Fellows (2021 Cohort)
We are delighted to share details of our 2021 cohort taking part in the Fellowships in Science-Engaged Theology.
Dr. Elizabeth Agnew Cochran
Duquesne University
Professor of Theology
Puzzle Title:
‘Autism, Empathy, and Human Loves’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘Empathy and Neighbor-Love in Autistic Moral Experience’
Current area(s) of research interest :
Virtue ethics, historical Christian moral thought, methodology and Christian ethics, disability theology.
Elizabeth Agnew Cochran (Ph.D. University of Notre Dame, 2007) is the author of two monographs that explore questions of virtue, moral agency, moral formation, and human flourishing: Receptive Human Virtues: A New Reading of Jonathan Edwards’s Ethics (Penn State University Press, 2011), and Protestant Virtue and Stoic Ethics (T&T Clark Press, 2018). She has also published numerous articles in journals such as the Journal of Religious Ethics, Studies in Christian Ethics, and the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. Dr. Cochran is now writing a book manuscript that considers how attention to autism as part of human experience complicates, enriches, and at times challenges views of virtue and human nature that are prominent in Christian theology and philosophy. Drawing on first-person narratives and an ethnographic study that privileges the testimony of autistic participants, her current research considers carefully how to recognize that particular Christian theological convictions encourage us to affirm certain universally shared goods of human nature while simultaneously allowing for, and even embracing, neurological diversity within the human species.
Dr. Uche Anizor
Talbot School of Theology, Biola University
Associate Professor of Theology
Puzzle Title:
‘Psychiatry, Spirituality, and the Healing of Apathy’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Theological method, Colin Gunton’s theology, evangelical theology, and spiritual apathy.
Uche Anizor is a theologian who teaches systematic and historical theology to undergraduate students at Biola University, where he has been on faculty for more than a decade. His recent books include How to Read Theology: Engaging Doctrine Critically and Charitably (Baker Academic, 2018) and Evangelical Theology (Doing Theology Series), co-authored with Rob Price and Hank Voss (T&T Clark, 2021). He recently completed a popular level book on apathy and looks to continue to explore how psychological and psychiatric research might inform a Christian approach to addressing apathy. He is married with three children.
Mr. Paul Arnold
McMaster University
(joint application with Dr Erin Kidd)
Puzzle Title:
‘The Role of Bodily Movement in Christian Rituals’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘The Role of Bodily Movement in Christian Rituals’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Gesture, sacramental theology, ritual, embodied cognition, cognitive linguistics.
Paul Arnold (MSc, MA) is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at McMaster University, Ontario, Canada. He is also currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Religion in Society (CSRS) at the University of Victoria. He has co-authored papers on human physiology and the evolution of language and his current research is situated at the boundary of a number of disciplines, including sacramental theology, gesture studies, and cognitive linguistics.
Dr. Timothy Robert Baylor
University of Wales Trinity St David
Lecturer in Theology and Religion
Puzzle Title:
‘Can neuroscience and cognitive psychology explain how anxiety and faith coexist in the sorrows of Christ?’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘Cognitive Science of Emotion and the Ethics of Despair’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Christian Theology, Philosophy, and History.
Tim Baylor is currently a Lecturer in Theology and Religion at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, where he teaches modules in Christian Theology and History. He is a lecturer for the International Federation for Interfaith and Intercultural Dialogue. His previous research has examined Protestant and Catholic traditions on divine justice, and the moral doctrines establishing Christian arguments for the necessity of the incarnation. His current work explores the role of emotion in moral reasoning, and particularly the place of sorrow in discerning providential order.
Dr. Pavel Butakov
Lutheran Theological Seminary & Institute of Philosophy and Law
Puzzle Title:
‘Can dual-process theory explain the ambiguity of the notion of faith in the New Testament?’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Analytic Theology, Epistemology of Religious Belief, Belief Formation, Divine Hiddenness.
Pavel Butakov is a lecturer in systematic theology and church history at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Novosibirsk, Russia. In addition, he is a research fellow in philosophy of religion at the Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His undergraduate education was in chemistry (Novosibirsk State University), his master’s degree is in theology (Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne, IN, USA), and his PhD is in philosophy (Institute of Philosophy and Law, Novosibirsk).
Pavel’s recent research has casually drifted from one area to another, probing such topics as the doctrine of the Trinity, divine hiddenness, metaphysics of time, divine and human promises, cognitive science of belief formation, sacramental theology, and the nature of faith and religious belief.
Apart from his love for theology and analytic philosophy, Pavel is infatuated with amateur astronomy, bird-watching, and Islay malt whiskies. He is also a devoted geek, who spends an unrestricted amount of time on sci-fi and fantasy books, films, and videogames.
Dr. T. Ryan Byerly
University of Sheffield
Puzzle Title:
‘Taking up Faith to Flourish’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘Faith and Flourishing among agnostics’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Faith and Virtue Development, Spiritual Excellence, Intellectual Dependability.
