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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.
Robert Cummings Neville North America
Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Theology at Boston University. He is Dean Emeritus of the Boston University School of Theology, Dean Emeritus of Marsh Chapel at Boston University, and was Executive Director of the Albert and Jessie Danielsen Institute. He is past-president of the Metaphysical Society of America, the American Academy of Religion, and the International Society for the Study of Chinese Philosophy, and is currently the president of the Highlands Institute for American Religious and Philosophical Thought.
Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Theology at Boston University. He is Dean Emeritus of the Boston University School of Theology, Dean Emeritus of Marsh Chapel at Boston University, and was Executive Director of the Albert and Jessie Danielsen Institute. He is past-president of the Metaphysical Society of America, the American Academy of Religion, and the International Society for the Study of Chinese Philosophy, and is currently the president of the Highlands Institute for American Religious and Philosophical Thought. The author of scores of papers, Neville has published twenty-two books, two of which have been translated into Chinese, Behind the Masks of God and Boston Confucianism: Portable Tradition in the Late-Modern World. His current research projects include a theological approach to sexual identities and a three-volume philosophical theology.
Howard C. Nusbaum North America
Professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Psychology and the Committee on Computational Neuroscience and co-director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience. Nusbaum completed his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology at the State University of New York at Buffalo and was a postdoctoral scholar and research scientist in the psychology department at Indiana University.
Professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Psychology and the Committee on Computational Neuroscience and co-director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience. Nusbaum completed his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology at the State University of New York at Buffalo and was a postdoctoral scholar and research scientist in the psychology department at Indiana University. Nusbaum has been a faculty member at the University of Chicago since 1986, served as chair of the Committee on Cognition and Communication (1990-1993), director of the Center for Computational Psychology (1995-1998), and served as chair of the Department of Psychology for 13 years. He is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and an associate editor for the journal Brain and Language. He has edited books on speech and language and has published scientific papers on speech perception, language understanding, perceptual learning, attention and working memory, gesture, neuroeconomics, the neurobiology and comparative biology of language, and the role of sleep in learning. He has served as co-principal investigator on the Defining Wisdom Project, which was funded by the JTF to support 23 scholars and scientists studying wisdom and serves as science advisor on the JTF funded Science of Virtues project, which supports 20 scientists and scholars carrying out virtues research.
Kenneth A. Olliff North America
Director for Strategic Foundation Initiatives and Co-Director of Arete, The University of Chicago. Olliff did his undergraduate work in literature at the University of Rochester and graduate work in ethics and theology at the University of Chicago and at Harvard University. He also holds an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is the editor of Through the Rose Window: Art, Myth, and the Religious Imagination (Skinner House Press, 2002). With colleagues John Cacioppo and Matthew Christian, he founded the Arete Initiative at Chicago in 2007.
Director for Strategic Foundation Initiatives and Co-Director of Arete, The University of Chicago. Olliff did his undergraduate work in literature at the University of Rochester and graduate work in ethics and theology at the University of Chicago and at Harvard University. He also holds an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is the editor of Through the Rose Window: Art, Myth, and the Religious Imagination (Skinner House Press, 2002). With colleagues John Cacioppo and Matthew Christian, he founded the Arete Initiative at Chicago in 2007. Led by the Office of the Vice President for Research and for National Laboratories, Arete leverages the University’s intellectual resources to tackle complex global and societal questions that cross disciplinary and institutional boundaries. To do so, Arete provides comprehensive support to faculty leaders in conceptualizing and launching new large-scale, interdisciplinary research initiatives.
Steven R. Quartz North America
Associate professor in the division of humanities and social sciences at the California Institute of Technology and a member of the computational and neural systems program. His research uses advances and methods in neuroscience to probe fundamental problems of the mind, ranging from how the mind emerges from the developing brain to how we make decisions, from individual decision-making under uncertainty to moral decision-making. Quartz is also director of the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory and principal investigator of the NSF IGERT Ph.D.
Associate professor in the division of humanities and social sciences at the California Institute of Technology and a member of the computational and neural systems program. His research uses advances and methods in neuroscience to probe fundamental problems of the mind, ranging from how the mind emerges from the developing brain to how we make decisions, from individual decision-making under uncertainty to moral decision-making. Quartz is also director of the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory and principal investigator of the NSF IGERT Ph.D. grant and the Brain, Mind, and Society Ph.D. program, which provides innovative, interdisciplinary training opportunities to prepare a new generation of scientists with both the analytic foundations and the experimental skills needed to pursue careers at the intersection of neuroscience and the social sciences. The recipient of many awards, he has been an advisor to the National Science Foundation. He is co-author (with Terrence Sejnowski) of Liars, Lovers, and Heroes: What the New Brain Science Reveals About How We Become Who We Are.
