Charles L. Harper, Jr., D.Phil is Senior Vice President of the John Templeton Foundation. His primary responsibilities are in the areas of strategic planning, program design and development, vision casting, philanthropic networks development, and talent scouting. He has worked to transform philanthropy by developing innovative entrepreneurial practices in grant making and has created more than $200 million in grant-based programs ranging widely from the study of forgiveness and reconciliation and enterprise-based solutions for poverty to projects on foundational questions in physics and cosmology, including topics in chemistry, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, medicine, and the philosophy of science. He is the founding Chairman of Geneva Global, Inc.,an innovative new philanthropic organization making grants worldwide within the developing world. Initially trained in engineering at Princeton (B.S.E. 1980), he obtained his D.Phil. in planetary science from the University of Oxford for a thesis on the nature of time in cosmology (1988). He also holds the Diploma in Theology from Oxford (1988) and a Certificate of Special Studies in Management and Administration from Harvard University (1997). In his science career, he was a National Research Council Fellow at the NASA Johnson Space Center (1988-91) and a research scientist in the Harvard Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and at the Harvard College Observatory (1991-95). He has developed a number of scientific symposia and related research volumes of which he is co-editor, including: Science and Ultimate Reality: Quantum Theory, Cosmology and Complexity, in honor of John A. Wheeler (Cambridge University Press, 2004); Amazing Light: Visions for Discovery, in honor of Charles H. Townes (currently under review at CUP for publication in 2007); Horizons of Truth in honor of Kurt Gödel (under review Cambridge University Press forthcoming); Fitness of the Cosmos for Life: Biochemistry and Fine-Tuning (forthcoming from CUP in 2006); and a companion volume Water of Life: Counterfactual Chemistry and Fine-Tuning in Biochemistry. His most recent edited publication is Spiritual Information: 100 Perspectives on Science and Religion (Templeton Foundation Press, 2005), to which a sequel consisting of the “10 best” essays is planned. Other scientific publications include more than 50 research articles in scientific journals, including Nature, Science, and the Astrophysical Journal.

Marco Bersanelli (Co-Chair) is Full Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Milan, where he does research in cosmology. He is particularly interested in observations of the cosmic microwave background, the relic radiation from the early universe. After graduating from the University of Milan (1986), Professor Bersanelli worked as a Visiting Scholar at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, University of California, and then at the Istituto di Fisica Cosmica, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Milan, as Senior Scientist. He participated in a number of experiments in cosmology, including two expeditions to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica. Professor Bersanelli is Instrument Scientist and a member of the Science Team of the Planck Surveyor space mission, the European Space Agency project studying the early universe. He has given many public seminars, coordinated public exhibitions, and published essays on scientific and interdisciplinary subjects and is the author of “Solo lo stupore conosce” (Milan: Rizzoli, 2003) about the human adventure of scientific research. Professor Bersanelli is President of Euresis, a scientific association promoting science as an expression of the broader human quest for beauty and meaning.

Linda Zagzebski (Co-Chair) is George Lynn Cross Research Professor of Philosophy and Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics at the University of Oklahoma. She is President of the Society of Christian Philosophers and past President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. She has given many endowed lectures, including the Romanell Lectures of Phi Beta Kappa and the McCarthy Lectures at the Gregorian University. Her books include The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge, (Oxford University Press), Virtues of the Mind (Cambridge University Press), Divine Motivation Theory (Cambridge), and Philosophy of Religion: An Historical Introduction (Blackwell), as well as many articles in virtue epistemology, philosophy of religion, and virtue ethics.

Enrico Bombieri is the IBM von Neumann Professor of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Professor Bombieri is regarded as one of the world's leading authorities on number theory and analysis. Born in Milan, Italy, Dr. Bombieri earned his doctoral degree at the University of Milan in 1963. He taught at the University of Pisa and at the Scuola Normale Superiore at Pisa before joining the Institute in 1977. In 1974, when he was a visiting Member of the Institute for Advanced Study, he received the Fields Medal, the highest award given in the mathematical sciences. He was cited for his work in number theory, the study of integers and their relation to one another, and minimal surfaces, the study of multidimensional surfaces. In addition to the Fields Medal, his awards include the Feltrinelli and Balzan Prizes. 

