Christopher T. Baglow: Chris Baglow is the Director of the Science and Religion Initiative of the McGrath Institute for Church Life of the University of Notre Dame, and Professor of the Practice in the Theology Department there.. (Ph.D. Theology 2000, Duquesne University) Since 2005, Prof. Baglow has directed numerous programs for faith-science integration at Catholic high schools. Prof. Baglow is the author of the landmark high-school textbook Faith, Science and Reason: Theology on the Cutting Edge (Midwest Theological Forum, 1st ed. 2009, 2nd ed. 2019). He is a Director of the Society of Catholic Scientists and chair of its Theological Advisory Committee.
Ross Douthat: Ross Douthat is a regular columnist for The New York Times. Before joining the Times he was a senior editor at The Atlantic. He writes on religion, politics, and society and is the author of seven books, including the just released Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious (Zondervan, February 11, 2025). Mr. Douthat converted to the Catholic faith as an adolescent and describes his conversion as being influenced by C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and J.R.R. Tolkien.
Kelly Kearse: Kelly Kearse holds an MS in Biology from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Kentucky. He did postdoctoral work in biochemistry at Johns Hopkins and in Immunology at the National Cancer Institute, NIH. He has published over 50 peer reviewed articles in immunology & biochemistry/cell biology. Dr. Kearse has been principal Investigator in Immunology in the Experimental Immunology Branch, NIH, and an Investigator/Instructor of Immunology & Cell Biology at ECU School of Medicine, as well as being a science instructor at Knoxville Catholic High School for the past 20 years.
Kenneth W. Kemp: Kenneth W. Kemp is Professor emeritus of Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He holds an M.S. in the History and Philosophy of Science and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. He is the co-translator of Archbishop Jozef Życiński's God and Evolution: Fundamental Questions of Christian Evolutionism, and the author of The War That Never Was: Evolution and Christian Theology (Cascade Books, 2020) and of The Origins of Catholic Evolutionism, 1831-1950 (Catholic University of America Press), which will be released in July 2025.
Daniel J. Kuebler: Dan Kuebler is Professor of Biology at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, where he teaches courses on evolution, cell physiology, and science and faith. He holds a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley. Dan is the co-author of The Evolution Controversy: A Survey of Competing Theories (Baker Academic, 2007) and author of the forthcoming book Darwin and Doctrine: The Compatibility of Evolution and Catholicism (Word on Fire Press, 2025). He has written both academic and popular articles on issues related to science, religion and ethics, and is co-host of the Purposeful Lab podcast. He is Vice-President of the Society of Catholic Scientists.
Martin A. Nowak: Martin Nowak is Professor of Mathematics and of Biology at Harvard University. He works on the mathematical description of evolutionary processes, including the evolution of cooperation and human language, as well as the dynamics of virus infections and human cancer. His major scientific contributions and discoveries include: quantifying the dynamics of HBV infection; evolution of virulence under superinfection and coinfection; the role of chromosomal instability in human cancer; quantifying the dynamics of chronic myeloid leukemia; the evolution of drug resistance in targeted cancer therapy; the mechanisms for the evolution of genetic redundancy; five mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation; evolution of eusociality by natural selection; and a mathematical approach for studying the evolution of human language.
Sr. Małgorzata Pagacz, U.S.J.K.: Sister Małgorzata Pagacz is Assistant Professor in the Department of Christian Mysticism at the Faculty of Theology of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw and the director of postgraduate studies in spiritual direction there. She is a member of the Ursuline Sisters of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus. Before joining the Congregation, she completed her Master's degree in Mathematics at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. She also studied philosophy at the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Krakow and at the "Ignatianum.” She holds a Doctorate in Theology from the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Warsaw.
Mark E. Pflieger: Mark Pflieger studied the abstract structure of rational agents and epistemological brain function theory at The Ohio State University before completing a biophysics Ph.D. dissertation on the missing stimulus potential: a fronto-parietal EEG (electric brain wave) event emitted approximately when an expected stimulus does not occur. From 1990 to 2024, he worked on EEG analysis and source estimation software at three companies that serve human brain researchers. Currently, he is Adjunct Faculty at the Computational Science Research Center at San Diego State University, and also Visiting Researcher in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
Anselm Ramelow, O.P.: Fr. Anselm Ramelow O.P. is Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, CA. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Munich. At Munich, he studied with Robert Spaemann, and wrote a dissertation titled "God, Freedom, World Choice. The Metaphysics of Free Will between Antonio Perez, S. J. (1599-1649) and G.W. Leibniz (1646-1716)," investigating the concept of “the best of all possible worlds.” In 2018, he published the first comprehensive, article-length overview of Robert Spaemann's thought in Communio. He regularly teaches courses on modern philosophy and theology, covering Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schleiermacher, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, Gadamer, phenomenology, Heidegger, and the linguistic turn in philosophy and theology.
Mark Saxen: Mark Saxen is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Dental Anesthesis, University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine. Dr. Saxen earned his D.D.S. from Case Western Reserve School of Dental Medicine and his Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University. He is a past-president of the American Society of Dentist Anesthesiologists, the American Dental Board of Anesthesiology, and the American Board of Dental Specialties. He received the Leonard Monheim Distinguished Service Award in 2021 from the American Society of Dentist Anesthesiologists.
Esteban Veliz: Esteban Veliz is currently completing a doctorate in the Plant Biology Department at UC Davis, where he investigates how root microbiomes assemble from agricultural soils through microbe-microbe and plant-microbe interactions. With support from an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, he developed experimental methods to explore these dynamic relationships using reproducible models that can capture distinct facets of their complexity. Esteban earned a Bachelor of Science from UCLA, where his work on rhizobia-legume symbioses and root nodule microbial synergies shaped his current research.
Amanda Waelde: Amanda Waelde is a bioengineering graduate student in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at the University of Notre Dame. Some of her research interests are in drug delivery and diabetes research. She completed her undergraduate degree at Notre Dame in biological sciences with minors in theology and bioengineering. As an undergraduate her research was in optimizing and testing properties of a novel protease. She is President of the Notre Dame Chapter of the Society of Catholic Scientists.
Rogier Windhorst: Rogier Windhorst is Regents’ Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. He received his Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Leiden in 1984. His research is in astronomy, cosmology, galaxy formation and evolution, the cosmic dark ages and the epoch of First Light, and astronomical instrumentation. Since the early 1990's, his group at ASU has contributed significantly to unraveling the formation and evolution of distant galaxies with the Hubble Space Telescope, and the role that supermassive black holes and Active Galactic Nuclei have played in the process of galaxy assembly. He is one of the world's six Interdisciplinary Scientists for NASA's 6.5 meter James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).