 |
|
|
|
|
|
Board of Advisors
The Board of Advisors possess expertise in fields covering the full range of the foundation's activities and provide guidance on particular projects and larger strategic initiatives.
Francisco J. Ayala North America
University Professor and Donald Bren Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He received his Ph.D. in genetics from Columbia University. Ayala has been president and chairman of the Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and president of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society of the U.S. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and many foreign academies, and has received numerous prizes and honorary degrees.
University Professor and Donald Bren Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He received his Ph.D. in genetics from Columbia University. Ayala has been president and chairman of the Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and president of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society of the U.S. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and many foreign academies, and has received numerous prizes and honorary degrees. His scientific research focuses on population and evolutionary genetics, including the origin of species, genetic diversity of populations, the origin of malaria, the population structure of parasitic protozoa, and the molecular clock of evolution. He has published more than 1,000 articles and is author or editor of 37 books. Ayala also writes about the interface between religion and science, and on philosophical issues concerning epistemology, ethics, and the philosophy of biology. Born in Madrid, Spain, Ayala has lived in the United States since 1961, and became a U.S. citizen in 1971. From 1994 to 2001, he was a member of the U.S. President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology. In 2002, Dr. Ayala received the National Medal of Science from President George W. Bush at a White House ceremony. He was awarded the 2010 Templeton Prize.
Mark C. Berner North America
A social entrepreneur and consultant to foundations and non-profits, Berner is the CEO and co-chairman of Telos, a forum for Christian leaders of international stature from business, finance, science, religion, public policy, the media, the academy, and the arts, committed to renewing public culture. Previously, he was a managing partner and co-founder of SDG Resources, L.P., an oil and gas exploration company with operations in Texas and New Mexico. Berner was also a senior manager of a hedge fund at Credit Suisse First Boston and a partner in a New York law firm.
A social entrepreneur and consultant to foundations and non-profits, Berner is the CEO and co-chairman of Telos, a forum for Christian leaders of international stature from business, finance, science, religion, public policy, the media, the academy, and the arts, committed to renewing public culture. Previously, he was a managing partner and co-founder of SDG Resources, L.P., an oil and gas exploration company with operations in Texas and New Mexico. Berner was also a senior manager of a hedge fund at Credit Suisse First Boston and a partner in a New York law firm. He has served on a number of corporate and charitable boards and is a former Trustee of the John Templeton Foundation. He was educated at Yale, Oxford, and Villanova.
William T. Cavanaugh North America
Senior Research Professor at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, and Professor of Catholic Studies at DePaul University in Chicago. He has degrees in theology from the universities of Notre Dame, Cambridge, and Duke, and specializes in political theology. Cavanaugh worked in a poor neighborhood of Santiago, Chile, in the 1980s, and that experience became the basis for his first book Torture and Eucharist (Blackwell, 1998). His other books include: Theopolitical Imagination (T. & T.
Senior Research Professor at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, and Professor of Catholic Studies at DePaul University in Chicago. He has degrees in theology from the universities of Notre Dame, Cambridge, and Duke, and specializes in political theology. Cavanaugh worked in a poor neighborhood of Santiago, Chile, in the 1980s, and that experience became the basis for his first book Torture and Eucharist (Blackwell, 1998). His other books include: Theopolitical Imagination (T. & T. Clark, 2002), Being Consumed (Eerdmans, 2008), The Myth of Religious Violence (Oxford, 2009), and Migrations of the Holy (Eerdmans, 2011). His books have been translated into French, Spanish, and Polish. He has published many journal articles, and is co-editor of the journal Modern Theology.
Andy Crouch North America
The author of Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling, winner of Christianity Today’s 2009 Book Award for Christianity and Culture, and named one of the best books of 2008 by Publishers Weekly, Relevant, Outreach, and Leadership. In 2011 he became special assistant to the president at Christianity Today International, where he has served as executive producer of the documentary films Where Faith and Culture Meet and Round Trip, and as editorial director of the Christian Vision Project.
The author of Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling, winner of Christianity Today’s 2009 Book Award for Christianity and Culture, and named one of the best books of 2008 by Publishers Weekly, Relevant, Outreach, and Leadership. In 2011 he became special assistant to the president at Christianity Today International, where he has served as executive producer of the documentary films Where Faith and Culture Meet and Round Trip, and as editorial director of the Christian Vision Project. He is a member of the editorial board of Books & Culture, a senior fellow of the International Justice Mission’s IJM Institute, and serves on the boards of Fuller Theological Seminary and Equitas Group, a philanthropic organization focused on ending child exploitation in Haiti and Southeast Asia. His writing has appeared in several editions of Best Christian Writing and Best Spiritual Writing. From 1998 to 2003, Andy was the editor-in-chief of re:generation quarterly, a magazine for an emerging generation of culturally creative Christians. For ten years he was a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Harvard University. He studied classics at Cornell University and received an M.Div. summa cum laude from Boston University School of Theology.
