Evolutionary and Molecular Biology

Robert John Russell is professor of theology and science, and founder and director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.

William R. Stoeger, S.J., is Staff Astrophysicist at the Vatican Observatory, Vatican Observatory Research Group, Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona, Tucson Arizona. He is also Adjunct Associate Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona. Francisco J. Ayala is the Donald Bren Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Irvine.

George V. Coyne, S.J. (1933 – 2020) was an American Jesuit priest and astronomer who directed the Vatican Observatory and headed its research group at the University of Arizona from 1978 to 2006.

Other Contributors: John Paul II, Ian Barbour, Michael Buckley, S.J., W. Norris Clarke, S.J., Richard Clifford, S.J., Michael Heller, Ernan McMullin, Olaf Pedersen, Mary Hesse, Nicholas Lash, Janet Martin Soskice, C.J. Isham, John Leslie, Sallie McFague, Ted Peters, John Polkinghorne, Robert John Russell, William Stoeger, S.J., and Frank Tipler.

William R. Stoeger S.J. (1943-2014) was an American astronomer and theologian. He studied theology at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley. He was a staff scientist for the Vatican Observatory Research Group in Tucson, specializing in theoretical cosmology, high-energy astrophysics, and interdisciplinary studies relating to science, philosophy and theology. Fr. Stoeger was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1972, and earned his Ph.D. in astrophysics in 1976 at Cambridge University, where he was a student of the Astronomer Royal, Baron Martin Rees, and a classmate of Stephen Hawking.

Francisco José Ayala Pereda (1934-2023) was a Spanish-American evolutionary biologist, philosopher, and Catholic priest who was a longtime faculty member at the University of California, Irvine and University of California, Davis.