Chris Isham is Professor at The Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College, and Director of its Theoretical Physics Group. Professor Isham has made enormous contributions in the fields of quantum gravity and the foundations of quantum mechanics. His main current research program is partly motivated by the problem of time in quantum gravity, one of the deepest questions facing theoretical physics today. He has been developing a new approach to quantum gravity that allows standard ideas of quantum theory to be extended to situations where there is no normal notion of time (like in Einstein’s theory of general relativity). He is also interested in topological quantum field theory, especially its relation to the canonical approach to the quantization of gravity.

Nancy Cartwright is the Chair of the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science and Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method. She is also Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. Her principal interests are philosophy and history of science (especially physics and economics), causal inference and objectivity in science. Her publications include How the Laws of Physics Lie (1983), Nature's Capacities and their Measurement (1989), Otto Neurath: Philosophy between Science and Politics [co-author] (1995), The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science (1999), and more recently Hunting Causes and Using Them (2007) Nancy is also a Fellow of the British Academy and a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. She was married to Sir Stuart Hampshire who died in June 2004. Sir Stuart was a philosopher and reviewer who towards the end of his life worked as Warden of Wadham College Oxford and as Professor at Stanford University. They have two daughters, Emily and Sophie, and a granddaughter, Lucy.

Peter Harrison is the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Harris Manchester College. Formerly Professor of History and Philosophy at Bond University in Australia, he was elected to his current position following the retirement of the first holder of the Idreos Chair, Prof. John Hedley Brooke. This interdisciplinary chair is devoted to research and teaching in questions raised for theology by the natural, human and social sciences. Idreos studied medicine at the University of Athens and spent the majority of his career working for the World Health Organization. He became increasingly aware that science and religion could both foster understanding between cultures and provide a basis for unity and the alleviation of suffering. In 1990 he founded the Idreos lectures in Science and Religion at Oxford, and, before his death, completed the endowment for the new chair, which is associated with Harris Manchester College.

Professor Harrison read for degrees in Science and Arts at the University of Queensland before taking up up a scholarship at Yale University to study philosophy and religion. On returning to Australia, he completed his PhD at the University of Queensland. He has held visting fellowships at a number of institutions including Yale University and the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He is a founding member of the International Society for Science and Religion and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In 2003 he was awarded a Centenary Medal for his contributions to Philosophy and Religion.

He has published extensively in the area of cultural and intellectual history, with a focus on the philosophical, scientific and religious thought of the early modern period. His publications include 'Religion' and the Religions in the English Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1990), The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science (Cambridge, 1998), The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science (Cambridge 2007) and over 50 book chapters and journal articles. Currently Professor Harrison offers lectures in Science and Religion at Oxford, and is director of the MSt programme in science and religion.

Karol Musiol became the Rector of the Jagiellonian University in 2005, serving as Vice-Rector for Development in 2002-5. He further served as Vice-Dean from 1990-93, then Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science from 1999-2002.

Musiol studied physics at the Jagiellonian University, obtaining his Masters degree in 1968 and his PhD in 1975. He is a Professor at the Department of Photonics at the Institute of Physics, where he manages the Atomic and Plasma Spectroscopy Group. As an experimental physicist, his current research investigates the properties of atoms and ions, and plasma diagnostics using lasers and non-linear optics methods. Since 1977 he has collaborated with the University of Orléans as well as with research groups in Germany and France in the field of plasma research. He is currently Acting Head of the Europaeum Council.

Simon Saunders is Reader in Philosophy of Physics and University Lecturer in Philosophy of Science at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of Linacre College and a member of the philosophy and physics faculties.  He received his doctorate from the University of London; his doctorial thesis was entitled The Philosophical and Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Field Theory. Dr. Saunders has served as an associate professor in the department of philosophy at Harvard University and was a Visiting Professor at Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics, in Waterloo, Canada. His fields of research are relativistic quantum theory, problem of measurement, philosophy of space, time, and spacetime and philosophy of science. He edited (with Harvey Brown) the publication entitled The Philosophy of Vacuum (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).

Shahn Majid is Professor of Mathematics at Queen Mary College, University of London.  He is a graduate ofCambridge University where he studied theoretical physics and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in the mathematical physics and pure mathematics departments. Dr. Majid spent ten years as a post doc in DAMTP, Cambridge, after a year at Swansea University. In 1999, he moved to Queen Mary College. Dr. Majid is interested in almost all aspects of pure mathematics and mathematical structures needed to address fundamental problems in theoretical physics. His research interests include mathematics and theoretical physics, non-commutative geometry, quantum groups, integrable systems, Yang-Baxter equations, fractional and braid statistics.  He has contributed significantly to the modern theory of quantum groups (Hopf algebras), and is the author of Foundations of Quantum Group Theory (1995) and A Quantum Groups Primer(2002).