Research Team
Dr Michael Burdett is Associate Professor of Christian Theology at the University of Nottingham and a Research Associate of the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion, University of Oxford. He has published and presented internationally on continental philosophy, evolution, the technological society and Christian theology. Besides the BETA project, he has lead several grants totalling ~£2.2 million including “Co-creating Ourselves?: Deification and Creaturehood in an Age of Biotechnological Enhancement” (JTF), “Bridging the Two Cultures of Science and Humanities” (TRT and Blankemeyer) and “Human Flourishing in a Technological World: A Christian Vision” (Issachar). He is series editor for the Routledge Science and Religion Series and an editor for the volume Finding Ourselves After Darwin. His book Eschatology and the Technological Future was published with Routledge in 2015 and he is currently completing his next monograph Death and Glory: Humanism, Transhumanism and Christianity.
Dr Nathan Lyons is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame Australia. His research focusses on the philosophy and theology of nature, in dialogue with medieval thinkers (particularly Thomas Aquinas) and contemporary evolutionary theory. In addition to the BETA project, Nathan is principal investigator for the project, “Nature-culture continuities in medieval philosophy and theology” (Australian Research Council). His monograph, Signs in the Dust: A Theory of Natural Culture and Cultural Nature, was published with Oxford University Press in 2019 and he has a monograph forthcoming with Cambridge University Press on theology and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2017. Nathan's personal webpage is https://nathan-lyons.weebly.com.
Dr Megan Loumagne Ulishney is Assistant Professor of Theology at Gannon University in Erie, PA (USA). She is a feminist theologian working at the intersection of evolutionary biology, feminist philosophy and theology, and historical theology. She received her doctorate from the University of Oxford in 2019, and her monograph entitled Original Sin and the Evolution of Sexual Difference was published with Oxford University Press in 2022. She has articles published in Zygon; Philosophy, Theology, and the Sciences; and New Blackfriars, along with several contributions to edited volumes. From 2018-2019, she served as the Academic Coordinator on the Templeton-funded "Bridging the Two Cultures of Science and the Humanities II" project (Scholarship and Christianity in Oxford), and she has participated in three other science-engaged theology Templeton grant projects: "SET Foundations" (Loyola University Maryland), "God and the Book of Nature" (University of Edinburgh), and "New Visions in Theological Anthropology" (University of St. Andrews).
Dr Victoria Lorrimar is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Notre Dame Australia. She specialises in science and religion, focussing on theological responses to evolutionary theory and human enhancement technology. Her monograph, Human Technological Enhancement and Theological Anthropology, was published with Cambridge University Press in 2022. She received her doctorate from the University of Oxford in 2018.
Scientific advisers
Professor Cara Wall-Scheffler - Professor and Co-Chair of Biology, Seattle Pacific University
Associate Professor David Lahti - Associate Professor of Biology, Queens College, City University of New York
Dr Jonathan Jong - Assistant Professor, Centre for Trust, Peace, and Social Relations, Coventry University
Professor Jeff Hardin - Professor of Biology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Professor Ard Louis - Professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford
Theological adviser
Dr Andrew Davison - Starbridge Associate Professor in Theology and Natural Sciences, University of Cambridge