ()2x); Legatum Stolpianum, Leiden University (1994).
Professor Willem Drees holds the chair in philosophy of religion, ethics and encyclopedia of religion in the Department of Religious Studies, Leiden University, the Netherlands, as of September 2001, and is vice-dean of its Faculty of Humanities. Drees is also the editor of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science. Zygon is present in over 3000 academic libraries worldwide. With four issues annually since 1966, now at 1008 pages as annual total, Zygon is the premier, broad academic journal in the field. Drees studied theoretical physics (Utrecht, 1977) and theology (Groningen, 1985, cum laude), and earned doctorates in theology (University of Groningen, 1989, cum laude) and philosophy (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, 1994). He coordinated programmes on religious, philosophical and social aspects of the sciences at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, 1989 until 2001. He held the Nicolette Bruining Chair for Philosophy of Nature and of Technology from a Liberal-Protestant Perspective, at Twente University, Enschede, the Netherlands (1995-2001), and served in 2001 as executive director of ALLEA, the European federation of all national academies of sciences. Among his prizes are two Fulbright grants, related to research periods at CTNS (Berkeley, 1987), the Chicago Center for Religion and Science (1988, now Zygon Centre), and the Center of Theological Inquiry (Princeton, 1993). He is the author of Beyond the Big Bang: Quantum Cosmologies and God (Open Court, 1990), Religion, Science and Naturalism (C.U.P., 1996), Creation: From Nothing until Now (Routledge, 2002), and Religion and Science in Context: A Guide to the Debates (Routledge, 2010). He is the editor of over 25 edited volumes, including Is Nature Ever Evil? Religion, Scienvce and Value (Routledge, 2003) and The Study of Religion and the Training of Muslim Clergy in Europe: Academic and Religious reedom in the 21st Century (Leiden University Press, 2008).
Books
Religion and Science in Context: A Guide to the Debates
Routledge
2009