Past Presidents

Professor John Hedley Brooke, Andreas Idreos Professor Emeritus of Science & Religion, and Emeritus Fellow Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford. Also  Honorary Professor of the History of Science, Lancaster University, UK. Dr. John Hedley Brooke held the Andreas Idreos Professorship of Science & Religion and Directorship of the Ian Ramsey Centre at the University of Oxford from 1999 to 2006. He is an Emeritus Fellow of Harris Manchester College, Oxford and Honorary Professor of the History of Science at Lancaster University. A former Editor of the British Journal for the History of Science, he has been President of the British Society for the History of Science and of the Historical Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1995, jointly with Professor Geoffrey Cantor, he gave the Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow. His main books include Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 1991), which won the Watson Davis Prize of the History of Science Society; Thinking About Matter: Studies in the History of Chemical Philosophy (Ashgate, 1995); and (with Geoffrey Cantor) Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science & Religion (T & T Clark, 1998; Oxford University Press, 2000). With Margaret Osler and Jitse Van der Meer, he edited Science in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions (Published as Osiris vol.16 by University of Chicago Press, 2001). He has recently served as Director of the European Science Foundation’s Network on ‘Science and Human Values’ and is a founder member of the Oxford Centre for the Science of the Mind (2005-). He is currently President of the UK Forum for Science & Religion and serves on the Executive Committee of the International Society for Science & Religion. In 2007 he became a “Distinguished Fellow” at the Institute of Advanced Study, University of Durham. His most recent publications include Heterodoxy in Early Modern Science & Religion, co-edited with Ian Maclean (Oxford University Press, 2005) and Religious Values and the Rise of Science in Europe, co-edited with Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu (IRCICA Istanbul, 2005).

Sir Brian Heap Sir Brian Heap CBE ScD FRS is a biological scientist at the Capability and Sustainability Centre, St Edmund’s College, Cambridge, Special Professor, University of Nottingham, and principal scientific adviser, ZyGEM Co Ltd New Zealand. He has doctorates from Nottingham and Cambridge, publishes in endocrine physiology, biotechnology, sustainable consumption and production, and science policy, was Master of St Edmund’s College, Vice-President and Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, Director of Research at the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, President of the Institute of Biology, and UK Representative on the European Science Foundation and the NATO Science Committee. He is a member of Christians in Science and was on the Advisory Board of the Templeton Foundation and a Templeton Prize judge, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the Department of Health’s Expert Group on Cloning, and worked with the World Health Organisation in China and various pharmaceutical companies in the USA.

Professor George Ellis Professor George F. R. Ellis, FRAS is Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town. After completing his Ph.D. at Cambridge University with Dennis Sciama as supervisor, he lectured at Cambridge and has been visiting Professor at Texas University, the University of Chicago, Hamburg University, Boston University, the University of Alberta, and Queen Mary College (London University). He has written many papers on relativity theory and cosmology, and inter alia co-authored The Large Scale Structure of Space Time with Stephen Hawking, The Density of Matter in the Universe with Peter Coles, and Dynamical Systems in Cosmology with John Wainwright. He has also written on science policy and developmental issues, science education, and science and religion issues, and was co-author with Nancey Murphy of On the Moral Nature of the Universe. He is past president of the International Society of General Relativity and Gravitation and of the Royal Society of South Africa. He has been awarded various prizes and honorary degrees and was awarded the Star of South Africa Medal by President Nelson Mandela in 1999, and was elected FRS in 2007.  A detailed biography can be found at: www.mth.uct.ac.za/~ellis/index. Among his recent books are Before the Beginning, On The Moral Nature of the universe: Cosmology, Theology, and Ethics and The Far Future Universe.