Ryan Byerly completed his PhD in Philosophy at Baylor University. Since 2015, he has worked at the University of Sheffield, where he is now Senior Lecturer. Most of Byerly’s research has focused on topics in Philosophy of Religion or Virtue Theory. His books include The Mechanics of Divine Foreknowledge and Providence (2014), Putting Others First (2019), and Intellectual Dependability (2021). From 2018 to 2021 Byerly was supported by an Academic Cross-Training Fellowship that enabled him to learn more about the psychological study of character. Much of Byerly’s recent work has become more interdisciplinary as a result.
Dr. Ashley Cocksworth
University of Roehampton
Senior Lecturer in Theology and Practice
Puzzle Title:
‘The Smile and Formation for Joy: Engaging with Developmental Psychology’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘Smiling for Joy: Theological Engagements with Psychology‘
Current area(s) of research interest:
Ash Cocksworth is Senior Lecturer in Theology and Practice at the University of Roehampton. Previously, he was Assistant Professor in Theology and Ministry in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University and Tutor in Systematic Theology at the Queen’s Foundation, Birmingham. He is the author of Karl Barth on Prayer (T&T Clark, 2015) and Prayer: A Guide for the Perplexed (Bloomsbury, 2018). He is the editor of the T&T Clark Handbook of Christian Prayer (Bloomsbury, 2021), Karl Barth: Spiritual Writings, Classics of Western Spirituality Series (Paulist Press, 2022); From the Shores of Silence: Conversations in Feminist Practical Theology (SCM Press, 2022); and is currently editing, with Rachel Muers, the fourth edition of The Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology for Wiley-Blackwell.
Currently, he is working on a book length treatment of the doctrine of creation (Contemplating Creation: Christian Doctrine in Practice) and an empirical project exploring ecumenical experiences of saying creeds in four Roehampton churches.
Dr. Rebecca (Becky) Copeland
Boston University School of Theology
Assistant Professor of Theology and Director of the Faith and Ecological Justice Program
Puzzle Title:
‘The Crucifixion and Ethology of Conflict Among Chimpanzees and Bonobos’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Systematic theology, environmental justice, ecotheology, environmental ethics.
Dr. Copeland works in theology, ethics, and the intersection of religion and ecology, focusing primarily on Christian traditions. Her research and teaching interests revolve around the ways that classical Christian doctrines can be reconstructed in response to what we learn about the world through environmental studies, as well as how such doctrines can influence environmental activism. In other words, she seeks to read theology ecologically, and read the environment theologically. She has published several articles using ecomimetic interpretation to engage non-human characters in scripture and theology, and her first book, Created Being: Expanding Creedal Christology (Baylor University Press), resists the anthropocentric assumptions embedded in Christology in order to develop a more robust concept of Christ’s person and work. She directs the Faith and Ecological Justice Program at Boston University and is active in Worcester Congregations for Climate Action and the United Methodist Church.
Dr. Daniel D. De Haan
University of Oxford
Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion
Puzzle Title:
‘The Challenge of Moral Ontogeny to the Catholic Natural Law Tradition’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Philosophical anthropology, medieval philosophy, philosophy of religion, moral psychology.
Dr Daniel D. De Haan is a Research Fellow in the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at Oxford University. He is the principal investigator of the Conceptual Clarity Concerning Human Nature project sponsored by the Templeton World Charity Foundation. Previously he was a postdoctoral researcher on the Renewal of Natural Theology project directed by Professor Alister McGrath at the University of Oxford. Before coming to Oxford, he was a postdoctoral fellow on the neuroscience strand of the Theology, Philosophy of Religion, and the Sciences project at the University of Cambridge directed by Professor Sarah Coakley. He is a graduate of the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium and the University of St. Thomas, Houston, USA. He is the author of Necessary Existence and the Doctrine of Being in Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing (Brill, 2020).
Rev. Dr. Katherine M. Douglass
Seattle Pacific University
Associate Professor of Educational Ministry and Practical Theology
(joint application with Dr. Brittany Tausen)
Puzzle Title:
‘Loving our neighbors as ourselves: Can the tools of social-cognitive psychology inform spiritual formation practices?’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘A science-engaged theology of mutuality: Investigating the components of humanizing interactions’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Christian identity formation, ministry with marginalized youth, rites of passage, aesthetic and embodied learning, dehumanization.