Pranab Das North America
Professor of Physics at Elon University, Das was Program Director of the Global Perspectives on Science and Spirituality program and its successor, the GPSS Major Awards Project. These two programs identified and supported research in science and the human spirit by research teams around the world. Presently, Das serves as executive editor of the International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR) Library Project, a program to select a library of essential texts spanning science and religion and its related fields.
Professor of Physics at Elon University, Das was Program Director of the Global Perspectives on Science and Spirituality program and its successor, the GPSS Major Awards Project. These two programs identified and supported research in science and the human spirit by research teams around the world. Presently, Das serves as executive editor of the International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR) Library Project, a program to select a library of essential texts spanning science and religion and its related fields. Collections of this library's books are being distributed on a competitive basis to institutions of higher learning worldwide and an accompanying website (www.issrlibrary.org) and physical volume, the Companion to the ISSR Library, are in progress. Das studied as an undergraduate at Reed College, with theses in both theoretical physics and international studies His Ph.D. is from the University of Texas at Austin where he was a member of the Ilya Prigogine Center for Complex Systems. His academic work spans the fields of neuroscience, nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory, the physics of granular materials, media studies, and science and the human spirit.
Jean Bethke Elshtain North America
Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago. Elshtain taught at the University of Massachusetts and at Vanderbilt University where she was the first woman to hold an endowed professorship in the College of Liberal Arts in the history of that institution. She has also been a Visiting Professor at Harvard and Yale. Elshtain holds nine honorary degrees and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago. Elshtain taught at the University of Massachusetts and at Vanderbilt University where she was the first woman to hold an endowed professorship in the College of Liberal Arts in the history of that institution. She has also been a Visiting Professor at Harvard and Yale. Elshtain holds nine honorary degrees and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has authored and/or edited twenty books, has written some five hundred essays and is a contributing editor for The New Republic. Elshtain has been a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; a Scholar in Residence, Bellagio Conference and Study Center, Como Italy; a Guggenhein Fellow; a Fellow of the National Humanities Center; and in 2003-2004, she held the Maguire Chair in Ethics at the Library of Congress. She also serves on the Scholars Council, The Library of Congress; on the Board of Trustees of the James Madison Program in American Constitutional Ideals at Princeton University; the Board of Trustees of the National Humanities Center; and the Board of the National Endowment for Democracy. Elshtain was a Phi Beta Kappa scholar, served as vice president of the American Political Science Association and is also the recipient of the Ellen Gregg Ingalls Award for excellence in classroom teaching–the highest award for undergraduate teaching at Vanderbilt University. In 2002, she received the Goodenow Award of the American Political Science Association, the Association’s highest award for distinguished service to the profession. In 2005-2006, Elshtain delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh.
Thomas F. Farr North America
Visiting Associate Professor of Religion and International Affairs at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Farr is a senior fellow at Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, where he directs the Program on Religious Freedom as well as the Program on Religion and U.S. Foreign Policy. He is also a senior fellow of the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, N.J., where he directs a task force on international religious freedom. A former U.S.
Visiting Associate Professor of Religion and International Affairs at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Farr is a senior fellow at Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, where he directs the Program on Religious Freedom as well as the Program on Religion and U.S. Foreign Policy. He is also a senior fellow of the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, N.J., where he directs a task force on international religious freedom. A former U.S. diplomat, Farr was the State Department’s first Director of the Office of International Religious Freedom. After a career of 21 years he left the Foreign Service to research and write on religion and U.S. national interests. He has published articles in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, First Things, The Washington Post, The Review of Faith and International Affairs, America Magazine, The Drake Law Review and The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and has contributed essays to several edited volumes. He has appeared on PBS’s America Abroad, Al Jazeera, Alhurra and many other media outlets. Farr blogs for the Washington Post’s “On Faith” and the American Principles Project. His own book, World of Faith and Freedom: Why International Religious Liberty is Vital to American National Security, was published by Oxford University Press in 2008. Farr received his Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina, and served in the U.S. Army and has taught at both the U.S. Military Academy and the U.S. Air Force Academy. He was a member of the Chicago World Affairs Council’s Task Force on Religion and U.S. Foreign Policy. Currently he is a contributing editor for the Review of Faith and International Affairs, and vice chair of Christian Solidarity Worldwide-USA, which defends religious freedom for all people. He is a recipient of the Jan Karski Wellspring of Freedom Award, presented by the Institute on Religion and Public Policy for contributions to religious freedom.
