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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.
Gurcharan Das Eurasia and Australia
Author, management guru, and public intellectual, Das is the author of The Difficulty of Being Good: On the subtle art of dharma (Penguin 2009) which interrogates the epic, Mahabharata, in order to answer the question, ‘why be good?’ His international bestseller, India Unbound, is a narrative account of India from Independence to the global information age, and has been published in 17 languages and filmed by BBC.
Author, management guru, and public intellectual, Das is the author of The Difficulty of Being Good: On the subtle art of dharma (Penguin 2009) which interrogates the epic, Mahabharata, in order to answer the question, ‘why be good?’ His international bestseller, India Unbound, is a narrative account of India from Independence to the global information age, and has been published in 17 languages and filmed by BBC. Das writes a regular column on Sundays for the Times of India, Dainik Bhaskar, Eenadu, Sakal and other papers and periodic guest columns for the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and Newsweek. He graduated with honors from Harvard University in philosophy and later attended Harvard Business School (AMP), where he is featured in three case studies. He was CEO of Procter & Gamble India and later managing director, Procter & Gamble Worldwide (strategic planning). In 1995, Das took early retirement to become a full-time writer. He is currently on the boards of a number of companies and is a regular speaker to the top managements of the world’s largest corporations. His other literary works include a novel, A Fine Family, a book of essays, The Elephant Paradigm, and an anthology, Three English Plays (Oxford), consisting of Larins Sahib, a prize-winning play about the British in India, which has been presented at the Edinburgh Festival; Mira, which was produced off-Broadway to critical acclaim from New York critics; and 9 Jakhoo Hill which has been performed in major Indian cities.
Celia Deane-Drummond Eurasia and Australia
Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. Deane-Drummond graduated in natural sciences from Cambridge University and obtained a doctorate in plant physiology at Reading University prior to postdoctoral fellowships at the University of British Columbia and Cambridge University. She lectured in the botany department at Durham University before completing an honors degree in theology and a doctorate in systematic theology from Manchester University.
Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. Deane-Drummond graduated in natural sciences from Cambridge University and obtained a doctorate in plant physiology at Reading University prior to postdoctoral fellowships at the University of British Columbia and Cambridge University. She lectured in the botany department at Durham University before completing an honors degree in theology and a doctorate in systematic theology from Manchester University. Previously, Deane-Drummond held a professorial chair in theology and the biological sciences at the University of Chester, and was director of the Centre for Religion and the Biosciences. During her scientific career, she lectured both nationally and internationally and published over thirty scientific articles. Since then, she has published numerous articles, books, edited collections, and contributions to books, focusing particularly on the engagement of systematic theology and the biological sciences alongside practical, ethical discussion in bioethics and environmental ethics. She has also lectured widely on all areas relating theology and theological ethics with different aspects of the biosciences. Deane-Drummond is co-editor of a new international journal entitled Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences, to be published with Mohr Stoebeck and launched in 2013. Her more recent books include Creation through Wisdom (2000), Brave New World (2003), Reordering Nature (2003), The Ethics of Nature (2004), Wonder and Wisdom (2006), Genetics and Christian Ethics (2006), Future Perfect: God, Medicine and Human Identity (ed., 2010), Ecotheology (2008), Christ and Evolution (2009), Creaturely Theology (ed., 2009), Seeds of Hope: Facing the Challenge of Climate Justice (2010), Religion and Ecology in the Public Sphere (ed., 2011), and Rising to Life (ed., 2011).
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.
Bruno Guiderdoni Eurasia and Australia
Director of the Observatory of Lyon. His main research field is in galaxy formation and evolution. He has published more than 140 papers and has organized several international conferences on these issues. Guiderdoni is one of the referent experts on Islam in France and has published 60 papers on Islamic theology and mystics. He lectures widely in the world on these topics. He was in charge of a French television program called "Knowing Islam" from 1993 to 1999, and the principal investigator of the Science and Religion in Islam network of Muslim scientists from 2005 to 2010.
Director of the Observatory of Lyon. His main research field is in galaxy formation and evolution. He has published more than 140 papers and has organized several international conferences on these issues. Guiderdoni is one of the referent experts on Islam in France and has published 60 papers on Islamic theology and mystics. He lectures widely in the world on these topics. He was in charge of a French television program called "Knowing Islam" from 1993 to 1999, and the principal investigator of the Science and Religion in Islam network of Muslim scientists from 2005 to 2010. He is now the director of the Islamic Institute for Advanced Studies.
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).
Jeff Hardin North America
Professor and chair of the department of zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Hardin holds an M.Div. from the International School of Theology and a Ph.D. in biophysics from the University of California, Berkeley. His numerous research articles focus on the genetic regulation of cell movement and cell adhesion during embryonic development, which has broad implications for understanding human birth defects and cancer.
Professor and chair of the department of zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Hardin holds an M.Div. from the International School of Theology and a Ph.D. in biophysics from the University of California, Berkeley. His numerous research articles focus on the genetic regulation of cell movement and cell adhesion during embryonic development, which has broad implications for understanding human birth defects and cancer. He is also a nationally and internationally recognized biology educator, and the senior author of a widely used cell biology textbook, The World of the Cell (Pearson). Hardin is the only scientist in the Religious Studies program at the University of Wisconsin-Madision, where he is the director of the Isthmus Society, which is committed to promoting dialogue between science and religion.
Ian Hodder North America
Hodder was trained at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London and at Cambridge University where he obtained his Ph.D in 1975. After a brief period teaching at Leeds, he returned to Cambridge where he taught until 1999. During that time he became Professor of Archaeology and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. In 1999, he moved to teach at Stanford University as Dunlevie Family Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Director of the Stanford Archaeology Center.
Hodder was trained at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London and at Cambridge University where he obtained his Ph.D in 1975. After a brief period teaching at Leeds, he returned to Cambridge where he taught until 1999. During that time he became Professor of Archaeology and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. In 1999, he moved to teach at Stanford University as Dunlevie Family Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Director of the Stanford Archaeology Center. His main large-scale excavation projects have been at Haddenham in the east of England and at Çatalhöyük in Turkey where he has worked since 1993. He has been awarded the Oscar Montelius Medal by the Swedish Society of Antiquaries, the Huxley Memorial Medal by the Royal Anthropological Institute, has been a Guggenheim Fellow, and has Honorary Doctorates from Bristol and Leiden Universities. His main books include Spatial Analysis in Archaeology (1976, CUP), Symbols in Action (1982, CUP), Reading the Past (1986, CUP), The Domestication of Europe (1990, Blackwell), The Archaeological Process (1999, Blackwell), The Leopard’s Tale: Revealing the Mysteries of Çatalhöyük (2006, Thames and Hudson).