Dr. Douglass worked as an Assistant Pastor at the American Protestant Church: An International Community in Bonn, Germany before returning to Princeton Theological Seminary to complete a PhD in practical theology. Her dissertation research on the role of the arts in the faith lives of young adults was published in 2020 under the title, Creative In the Image of God: An Aesthetic Practical Theology of Young Adult Faith. Following her doctoral work, Douglass directed the Confirmation Project, a national study on confirmation and equivalent practices across five mainline protestant denominations in the US. This research was published in 2018 in, Cultivating Teen Faith: Insights from the Confirmation Project. Douglass is currently the lead researcher for the Missing Voices Project at Flagler College which invited 12 congregations to center the youth in their congregations who find themselves as the margins – these include foster kids, teen parents, LGBTQ+ youth, intellectually and developmentally disabled youth, and racially minoritized youth. Along with Dr. Brittany Tausen, Douglass has been studying Christian identity formation that resists dehumanization at SPU. When not conducting research, Douglass and her partner, Dr. John Douglass, rock climb, back-country ski, and paddle board with their three sons in the mountains and waterways around Seattle, Washington.
Prof. Chris Durante
Saint Peter’s University
Assistant Professor of Theology
Puzzle Title:
‘Is Maximus Confessor’s Doctrine of the Logoi of Creation compatible with the emerging field of Biomimicry?’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘Moral Theology & the Book of Nature’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Philosophical Theology; Comparative Religion; Ecological Ethics; Bioethics.
Chris Durante, Ph.D., M.A., M.Sc. is an Assistant Professor of Theology at Saint Peter’s University in New Jersey as well as a Fellow of the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics & Human Rights. Professor Durante’s primary research and teaching interests are in Religion, Ethics, Science & Society broadly construed to include: Philosophical Theology; Comparative Religion; Ecological Ethics & Bioethics. As a Fellow of the New Visions in Theological Anthropology initiative of the Science-Engaged Theology project of the School of Divinity at St. Andrews University, his current research focuses on exploring the intersections between theology and science as a means of developing an ecological approach to ethics grounded in a scientifically-informed understanding of natural law from which we can derive a conception of the good life that recognizes the ecological embeddedness of our natural existence as living beings dwelling on a living planet amongst fellow creatures. Professor Durante’s research seeks to contribute to the development of a new ecological paradigm in which scientific, theological and ethical wisdom are not seen as self-sufficient and stratified disciplines but in which these disciplines converge and inform one another.
Dr. Matthew Elia
University of Virginia
Postdoctoral College Fellow
Puzzle Title:
‘Deep Solidarity: Evolutionary Anthropology and the Moral Life in the Anthropocene’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘Solidarity as a Way of Life: Evolutionary Anthropology and Theological Ethics in the Anthropocene’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Race, solidarity, religious ethics, Augustine and Augustinianism, political ecology, climate politics
Matthew Elia is currently a Postdoctoral College Fellow at the University of Virginia in the multidisciplinary Engagements Program, having completed a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Duke Divinity School as part of ‘God and the Book of Nature,’ a collaborative research project with fellows across ten universities in the US and Europe. He took his PhD in Religious Studies at Duke, supported by an ACLS/Mellon Dissertation Fellowship. His first book project, The Problem of the Christian Master: Augustine in the Afterlife of Slavery (currently under review), places Augustinian politics in conversation with Black Studies by examining the central role of slavery in Augustine’s thought. His current research project on religious ethics, race, and science examines the limits and promise of ‘solidarity’ as a framework for virtue in the face of the Anthropocene futures now emerging: climate apartheid, border militarization, and environmental devastation. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the Journal of Religious Ethics, The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, Studia Patristica, and Biblical Interpretation, among others.
Dr. Euan Grant
University of St Andrews
(joint application with Mr Philip Miti)
Puzzle Title:
‘Embodied Cognition and the Perception of God’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Thomist Metaphysics and Anthropology, the historicity of human nature.
Euan Grant is Gifford Fellow at St Andrews University, where he completed doctoral research on human nature in the work of St Thomas Aquinas, following an undergraduate education at Keble College in Oxford. That research was driven by question of how to square the emphasis on the immaterial and spiritual in Thomas’ Aquinas thinking about human nature with his concern (evident or hidden) with the inescapable facts of human embodiment and historicity. The venerable and difficult doctrine of original sin proving a strikingly illuminating aspect of the total picture of Thomas’ anthropological concerns, one which also questions the shape of contemporary debate on a number of related topics.
Rev. Dr. Kirsten L. Guidero
John Wesley Honors College, Indiana Wesleyan University
[email protected], [email protected]
Puzzle Title:
‘Recent cognitive linguistic work on metaphor theory suggests that communities’ theological language derives from various bodily experiences; thus they develop differing descriptions of theological tenets. How will mapping the metaphors at work within three ecclesial traditions build ecumenical consensus on participation?’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘Method and Metaphors: Redirecting the Deification Debates’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Theological language & method; deification & theological anthropology; ecumenical method & dialogue; the Trinity; gender.