John Fischer North America
Distinguished Professor, University of California President's Chair, and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of California Riverside (UCR). He received his undergraduate degree from Stanford and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. Fischer served on the faculty at Yale before coming to UCR in 1988. Fischer's main research interests lie in free will, moral responsibility, and both metaphysical and ethical issues pertaining to life and death.
Distinguished Professor, University of California President's Chair, and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of California Riverside (UCR). He received his undergraduate degree from Stanford and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. Fischer served on the faculty at Yale before coming to UCR in 1988. Fischer's main research interests lie in free will, moral responsibility, and both metaphysical and ethical issues pertaining to life and death. He is the author of The Metaphysics of Free Will: An Essay on Control; with Mark Ravizza, Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility; and My Way: Essays on Moral Responsibility. His recent work includes a contribution to Four Views on Free Will (in Blackwell’s Great Debates in Philosophy series) and his latest collection of essays (Our Stories: Essays on Life, Death, and Free Will) is now out with Oxford University Press. His undergraduate teaching includes an introductory ethics course, philosophy of law, theories of distributive justice, and philosophy of religion. He has also taught various courses on death and the meaning of life. His graduate teaching has primarily focused on free will, moral responsibility, and the metaphysics of death (and the meaning of life). Fischer received the UCR Distinguished Humanist Achievement Lecturer Award in 1996 and the CHASS Distinguished Research Lecturer Award in 2010.
Michael Fishbane North America
The Nathan Cummings Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Chicago, where he was formerly chair of its Committee on Jewish Studies. Fishbane is the author or editor of over 20 books and hundreds of articles in scholarly journals and encyclopedias. His areas of research include Biblical studies, medieval Jewish Bible commentaries and thought, Jewish spirituality, and modern Jewish thought.
The Nathan Cummings Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Chicago, where he was formerly chair of its Committee on Jewish Studies. Fishbane is the author or editor of over 20 books and hundreds of articles in scholarly journals and encyclopedias. His areas of research include Biblical studies, medieval Jewish Bible commentaries and thought, Jewish spirituality, and modern Jewish thought. Among his many works are Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel; The Garments of Torah: Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics; The Kiss of God: Spiritual Death and Dying in Judaism; and The Exegetical Imagination: On Jewish Thought and Theology. His more recent books include Haftarot (A commentary on the prophetic lectionaries for Sabbaths and Festivals); Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking; and Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology. He is presently completing a comprehensive, multi-level commentary on the Song of Songs, utilizing the entire range of commentaries from antiquity to the present. Recipient of many scholarly awards, Fishbane has been a Guggenheim Fellow, and three times a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University. He is also a fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research. An article on Fishbane’s work and intellectual contributions appears in the Encyclopedia Judaica (2nd ed.). In 2005 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award for Contributions to Jewish Scholarship from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. Fishbane has been a visiting professor at many universities in the United States and abroad, including Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton in the U.S., and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel.
Hans Halvorson North America
Professor of philosophy at Princeton University. He has written extensively on the foundations of quantum physics, with articles appearing in the Journal of Mathematical Physics, Physical Review, Philosophy of Science, and the British Journal of Philosophy of Science, among others. In 2008 he won a Mellon Foundation fellowship to pursue a new direction of research in category theory and especially topos theory. Halvorson has received the Cushing Memorial Prize in the History and Philosophy of Physics (2004), Best Article of the Year by a Recent Ph.D.
Professor of philosophy at Princeton University. He has written extensively on the foundations of quantum physics, with articles appearing in the Journal of Mathematical Physics, Physical Review, Philosophy of Science, and the British Journal of Philosophy of Science, among others. In 2008 he won a Mellon Foundation fellowship to pursue a new direction of research in category theory and especially topos theory. Halvorson has received the Cushing Memorial Prize in the History and Philosophy of Physics (2004), Best Article of the Year by a Recent Ph.D. (Philosophy of Science Association, 2001), and Ten Best Philosophy Articles of the Year (The Philosopher's Annual, both 2001 and 2002).