Xavier Le Pichon, Ph.D.
Professor of Geodynamics at the Collège de France. Dr. Le Pichon received his Ph.D. in geophysics at Strasbourg in 1966. A major contributor to Plate Tectonics Theory, he was the first to develop a global model based on quantitative analysis, which has become the basis for a better understanding of the distribution of earthquakes and the large-scale reconstruction of the configuration of continents and ocean basins in the past. Among his awards are the Maurice Ewing Medal, the Huntsman Prize, the Japan Prize, the Wollaston Medal, the Balzan Prize (2002), and the Wegener Medal (2003). He is a member of the French and American Academies of Science. Since 1976, Dr. Le Pichon has also been a member of L'Arche, which brings together people that have learning disabilities with others who choose to live in the same community.

Eleonore Stump is The Robert J. Henle Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University, where she has taught since  1992. She received a Ph.D. in medieval studies and medieval philosophy from Cornell University in 1975. Prof. Stump is editor-in-chief of the Yale Library of Medieval Philosophy and was section editor for the philosophy of religion for the new Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Among other honors, she is past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers, the American Catholic Philosophical Association, and the American Philosophical Association, Central Division. In 2003, she presented the Gifford Lectures in Aberdeen, Scotland. In 2004, she received the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching from Baylor University. In 2006, she gave the Wilde lectures at Oxford. Prof. Stump's many publications include Reasoned Faith (1993); Philosophy of Religion: The Big Questions (1998); the Cambridge Companion to Aquinas (1993); the Cambridge Companion to Augustine (1999); and Aquinas in the series "Arguments of the Philosophers" (2003). Her Gifford lectures, entitled Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering, are forthcoming from Oxford University Press. 

Nancy Cartwright is the director of the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science and Professor of Philosophy at the department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at LSE and Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, where she also works happily in the Science Studies Program. Her earlier work was primarily in history and philosophy of science and philosophy of physics. Her chief interests right now are evidence-based policy, philosophy of economics and causal inference. Her publications include How the Laws of Physics Lie (OUP, 1983), Nature’s Capacities and their Measurement (OUP, 1989), Otto Neurath: Philosophy between Science and Politics [co-author] (CUP, 1995), The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science (CUP, 1999) and Hunting Causes and Using Them (CUP, 2007). Nancy Cartwright is a Fellow of the British Academy and a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a recipient of a McArthur Fellowship and a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. She majored in mathematics as an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh where she graduated summa cum laude; then took her PhD at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1971. Before going to LSE and UCSD, she worked first at the University of Maryland then for about a decade and a half at Stanford University. She has visited at Princeton University, at UCLA, at the University of Pittsburgh and several times at the University of Oslo and has spent time at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin and the Centre for Interdisciplinary research in Bielefeld. 

Peter E.Hodgson was born in London in 1928. He studied physics and mathematics at Imperial College, emerging in 1951 with a doctorate in nuclear physics. Since then he has lectured and tutored physics and mathematics at Oxford and has led a research group studying nuclear reactions and supervised doctoral candidates. He has written about twenty books, mainly on nuclear physics, and about 300 research papers on nuclear physics, as well as hundreds of articles on nuclear power, the energy crisis, the environment, and the relations between theology and science. He is President of the Science Secretariat of Pax Romana and a member of the STOQ Commettee responsible for co-ordinating the teaching of science and faith in six Pontifical Universities. His most recent book is ‘Theology and the New Physics’ (Ashgate Press 2005). 

Harvey M. Friedman has been Distinguished University Professor of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Philosophy at The Ohio State University, Columbus, since 1987, where he was previously Professor since 1977. He was recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records as youngest Professor, when he was appointed Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University, immediately after he received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1967) for his dissertation on subsystems of set theory and analysis. Professor Friedman remained at Stanford as Associate Professor of Philosophy with tenure until 1973. Previously, he was also Associate Professor of Mathematics with tenure at the University of Wisconsin at Madison (1970-71). Professor Friedman has also been Visiting Professor (1972-1973) and then Professor of Mathematics (1973-1977) at the State University of New York, Buffalo. His research interests include the foundations of mathematics, mathematical logic, philosophy of mathematics, model theory, recursion theory, set theory, proof theory, complexity theory, proof verification, and music performance software. In 1984, Professor Friedman received the Alan T. Waterman Award “for his revitalization of the foundations of mathematics, his penetrating investigations into the Gödel incompleteness phenomena, and his fundamental contributions to virtually all areas of mathematical logic” by the National Science Foundation. In December that same year, he was named one of the top 100 scientists in the United States under 40 by Science Digest. In 1985, Professor Friedman was invited by President Ronald Reagan to attend a luncheon at the White House to recognize outstanding scientists, mathematicians, and engineers. His major addresses have included the Gödel lecture for the Association for Symbolic Logic in Las Vegas (in 2002), the Rademacher Lectures at the University of Pennsylvania (in 2002), as well as the Tarski Lectures at the University of California at Berkeley (in 2007). Professor Friedman has authored numerous publications on model theory, proof theory, intuitionism, recursion theory, set theory, complexity theory, and proof verification. Most notable has been his founding of the area of Reverse Mathematics (in the Proceedings of the 1974 International Congress of Mathematicians and the 1976 issue of the Journal of Symbolic Logic), and his ongoing work on the incompleteness phenomena (in the 1998 issue of the Annals of Mathematics, and his forthcoming book Boolean Relation Theory and the Incompleteness Phenomena).