Kirsten Guidero is a systematic theologian and Episcopal priest serving in the same rural American Midwest settings in which she grew up. She earned her Ph.D. from Marquette University with a dissertation that dialogues Eastern and Western accounts of perfection. Current projects include investigating ancient warrants for liturgical language revision, querying gendered notions of the Trinity, and assessing virtue ethics pedagogies. As part of an interdisciplinary honors college faculty, she teaches seminars on such topics as “What is Beauty?” while assisting in education, reconciliation and justice advocacy, and preaching at her local parish. She is also the human caretaker for the world’s best dog, Lucy.
Dr. Preston Hill
Richmont Graduate University
(joint application with Prof. Dan Sartor)
Puzzle Title:
‘Posttraumatic Growth and Secure Attachment to God: Insights from Interpersonal Neurobiology of Trauma for Constructing Spiritually Formative Models of Atonement’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘Posttraumatic Growth in God: A Science-Engaged Theology of Atonement’
Current area(s) of research interest:
John Calvin, Christ’s descent into hell, the triduum and Holy Saturday, atonement, Reformation theology, history and theology of late medieval/early modern Europe, history and theology of heresies, patristic development of Christology and Trinitarian doctrine, soteriology, eschatology/doctrine of hell, theodicy/problem of evil, trauma studies/trauma theory, interpersonal neurobiology, integration of psychology and theology.
Preston Hill recently completed a PhD in Theology at St Mary’s College, University of St Andrews, having previously completed an MLitt degree in Analytic and Exegetical Theology from the Logos Institute at St Andrews. His thesis offers the first monograph-length exposition of the place of Christ’s descent into hell in the theology of John Calvin. Preston presented the beginnings of this research at the Twelfth International Congress on Calvin research, which has since been published in the 2020 volume by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht entitled Calvinus Fater in Domino.
Preston’s postdoctoral projects have involved a number of research and publication outlets relating Calvin’s theology of the descent into hell with contemporary theological explorations of violence, survival, and trauma recovery. Currently, Preston is a faculty member at Richmont Graduate University where he teaches theology and bible classes in the School of Counseling and School of Ministry with an emphasis in traumatology. In 2021 Preston is releasing his first coauthored book with Scott Harrower and Joshua Cockayne entitled Dawn of Sunday: The Trinity and Trauma-Safe Church (Cascade), and is releasing his first edited volume entitled Christ and Trauma: Theology East of Eden (Pickwick Publications).
Dr. Daniel W. Houck
Calvary Hill Baptist Church / John Leland Center for Theological Studies
Twitter: @DanielWHouck
Puzzle Title:
‘Can Shared Intentionality Theory Help Bridge the Gap between Relational and Structural Views of the Image of God?’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘The Image of God and Developmental Psychology’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Thomistic theological anthropology, the doctrine of the image of God.
Daniel Houck is pastor of Calvary Hill Baptist Church in Fairfax, Virginia, and author of Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution (Cambridge University Press). His writing, preaching, and public lectures cover a wide range of topics—the interpretation of Genesis, the thought of Thomas Aquinas, theology and evolution—and focus broadly on understanding the Christian faith in a modern, scientific context.
He also teaches at the John Leland Center for Theological Studies and hosts the Daniel Houck Theology Podcast.
Raised in McLean, Virginia, Houck received a degree in philosophy from Wheaton College, an M.Div. from Princeton Seminary, and a Ph.D. in religious studies from Southern Methodist University. He lives with his wife Katie in Northern Virginia.
Dr. Matthew Kuan Johnson
University of Oxford
Research Fellow, Faculty of Theology and Religion
Research Fellow, Oxford Character Project
Associate Member, Faculty of Philosophy
(joint application with Dr. Rachel Siow Robertson)
Puzzle Title:
‘Why is Joy a Divine Command?: On “Broaden and Build” Psychology and Spiritual Formation’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Moral perception, virtue theory, embodiment, liturgy and ritual, psychology of joy, AI ethics.
Dr. Matthew Kuan Johnson works at the intersection of philosophy, cognitive science, and theology on topics related to ethics, embodiment, empathy, and the emotions. He is also a leading researcher on the psychology of joy, and recently authored the target article for a special issue on joy of the Journal of Positive Psychology. He is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, working on the Virtues and Vocations Initiative at the Oxford Character Project. His research on the project centres around character formation and on developing ethics training programmes for the tech sector.
Matthew earned his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, writing his dissertation on the role that the imagination plays in moral perception and character formation. He also holds a BA in Cognitive Science from Yale University and an MPhil in Social Psychology from Cambridge. Previously, Matthew has consulted for Google AI, was a contributing scholar at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School, was an Adjunct Professor in Religion and Philosophy at Pepperdine University, and has taught in the University of Cambridge’s Philosophy and Psychology Departments.