Revd. Dr. John Polkinghorne Reverend Dr. John Polkinghorne, KBE FRS worked in theoretical elementary particle physics for 25 years and was Professor of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge University, 1968-79. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (the British National Academy of Science) in 1974. In 1979 Polkinghorne resigned his chair to study for the Anglican priesthood. He was ordained in 1982. After some years in parish life he returned to Cambridge to work on issues in science and theology, a topic on which he has written many books, including his Gifford Lectures, Science and Christian Belief (in the USA, The Faith of a Physicist), his Terry Lectures, Belief in God in an Age of Science, and more recently, The God of Hope and the End of the World and Exploring Reality. In 1996 he retired from being President of Queen’s College, Cambridge, and he was knighted in 1997. In the United Kingdom, Polkinghorne has been the Chairman of several Committees offering advice to Government on ethical and social issues related to new developments in science and technology. In 2002 he was awarded the Templeton Prize.

ISSR Executive Committee

Dr. Denis Alexander, Director of The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at St. Edmunds College, Cambridge, UK. Denis Alexander is Director of The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at St. Edmunds College, Cambridge, where he is a Fellow. He was previously in academic positions in the Middle East for 15 years, in Turkey and then at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. Upon his return to the UK in 1986 he worked at The Babraham Institute where he was Chair of the Molecular Immunology Programme and Head of the Laboratory of Lymphocyte Signalling and Development. Dr Alexander is Editor of the journal Science and Christian Belief and is author of many books, the latest being The Language of Genetics – an Introduction [Templeton Foundation Press, 2011].

Professor John Hedley Brooke, Andreas Idreos Professor Emeritus of Science & Religion, and Emeritus Fellow Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford. Also  Honorary Professor of the History of Science, Lancaster University, UK. Dr. John Hedley Brooke held the Andreas Idreos Professorship of Science & Religion and Directorship of the Ian Ramsey Centre at the University of Oxford from 1999 to 2006. He is an Emeritus Fellow of Harris Manchester College, Oxford and Honorary Professor of the History of Science at Lancaster University. A former Editor of the British Journal for the History of Science, he has been President of the British Society for the History of Science and of the Historical Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1995, jointly with Professor Geoffrey Cantor, he gave the Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow. His main books include Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 1991), which won the Watson Davis Prize of the History of Science Society; Thinking About Matter: Studies in the History of Chemical Philosophy (Ashgate, 1995); and (with Geoffrey Cantor) Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science & Religion (T & T Clark, 1998; Oxford University Press, 2000). With Margaret Osler and Jitse Van der Meer, he edited Science in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions (Published as Osiris vol.16 by University of Chicago Press, 2001). He has recently served as Director of the European Science Foundation’s Network on ‘Science and Human Values’ and is a founder member of the Oxford Centre for the Science of the Mind (2005-). He is currently President of the UK Forum for Science & Religion and serves on the Executive Committee of the International Society for Science & Religion. In 2007 he became a “Distinguished Fellow” at the Institute of Advanced Study, University of Durham. His most recent publications include Heterodoxy in Early Modern Science & Religion, co-edited with Ian Maclean (Oxford University Press, 2005) and Religious Values and the Rise of Science in Europe, co-edited with Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu (IRCICA Istanbul, 2005).

Prof. Pranab Das, Professor of Physics, Elon Universtity, USA. Pranab Das is Professor of Physics at Elon Universtity. His academic work spans the fields of neuroscience, nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory, the physics of granular materials, and science and the human spirit. He was Program Director of the Global Perspectives on Science and Spirituality program and its successor, the GPSS Major Awards Program. These two projects identified and supported research in science and the human spirit by teams around the world. Presently, Dr. Das serves as Executive Editor of the ISSR Library Project, a program to select a library of essential texts spanning science and religion and its related fields.

Prof. Dirk Evers, Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy of Religion at the Martin-Luther-University in Halle-Wittenberg, Germany Dirk Evers is Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy of Religion at the Martin-Luther-University in Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. He received his doctorate in theology from the University of Tuebingen, Germany, in 1999. His book, Space – Matter – Time. Christian Theology of Creation in Dialogue With Scientific Cosmology“ won the ESSSAT-prize 2002 of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology. His interests are in the interface between science and theology, in early enlightenment philosophy and analytical philosophy of religion. He is also ordained in the Lutheran Church of Germany.