Thomas Schmidt Eurasia and Australia
Professor of philosophy of religion on the Roman Catholic theological faculty and a principal investigator of the research cluster “The Formation of Normative Orders” at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt and Vice Chairman of the German Society for Philosophy of Religion. Schmidt is also a Fellow at the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt and was a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies in 2009.
Professor of philosophy of religion on the Roman Catholic theological faculty and a principal investigator of the research cluster “The Formation of Normative Orders” at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt and Vice Chairman of the German Society for Philosophy of Religion. Schmidt is also a Fellow at the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt and was a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies in 2009. He studied philosophy, theology, and sociology at the Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule St. Georgen and the J.W. Goethe University and received his doctorate from the University of Frankfurt. He is the author of several publications including Scientific Explanation and Religious Beliefs (with Michael Parker) and Religion and the Critique of Culture (with Matthias Lutz-Bachmann). Schmidt served as assistant professor in the department of philosophy at California State University Long Beach and visiting professor at the St. Louis University and the University of Washington in Seattle.
Martin Seligman North America
Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology and director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Seligman received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and graduated summa cum laude from Princeton. He was the director of the Clinical Training Program of the psychology department of the University of Pennsylvania for 14 years and is a past-president of the Division of Clinical Psychology of the American Psychological Association.
Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology and director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Seligman received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and graduated summa cum laude from Princeton. He was the director of the Clinical Training Program of the psychology department of the University of Pennsylvania for 14 years and is a past-president of the Division of Clinical Psychology of the American Psychological Association. Seligman’s research includes learned helplessness, depression, optimism, positive psychology, and comprehensive soldier fitness. He is a best-selling author with 25 books translated into more than 35 languages. His latest book is Flourish, published in 2011. Seligman is the recipient of three Distinguished Scientific Contribution Awards from the American Psychological Association, the Laurel Award of the American Association for Applied Psychology and Prevention, and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for Research in Psychopathology. He has also received the American Psychological Society's William James Fellow Award (for contribution to basic science), the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award (for the application of psychological knowledge), and the inaugural Wiley Award of the British Academy for lifetime contributions to psychology in 2009. He holds four honorary doctorates, including The University of Uppsala, Sweden, and Complutense University, Madrid.
Arvind Sharma North America
Born in Varanasi, India, Sharma completed his early education in Delhi. After graduating from Allahabad University, he joined the Indian Administrative Service (I.A.S.) in 1962 and served in the state of Gujarat until 1968. In 1968, he moved to the United States to pursue an advanced degree at Syracuse University, where he obtained an M.A. in economics. He then earned a master in theological studies from the Harvard Divinity School. Sharma was appointed as a lecturer in Asian religions at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, in 1976, while pursuing a Ph.D.
Born in Varanasi, India, Sharma completed his early education in Delhi. After graduating from Allahabad University, he joined the Indian Administrative Service (I.A.S.) in 1962 and served in the state of Gujarat until 1968. In 1968, he moved to the United States to pursue an advanced degree at Syracuse University, where he obtained an M.A. in economics. He then earned a master in theological studies from the Harvard Divinity School. Sharma was appointed as a lecturer in Asian religions at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, in 1976, while pursuing a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indian studies at Harvard University, which he obtained in 1978. He moved to the University of Sydney as a lecturer in 1980 and taught there until 1987. In 1987 he joined the faculty of religious studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where he currently occupies the Birks Chair in Comparative Religion.
Ian Tattersall North America
Curator in the Division of Anthropology of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Born in England and raised in East Africa, he has carried out both primatological and paleontological fieldwork in countries as diverse as Madagascar, Vietnam, Surinam, Yemen and Mauritius.