Dr. Erin Kidd
St. John’s University (Queens)
Assistant Professor
(joint application with Mr. Paul Arnold)
Puzzle Title:
‘The Role of Bodily Movement in Christian Rituals’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘The Role of Bodily Movement in Christian Rituals’
Current area(s) of research interest:
4E Cognition, Feminist Theology, Theological Method, Theological Anthropology, The Work of Karl Rahner.
Erin Kidd is Assistant Professor at St. John’s University in Queens, New York, where she teaches in the Theology & Religious Studies department and is on the steering committee of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program. She got her PhD from Marquette University, where her dissertation offered a feminist theology of embodiment drawing largely from the work of Karl Rahner. In addition to Rahner, her research engages 4E cognition and feminist epistemology to explore embodiment as both an object of theological reflection and a constitutive part of that reflection itself. She is the editor of Putting God on the Map, an interdisciplinary volume on theology and cognitive linguistics, and her articles have appeared in Modern Theology, Open Theology, and the Journal of Religion and Society. She is currently working on a manuscript, Doing Theology from the Gut: Body, Method, and God, and a second project developing a theology of testimony.
Dr. Simon Kittle
University of Leeds
Puzzle Title:
‘Automaticity and the Moral Accountability of Human Action in Theology (AMAHAT)’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Free will, human agency, philosophical/theological anthropology.
Simon has been a postdoc at the University of Leeds since 2019. His work focuses on the nature of human action, freedom, and moral responsibility. He is currently looking at what the behavioural sciences teach us about human agency and the implications they may have for human free will.
Dr. Theol. E. V. R. Kojonen
University of Helsinki
Post Doctoral Researcher, Faculty of Theology
Puzzle Title:
‘Cognitive Dimensions of Epistemic Authority in the Church’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘A New Evaluation of the Evolution and Design Debate’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Erkki Vesa Rope Kojonen is a theologian and philosopher of religion. His main research interest has been the creation-evolution discussion, a topic on which he has written two monographs in English: The Intelligent Design Debate and the Temptation of Scientism (Routledge 2016) and The Compatibility of Evolution and Design (Palgrave 2021). Additionally, Dr. Kojonen’s third book is a myth-busting overview of the creation-evolution debate in Finnish (Luominen ja evoluutio, Gaudeamus 2021), and he is currently working on a fourth book applying the finding of social epistemology and psychology to the issue of epistemic authority in the science and religion discussion. Dr. Kojonen is also seeking for ways to apply this scientific and philosophical work to how epistemic authority is understood within Christian communities and churches. For instance: Social epistemologists and psychologists have identified many cognitive biases and ways in which a position of epistemic authority can be abused, as well as practices for restricting the potential effects of abuse. Might something be learned about these for the epistemic practices of Christian churches? How do the “secular” accounts of epistemic authority relate to traditional Christian understanding of testimony, preaching and ecclesiology?
Dr. Megan Loumagne Ulishney
University of Nottingham
Puzzle Title:
‘Sexual Selection and Natural Law Ethics’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Theological anthropology, feminist theology, theology and science, theological aesthetics, Teresa of Avila, and the theology of Edward Schillebeeckx.
Megan Loumagne Ulishney is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham. Her position is part of the “God and the Book of Nature” grant which is funded by the John Templeton Foundation and organized by the University of Edinburgh. Before coming to Nottingham, Megan completed a D.Phil in Theology at the University of Oxford as a Clarendon Scholar under the supervision of Graham Ward. Her doctoral research focused on the doctrine of original sin and the challenges and opportunities for the doctrine in a post-Darwinian world. Her thesis is now being revised for publication as a monograph with Oxford University Press.
As a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham, Megan’s research examines theories of sexual selection and the extended evolutionary synthesis in evolutionary biology, and their relevant points of intersection with theologies of nature. So far, her work has explored sexual selection as a resource for a theology of play, causation in sexual selection, creaturely agency in light of the extended evolutionary synthesis, and sexual selection in dialogue with natural law ethics.
Megan is also a wife to Paul and a mother to Aubrey Teresa, and in her free time she enjoys exploring the world with her family.
Dr. Shoaib Ahmed Malik
Zayed University
Puzzle Title:
‘How does common ancestry in evolutionary biology impact the discussion of Islamic hermeneutics with respect to the creation narrative(s) in Islam?’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘Setting the Pedagogical Foundations of Islam and Evolution – A Textbook in the Making’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Islam and Science, Islam and Evolution, Metaphysics, Atheism, and Islamic Theology.