Prof. Nidhal Guessoum, Professor and Interim Head of Physics at the American University of Sharjah, UAE. Nidhal Guessoum is an astrophysicist; he graduated from the University of California at San Diego (USA), spent extended periods of time as a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and has had on-going collaborations with various institutions, particularly in France, resulting in many papers, mostly in gamma-ray astrophysics. He is currently Professor and Interim Head of Physics at the American University of Sharjah, UAE. In addition to his technical papers, Prof. Guessoum has published many articles on issues related to science, education, the Arab world, and Islam, and authored or co-authored several books, including: The Story of the Universe – from primitive conceptions to the Big Bang (in Arabic, 4 editions) and Islam’s Quantum Question – reconciling Muslim tradition and modern science (IB Tauris, 2011). He is also a columnist (at Gulf News, The Huffington Post, and for Nature Middle East) and a blogger. He was recently featured in a full-page article in Science (July 29, 2011). Prof. Guessoum has lectured at many renowned universities (Cambridge, Oxford, Cornell, Wisconsin) and has appeared in various international media, including Al-Jazeera, BBC, NPR, France 2, Le Monde, etc.

Professor Nancey Murphy, Professor of Christian Philosophy, Fuller Theological Seminary, USA. Nancey Murphy is Professor of Christian Philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA. She received the B.A. from Creighton University (philosophy and psychology) in 1973, the Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley (philosophy of science) in 1980, and the Th.D. from the Graduate Theological Union (theology) in 1987.  Her first book, Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning (Cornell, 1990) won the American Academy of Religion award for excellence. She is author of eight other books including On the Moral Nature of the Universe: Theology, Cosmology, and Ethics (Fortress, 1996; co-authored with George Ellis), and Did My Neurons Make Me Do It? Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free Will (Oxford University, 2007; co-authored with Warren Brown). Her research interests focus on the role of modern and postmodern philosophy in shaping Christian theology; on relations between theology and science; and relations between neuroscience and philosophy of mind.

Professor Ronald Cole-Turner, ISSR Vice-President & H. Parker Sharp Professor of Theology and Ethics, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, USA. Dr Ronald Cole-Turner is the H. Parker Sharp Professor of Theology and Ethics at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, a position that relates theology and ethics to developments in science and technology. He is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ. His research focuses on emerging technologies and their potential significance for human life. He is the author of The New Genesis: Theology and the Genetic Revolution (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993) and coauthor (with Brent Waters) of Pastoral Genetics: Theology and Care at the Beginning of Life (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1996). He is the editor of Human Cloning: Religious Responses (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997); Beyond Cloning: Religion and the Remaking of Humanity (1999); and co-editor of God and the Embryo (Georgetown, 2001); and editor of Design and Destiny: Jewish and Christian Perspectives on Human Germline Modification (MIT Press, 2008); he is also the author of numerous articles. In 1998, he won one of 12 international awards for “Quality and Excellence in Teaching” from the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences.

Professor Philip Clayton, Provost of Claremont Lincoln University and Dean of Claremont School of Theology, USA. Philip Clayton is Provost of Claremont Lincoln University and Dean of Claremont School of Theology. He received the PhD from Yale University and has taught at Williams College and the California State University, as well as holding guest professorships at the University of Munich, the University of Cambridge, and Harvard University. Clayton has been a leading advocate for the internationalization of the science-religion dialogue.  As Principal Investigator for the “Science and the Spiritual Quest” program and as Senior Advisor and judge for “Global Perspectives in Science and Spirituality,” he has worked actively to expand support for this field to Muslim and Jewish scholars, to the Dharma traditions of India, and to the religions of Southeast Asia. Clayton has authored or edited 22 books, most recently The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science; Religion and Science: The Basics(Routledge); and The Predicament of Belief: Science, Philosophy, Faith (Oxford).

Executive Secretary

Dr. Christopher Knight Christopher Knight, the Executive Secretary of the International Society for Science and Religion, is based at St.Edmund’s College, Cambridge, England, and has been teaching and writing about the dialogue between science and religion for many years. His most recent book is The God of Nature: Incarnation and Contemporary Science (Fortress Press, 2007).

Administrator

Tracey McCluskey Tracey joined the ISSR in May 2007 and is based in the ISSR office at Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge. She serves as the first point of contact for the main administrative aspects of the ISSR.