Profiles in Science Engagement with Faith Communities

As part of the Engaging Scientists project, we spoke with a diverse range of practicing scientists and science communicators about engagement activities with religious communities. These scholars span a range of backgrounds, career stages, research fields, and interests, but their engagement activities share some common themes – in particular being strategic, being respectful, and being human.

Check out the AAAS article about the profiles!

All profiles are in PDF format. Click on a scientist's name to view and download the PDF.

Note: Profiles are listed in alphabetical order by last name.

Nancy Adleman

We spoke with Nancy Adleman about her experience as part of the Science for Seminaries program.

Liz Barnes

We spoke with Liz Barnes about understanding and addressing tensions related to religious identity and evolution, particularly in biology classrooms.

Israel Borokini

We spoke with Israel Borokini about his work on traditional and ethnomedicinal plant usage, building trust with local communities, properly crediting sources of knowledge, and giving back to partner communities.

Kate Carter

We spoke with Kate Carter about showing your full self as a scientist, radical empathy, and helping people feel comfortable with science.

Guy Consolmagno

We spoke with Guy Consolmagno about the universality of wonder, joining the Jesuits while being a scientist, and doing science engagement at science fiction conventions.

Gregg Davidson

We spoke with Gregg Davidson about approaching religious communities you belong to and providing a framework for those communities to reconcile science and faith.

Mónica Feliú-Mójer

We spoke with Mónica Feliú-Mójer about teaching science by using relevant cultural context and what to think about when working with communities.

Salman Hameed

We spoke with Salman Hameed about the inspirational power of science communication, assuming people are smart, making science relevant for your audience, and the necessity of a more nuanced understanding of faith perspectives.

Katharine Hayhoe

We spoke with Katharine Hayhoe about the difference between being a good scientist and a good communicator, effective use of social media, being authentic in public science engagement, and dealing with difficult people.

Gillian Hue

We spoke with Gillian Hue about changing a 600-year-old monastic curriculum, being aware of the cultural reference frames of your audience, and checking your biases.

Fatimah Jackson

We spoke with Fatimah Jackson about the complementarity of Islam and human evolution, involving and empowering community members in research, and how to do scientific justice to human remains.

Shekhar Kolipaka

We spoke with Shekhar Kolipaka about his approach to encouraging tiger conservation behavior in local Indian villages.

Annette Lee

We spoke with Annette Lee about working to reclaim and revitalize Indigenous star knowledge, the challenges of interdisciplinary work, and the importance of avoiding the “grab and go” research model.

Kit Magellan

We spoke with Kit Magellan about the importance of community partners, taking full cultural context into account, and improving your science by approaching research with cultural humility.

J. Nathan Matias

We spoke with J. Nathan Matias about introducing Christian perspectives on AI’s role in society to Christian audiences, bridging between scientific and faith-specific content, and working within existing knowledge-sharing networks.

Geoff Mitelman

We spoke with Geoff Mitelman about Jewish perspectives on science and religion, creating community science conversations in synagogues, and building interfaith relationships.

Nalini Nadkarni

We spoke with Nalini Nadkarni about engaging with faith communities as a non-religious scientist, finding common ground with others, and listening instead of assuming.

Pamela Payne-Foster

We spoke with Pamela Payne-Foster about combating the HIV/AIDS stigma in rural African American churches, religion as relevant cultural context for medicine and research, and the importance of building trusting community relationships.

Rick Potts

We spoke with Rick Potts about how he engages with religious communities about the National Museum of Natural History's permanent and traveling exhibits on evolution.

Francis Su

We spoke with Francis Su about the wonder in math, how math addresses some of our deepest questions and longings, and approaches to inclusive teaching.

Rosita Worl

We spoke with Rosita Worl about her work documenting a traditional Indigenous Alaskan ceremony, and Indigenous Alaskan cultural knowledge loss.

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