Dr Shoaib Ahmed Malik is Assistant Professor at Zayed University in Dubai. He obtained his BEng in Chemical Engineering as the top graduate in cohort from the University of Bath. He then went on to do a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Nottingham. Upon graduating in 2015, he joined several programs at various Islamic institutions from which he gained certification in hadiths and theology. He recently obtained a PGCE from the University of Nottingham, and a MSc in Philosophy of Science and Religion from the University of Edinburgh. He is currently doing a religious seminary program at Al Balagh Academy. His research has shifted entirely to the realms of atheism, science and religion, and Islamic theology. He has published articles in international journals such as Zygon and Philosophy. He has book chapters with academic publishers such as Cambridge University Press and Palgrave. He published a short monograph on Atheism and Islam with Kalam Research and Media, and has a full monograph out with Routledge’s Science and Religion series on the topic of Islam and Evolution. He is currently working on another edited volume for Routledge titled, Eight Classical Perspectives on Islam and Science, and a general book on Islam and Science from the lens of Imam Ghazali for Kube Publishers.
Dr. Alexandru Manafu
York University
Department of Philosophy
(joint application with Dr. Stephen J. Ticktin)
Puzzle Title:
‘The Significance of Near-Death Experiences for Spiritual Formation’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘Near-Death Experiences and Spiritual Transformation’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Philosophy of Science, Science and Religion, Philosophy of Mind.
Dr. Alexandru Manafu is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at York University, in Toronto. Before joining the Philosophy Department at York, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, where he remains an affiliate member. He has published in the philosophy of the physical sciences, on reductionism and emergence, as well as on natural kinds. He is also interested in the philosophy of psychiatry. He is the editor of “Multiple Realizability and Levels of Reality” (2018).
Mr. Philip Miti
Universität Heidelberg
(joint application with Dr. Euan Grant)
Puzzle Title:
‘Embodied Cognition and the Perception of God’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Doctrine of God, Theological Anthropology and Psychology, Cognitive Disability.
Philip Miti is a PhD Candidate in Systematic Theology. He completed his BSc (Neuroscience with Psychology) and MTh (Theological Ethics) at the University of Aberdeen before moving to Heidelberg University. His doctoral work assesses the “why?” and “how?” of human cognition as it laid out in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Body and Soul. Some of the background questions of this research involve 4E cognition, natural sciences and the unity of body and soul in the Christian tradition and ethical questions surrounding cognitive disability and the posture of the intellect in ecclesiology.
His academic presentations and published work have centered on the theological interpretation of scripture, the place of animals in theology, and cognition in Qohelet (Hebrew Bible). He also works as a research assistant in medical ethics at the University Hospital working towards a ‘Comparative Assessment of Genome and Epigenome Editing in Medicine’.
Dr. Scott R. Paeth
DePaul University
Professor of Religious Studies
Puzzle Title:
‘What Is It Like to Be a Christian?: Cognitive Coherence, Ecclesiology, and the Knowledge of God’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Public Theology, Ethics, Philosophical Theology, Philosophy of Consciousness.
Scott Paeth (Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary) is a professor of Religious Studies at DePaul University. He previously taught at Quincy University and Albertson College of Idaho. He works primarily in the fields of theology, ethics, and philosophical theology. His area of focus is on the role of religion in public life, and particularly the role of institutions in religious and spiritual formation. His books include The Niebuhr Brothers for Armchair Theologians; Public Theology for a Global Society; Exodus Church and Civil Society; Who Do You Say That I Am?; Religious Perspectives on Business Ethics; and The Local Church in a Global Era. He also writes on medical ethics, environmental ethics, and the connections between religion, violence, and video games. He is currently co-editor of the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics.
Dr. Rachel Siow Robertson
University of Cambridge
Director of Studies in Philosophy & College Teaching Associate, St Catharine’s College
(joint application with Dr. Matthew Kuan Johnson)
Puzzle Title:
‘Why is Joy a Divine Command?: On “Broaden and Build” Psychology and Spiritual Formation’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘Building for Joy in the Digital World’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Embodiment, liturgy and ritual, psychology of joy, flourishing in online contexts, Kant and Early Modern Philosophy.
Dr. Rachel Siow Robertson specializes in philosophical approaches to embodiment, cognition, and natural science. She completed her BA, MPhil, and PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. Her PhD, funded by a Gates Cambridge Scholarship, offers a new reading of Kant, demonstrating the importance of embodiment in his accounts of perception, self-consciousness, and natural science. She is currently interested in how theological and philosophical accounts of human embodiment and flourishing can enrich our understanding of the conditions and purpose of joy, and how to engage well in the online context. She teaches as Director of Studies in Philosophy at St Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge.
Professor Dan Sartor
Richmont Graduate University
[email protected], [email protected]
Clinical Psychologist, Vice President of Integration, and Professor of Counseling
(joint application with Dr. Preston Hill)
Puzzle Title:
‘Posttraumatic Growth and Secure Attachment to God: Insights from Interpersonal Neurobiology of Trauma for Constructing Spiritually Formative Models of Atonement’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Dan Sartor is the Vice President of Integration and Professor of Counseling at Richmont Graduate University in Atlanta, GA. He is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and a Board-Certified Counselor. Dan’s clinical specialties include complex trauma recovery, sexuality issues, addiction recovery, marital therapy, and the integration of faith within clinical practice. Dan’s research interests and recent publications engage the following topics: Interpersonal Neurobiology and trauma-informed Christian theology, spirituality, and pastoral care; spiritually formative graduate training for counselors; compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction; Christian grace as a psychological and clinical construct; and ethics in counseling.