Curator in the Division of Anthropology of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Born in England and raised in East Africa, he has carried out both primatological and paleontological fieldwork in countries as diverse as Madagascar, Vietnam, Surinam, Yemen and Mauritius. Trained in archaeology and anthropology at Cambridge, and in geology and vertebrate paleontology at Yale, Tattersall has concentrated his research since the 1960s in three main areas: the analysis of the human fossil record and its integration with evolutionary theory, the origin of human cognition, and the study of the ecology and systematics of the lemurs of Madagascar. Tattersall is also a prominent interpreter of human paleontology to the public, with several trade books to his credit, among them Human Origins: What Bones and Genomes Tell Us About Ourselves (with Rob DeSalle, 2007), The Monkey in the Mirror (2002), Extinct Humans (with Jeffrey Schwartz, 2000), Becoming Human: Evolution and Human Uniqueness (1998), The Last Neanderthal: The Rise, Success and Mysterious Extinction of Our Closest Human Relatives (1995; rev. 1999) and The Fossil Trail: How We Know What We Think We Know About Human Evolution (1995; 2nd. ed. 2009) as well as several articles in Scientific American and the co-editorship of the definitive Encyclopedia of Human Evolution and Prehistory. He lectures widely at venues around the world, and, as curator, has also been responsible for several major exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History, including Ancestors: Four Million Years of Humanity (1984); Dark Caves, Bright Visions: Life In Ice Age Europe (1986); Madagascar: Island of the Ancestors (1989); The First Europeans: Treasures from the Hills of Atapuerca (2003); the highly acclaimed Hall of Human Biology and Evolution (1993), and most recently the successor Hall of Human Origins (2007).
Neil Tennant North America
Humanities Distinguished Professor in Philosophy, Adjunct Professor of Cognitive Science, and Distinguished University Scholar at The Ohio State University, Columbus. His took his Ph.D. in logic, and his B.A in mathematics and philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He also holds a Diplom from the Goethe Institut. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Humanities of Australia, an Overseas Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, and an Associate of the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. He has strongly interdisciplinary interests.
Humanities Distinguished Professor in Philosophy, Adjunct Professor of Cognitive Science, and Distinguished University Scholar at The Ohio State University, Columbus. His took his Ph.D. in logic, and his B.A in mathematics and philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He also holds a Diplom from the Goethe Institut. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Humanities of Australia, an Overseas Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, and an Associate of the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. He has strongly interdisciplinary interests. He has held fellowships from both the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (for work in philosophy of biology) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (for work on rational belief revision). His research has also been funded by the British Academy (for work in philosophy of biology) and by the Australian Research Council (for work on computational logic). He is an ex-President of the Australasian Association of Philosophy and has served as editor of the American Philosophical Quarterly. His research interests include logic (philosophical, mathematical and computational), philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science (especially biology) and philosophy of language. His books include Natural Logic and Autologic (both with Edinburgh University Press), Anti-Realism and Logic and The Taming of The True (both with Oxford University Press), and Philosophy, Evolution and Human Nature (Routledge and Kegan Paul, co-authored with the behavioral geneticist Florian Schilcher). Tennant has authored numerous publications in scholarly journals, applying both logical methods and scientific theory to various philosophical problems. His contributions include his constructive and relevant system of core logic; a naturalizing, evolutionarily informed account of human nature; application of proof-theoretic methods to problems in the philosophy of logic and in automated deduction; extension of the methods of natural deduction to provide a logicist foundation for arithmetic; his anti-realist treatment of the problem of truth and knowability; and his computationally implementable account of rational belief-revision.
Robert M. Townsend North America
Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics at MIT, and Research Associate at the University of Chicago. His recent work analyzes the dynamics of enterprise and the role of financial systems in developing economies by studying applied dynamic general equilibrium models and contract theory. Townsend earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota. He began his work as a theorist working on general equilibrium models, contract theory, and mechanism design.
Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics at MIT, and Research Associate at the University of Chicago. His recent work analyzes the dynamics of enterprise and the role of financial systems in developing economies by studying applied dynamic general equilibrium models and contract theory. Townsend earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota. He began his work as a theorist working on general equilibrium models, contract theory, and mechanism design. His contributions in econometrics include the study of risk and insurance in developing countries, and his work on village India was awarded the Frisch Medal in 1998. Since 1997, Townsend has been conducting large-scale surveys in Thailand. With this rich source of data, he is able to look at detailed economic activity and wealth creation, and test models on financial regimes, the role of informal networks, village loan funds, and the role of enterprise. Townsend has served in a number of academic and scientific advisory roles, including the MIT Press Editorial Board, CEMFI, NORC’s Population Research Center, ICRISAT, and the National Science Foundation. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an Elected Fellow of The Econometric Society. He is an advisor and consultant for international institutions and government agencies including the World Bank, the IMF, and IADB.