David L. Schindler. B.A., M.A., Philosophy, Gonzaga University (1967; 1970); Ph.D., Religion, Claremont Graduate School (1976). Formerly a Weaver Fellow and a Fulbright Scholar  (Austria), Professor Schindler taught for thirteen years in the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre Dame, where he received tenure in 1985 and, before that, for four years at Mount St. Mary’s College, where he received tenure in 1978. Since 1982 he has been editor-in-chief of the North American edition of Communio: International Catholic Review, a federation of journals founded in 1972 by Hans Urs von Balthasar, Joseph Ratzinger, Henri de Lubac, and other European theologians. He serves as editor of the series “Ressourcement: Retrieval and Renewal in Catholic Thought” with Eerdmans Publishing Company. Professor Schindler has published over seventy articles in the areas of metaphysics, fundamental theology, and the relation of theology and culture. Professor Schindler is the author of Heart of the World, Center of the Church, published by T&T Clark and Eerdmans and also of the forthcoming book, Ordering Love: Creation and Creativity in a Technological Age. His most recent edited collection (with Doug Bandow) is Wealth, Poverty, and Human Destiny (ISI). Other edited collections include Beyond Mechanism: The Universe in Recent Physics and Catholic Thought; Act and Agent: Philosophical Foundations of Moral Education (with Jesse Mann and Frederick Ellrod); Catholicism and Secularization in America; and Hans Urs von Balthasar: His Life and Work. Professor Schindler was appointed a Consultor for the Pontifical Council for the Laity in 2002. Professor Schindler has, since 2000, served as Provost/Dean at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America and is also the Edouard Cardinal Gagnon Professor of Fundamental Theology at the Institute.  

Peter van Inwagen was born on September 21st, 1942 in Rochester, N.Y., USA. He received a B.S. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1965 and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Rochester in 1969. He taught at Syracuse University for many years, and, since 1995, has been the John Cardinal O’Hara Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He has held visiting positions at the University of Rochester, the University of Arizona, and Rutgers University. His books include: An Essay on Free Will, Material Beings, Metaphysics, God, Knowledge, and Mystery: Essays in Philosophical Theology, and Ontology, Identity, and Modality: Essays in Metaphysics. He is the author of about one hundred and thirty papers and critical studies. He has lectured at many universities and academic meetings in the United States, Canada, Britain, Ireland, Holland, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia, Italy, Peru, and China. He has delivered the Maurice Lectures at King's College, London, the Wilde Lectures on Natural Religion at Oxford University, and the Stewart Lectures at Princeton University. In 2003, he delivered the Gifford Lectures at St Andrews University. His Gifford Lectures were published by the Oxford University Press in 2006 under the title The Problem of Evil. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005. He is at work on a book called Being: A Study in Ontology.

Keith Ward
Born 1938, lectured in philosophy at the Universities of Glasgow, St. Andrews, Cambridge and London. He was Professor of the History and Philosophy of Religion, University of London, and Regius Professor of
Divinity, University of Oxford. He is now at Christ Church, Oxford, and Professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London. K. Ward is a priest of the Church of England and a Fellow of the British Academy, and he is on the Council of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. Main recent books:
Re-Thinking Christianity (Oneworld), Christianity; a Guide for the Perplexed (SPCK), Pascal's Fire (Oneworld) and God, a Guide for the Perplexed (Oneworld).

Paul Davies
Paul Davies is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist and astrobiologist. He is Director of Beyond , a new interdisciplinary research institute at Arizona State University devoted to the study of fundamental concepts in science. Part of the mission of Beyond is to establish new trans-disciplinary lines of research. Davies's own research ranges from the origin of the universe to the origin of life. The main focus has been on the theory of quantum fields in curved spacetime, with applications to the very early universe and the properties of black holes. He has also worked in complexity theory, the nature of time and the theory of emergent phenomena. He is the author of 27 books, the latest of which is "The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the universe just right for life?" His earlier book, "The Mind of God", was an international best-seller.