Dr. Brittany M. Tausen
Seattle Pacific University
Associate Professor of Psychology, Director of Undergraduate Research
(joint application with Rev. Dr. Katherine Douglass)
Puzzle Title:
‘Loving our neighbors as ourselves: Can the tools of social-cognitive psychology inform spiritual formation practices?’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘A science-engaged theology of mutuality: Investigating the components of humanizing interactions’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Social cognition; prospection; dehumanization; indirect contact; allyship and support for marginalized and oppressed student groups.
Dr. Tausen completed her PhD in psychology at the University of Aberdeen before moving to back to the U.S. to complete her postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Dr. Tausen has worked at Seattle Pacific University for 5 years where she teaches general psychology, social psychology, and advanced research methods. Dr. Tausen also leads the Social Cognition Lab at SPU where she has the opportunity to help students investigate the harmful consequences of dehumanization and ways to enhance the perceived humanity of outgroup members. Dr. Tausen will join the Theological Integration Fellows cohort at Seattle Pacific University Seminary school in the fall of 2021 to dive deeper in her understanding of theological frameworks and challenge her own faith and understanding of God. Dr. Tausen lives in beautiful Seattle, WA with her partner Kris and her toddler, Odyn. As a family, they enjoy hiking, playing at the beach and eating delicious food. Dr. Tausen is eager to one day return to Scotland to pay homage to her favorite cheese shop in St. Andrews, marvel at Dunnottar in Stonehaven, wander along the Quiraing in Skye, and eat bacon buttys on the high street in Old Aberdeen.
Dr. Stephen J. Ticktin
Ontario College of Physicians & Surgeons
Primary Care Mental Health Physician
(joint application with Dr. Alexandru Manafu)
Puzzle Title:
‘The Significance of Near-Death Experiences for Spiritual Formation’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Existentialism, Phenomenology, Practice of Existential Therapy.
After earning his medical degree from the University of Toronto in 1973, Ticktin became personal assistant to anti-psychiatry movement leader David Cooper, travelling with him through Europe, North America, South America and Mexico on his lecture tours (1972-1976). He also studied with the Philadelphia Association and apprenticed in existential therapy with R.D. Laing. In 1983, Ticktin obtained an MRCPsych in Psychiatry through the Royal College of Psychiatrists in London, and in the course of the decades during which Ticktin made the UK his home, he helped to found the British Network of Alternatives to Psychiatry and the Supportive Psychotherapy Association. He joined the editorial collective of Asylum in 1987. Ticktin has also been a visiting lecturer and supervisor at the Regent’s College School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, and at The New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling at Schiller International University, where he worked with Emmy van Deurzen. In 2004, he returned to Canada where he is currently in private practice. In 2018, he founded the Laing and Cooper Center for Existential Philosophy and Therapy, where he has offered a series of seminars.
Dr. Katy Unwin
Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre, La Trobe University
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
(joint application with Dr. Armand Léon van Ommen)
Puzzle Title:
‘The Effects of Sensory Issues on the Experience of Worship by Autistic People’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘Sensescaping the Liturgy: The Role of the Senses for Autistic and Non-Autistic Worshipers – An Interdisciplinary Interpretation’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Sensory issues in autism across the life span and their impact on other life outcomes. Reducing the age of autism diagnosis through sensory symptoms. The autistic experience of worship and encountering God and how these can be impacted by sensory issues.
Dr Katy Unwin is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre, La Trobe University. Before this, she completed her Bachelor’s in Psychology and Master’s in Cognitive Neuroscience, followed by her PhD focussing on the use of Multi-Sensory Environments with autistic children (Cardiff University). After her PhD she was awarded the Future Leaders Fellowship by the Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute and The Waterloo Foundation. She is interested in understanding sensory processing in autism across the lifespan and is currently investigating how sensory symptoms can be used to reduce the age of autism diagnosis. She is also interested in the autistic experience of worship and encountering God and how these can be impacted by sensory issues.
Dr. Léon van Ommen
University of Aberdeen
(joint application with Dr. Katy Unwin)
Puzzle Title:
‘The Effects of Sensory Issues on the Experience of Worship by Autistic People’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘Sensescaping the Liturgy: The Role of the Senses for Autistic and Non-Autistic Worshipers – An Interdisciplinary Interpretation’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Autism and Theology; Disability Theology; Practical Theology; Qualitative Research; Liturgy, especially from marginalized perspectives.
Léon van Ommen is Lecturer in Practical Theology at the University of Aberdeen and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Autism and Christian Community, with Professor Grant Macaskill. His current research centres on the lived experience of liturgy and worship by autistic people (funded by the Carnegie Trust). More broadly, working in the area of Practical Theology he is interested in the empirical and theological reality of religious practices. Much of his work is focused on pastoral needs, especially the needs of marginalised people who are stigmatised and whose voices are not heard. Van Ommen’s publications include Suffering in Worship: Anglican Liturgy in Relation to Stories of Suffering People (London: Routledge, 2016) and various articles and book chapters on liturgy, lament, suffering, joy, mental health and disability.
Dr. Koert Verhagen
Taylor University
Puzzle Title:
‘Theology’s Divided Self and the Promise of Narrative Psychology’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘Narrating Theology’s Divided Self: Navigating the Protestant Simul in Light of Modern Psychology’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Systematic theology, philosophy of religion, ethics, the social implications of Christian doctrine, and the theology and ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Koert Verhagen (PhD, University of St Andrews) is Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Taylor University (USA). Previously he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Logos Institute for Analytic and Exegetical Theology at the University of St Andrews. He has published on the theology and ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther, and Søren Kierkegaard, and his monograph, Being and Action Coram Deo: Bonhoeffer and the Retrieval of Justification’s Social Import, will be published later this year by T&T Clark. The research avenues he is currently pursuing pertain to early Christian concepts of religion, the ethics of gratitude, and the interface of soteriology and embodiment. In all of this, Koert is deeply engaged with teaching and formation at an undergraduate level and is particularly drawn to lines of research that intersect with and enrich this work.
Dr. Aku Visala
University of Helsinki
Puzzle Title:
‘Is Original Sin an Inevitable Defect of Self-Control?’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Experimental, cognitive and philosophical approaches to divine and human will; theological anthropology and the cognitive sciences.
Aku Visala, PhD (University of Helsinki) is a philosopher of religion whose work is located at the intersection of philosophy, theology and the cognitive sciences. He holds the title of Docent in philosophy of religion at Helsinki University, Finland, and serves as Research Fellow of the Finnish Academy. He has held postdoctoral positions at Oxford, Princeton and Notre Dame. His publications include Naturalism, Theism and the Cognitive Study of Religion (2011), Conversations on Human Nature (2015) and Verbs, Bones, and Brain: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Nature (co-edited with Agustin Fuentes, 2017). His book A Philosophy of Free Will (2018) was nominated for the academic book of the year in Finland. Aku is currently working on his upcoming book Free Will at the Crossroads of Theology and Science.
Brother Lawrence A. Whitney
Smithsonian Institution
American Council of Learned Societies Leading Edge Fellow, National Museum of American History
Puzzle Title:
‘Ritual, Rationality, and Spiritual Formation’
Follow-on Funding Project Title:
‘Ritual, Rationality, and Modeling Complex Systems’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Ritual studies, equity and religion, digital research, pragmatism in religion & science, theology of Paul Tillich.
Dr. Whitney’s fellowship research at the Smithsonian investigates the role of religious leaders in recruiting more diverse cohorts for the COVID-19 vaccine trials, and considers the ways in which medical research ethics are shifting to incorporate the population focus of public health approaches. Generally, his academic work adopts comparative and multidisciplinary approaches to questions at the intersection of philosophy, theology, social theory, and religious studies, utilizing digital research methods to provide empirical grounding to theoretical claims. Rooted in pragmatism, his dissertation addresses the problem of religious language, thinking across analytic philosophy of language, hermeneutics, logic, linguistics, medieval and contemporary semiotics, sociology, anthropology, cognitive science, and classical Chinese philosophy. Dr. Whitney currently serves as President of the North American Paul Tillich Society and chairs the board of directors of Convergence on Campus, Inc. He completed the PhD in theological studies at Boston University in 2019, having earned an MDiv there in 2009, and completed a Bachelor of Music degree at Ithaca College in 2005. He is professed and a priest in the Lindisfarne Community.
Dr. David Worsley
University of York
Department of Philosophy
Puzzle Title:
‘Atonement and the Psychology of Shame: Can recent research on the psychology of shame confirm Eleonore Stump’s claims that (i) shame includes a ‘belief that it would be appropriate for another to reject you’, (ii) that there are four general ways this belief can be elicited, and (iii) that the general mechanism she employs in showing how Christ’s atoning work could defeat this belief is in fact effective?’
Current area(s) of research interest:
Philosophy of Religion, Philosophical Theology, Analytic Theology, Moral Psychology, with a particular focus on the Philosophy of Sin, Atonement, and Eschatology.
Dr David Worsley is an Associate Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of York (2017-present). Prior to his current appointment, David and his wife Laura taught together in China (2011-2015) before moving to Ireland (2015-2016). David’s work focuses on philosophy of religion and analytic theology, and has been published in Religious Studies, European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, and Journal of Analytic Theology.