N.T. Wright is one of the world’s leading New Testament scholars and Christian theologians. He currently serves as Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, University of Oxford. A prolific author, pastor, and professor, Dr. Wright has dedicated his life to deepening the church’s understanding of Scripture and equipping Christians to engage thoughtfully with theology, history, and public life.

Formerly the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England and Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey, Dr. Wright has also held academic posts at the University of St Andrews, Oxford, Cambridge, and McGill. He has written over 80 books, including the widely acclaimed Christian Origins and the Question of God series and popular-level works such as Simply Christian, Surprised by Hope, and Paul: A Biography.

Known for his scholarly depth and pastoral clarity, Dr. Wright’s work bridges the academy and the church. He speaks regularly around the world and has shaped contemporary discussions on Jesus, Paul, and the resurrection, as well as how the gospel speaks into today’s cultural and political realities.

Dr. Wright holds a D.Phil. from Oxford and continues to write and teach with a passion for renewing Christian imagination through faithful biblical interpretation and engagement with the wider world.

Cullen Buie is an Associate Professor in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Laboratory for Energy and Microsystems Innovation. His laboratory explores flow physics at the microscale for applications in materials science and applied biosciences. He is also an entrepreneur and in 2017 co-founded Kytopen, a start-up that has raised over $40M to revolutionize the manufacturing of engineered cellular therapies. He earned his PhD from Stanford University. Buie has been honored with the NSF Career Award (2012), the DuPont Young Professor Award (2013), the DARPA Young Faculty Award (2013), and the NSF Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (2016). Cullen is a member of The Veritas Forum board.

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David Chan is Professor of Violin at Shepherd School of Music. Prior to joining the faculty at Rice University in the fall of 2025, he spent 25 seasons as concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and as a faculty member at The Julliard School and Manhattan School of Music. Chan has performed throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia, appearing as a soloist with orchestras including the Met Orchestra, Moscow State Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Taiwan National Symphony, Aspen Chamber Symphony, and San Diego, Indianapolis, Richmond, Springfield, and Northbrook symphony orchestras. He also appears frequently as a guest artist at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, and at La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest.

Pianist Mia Chung was the first-prize winner of the 1993 Concert Artists Guild Competition and a recipient of the 1997 Avery Fisher Career Grant. She has appeared with the Alabama, Baltimore, Harrisburg, National, and New Haven symphonies; the Boston Pops; and the Seoul Philharmonic, among others. An active recitalist, she has performed in major concert halls including the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall, Seoul’s Sejong Art Center, and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. A 1993 Artistic Ambassador for the United States Information Agency, she toured Southeast Asia and the former Soviet Union. She was also a member of the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society II. Her CD and DVD recordings of works by Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, and Lee Hyla have earned high praise and awards. Dr. Chung graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College. She received a master's degree from Yale University and a doctorate from the Juilliard School. Her teachers have included Peter Serkin, Boris Berman, Raymond and Anne Hanson, and George Manos. She joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 2012. With Arnold Steinhardt she teaches the Curtis-Coursera course The World of the String Quartet.

Catherine Crouch is Professor of Physics and Department Chair at Swarthmore College. She is an expert in pedagogical best practices for undergraduate physics education as well as an experimental condensed matter physicist; her work on physics for life science and pre-medical students is currently supported by the National Science Foundation. She co-founded the STEM Inclusive Excellence initiatives at Swarthmore to expand support and resources for underrepresented and first-generation students in the sciences. She earned her PhD in physics at Harvard University and also worked as a postdoc at Harvard with Eric Mazur from 1996 to 2003 before beginning her faculty position at Swarthmore.

Elaine Howard Ecklund is the Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences, Professor of Sociology, and director of the Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance at Rice University. As a sociologist of religion, science, and work, she is particularly interested in social change and how institutions change, especially when individuals leverage aspects of their religious, race, and gender identities to change institutions. Over the past several years Elaine’s research has explored how scientists in different nations understand religion, ethics, and gender; religion at work; and the overlap between racial and religious discrimination in workplaces. Most recently Elaine is co-directing a $2.9 million grant in order to create a new subfield of sociological research examining how identities and beliefs around race and gender are related to attitudes about science and religion. This regranting initiative is funded by the Templeton Religion Trust and coordinated by The Issachar Fund. In addition to distributing funds for others to conduct research, Elaine will lead a project on race, gender, and the science and religion of the human body.

Elaine is the author of seven books, over 100 research articles, and numerous op-eds. She has received grants and awards from multiple organizations including the National Science Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, John Templeton Foundation, Templeton World Charity Foundation, and Templeton Religion Trust. Her latest book is Varieties of Atheism in Science with David R. Johnson (OUP, 2021) and she is also author with Anne E. Lincoln of Failing Families, Failing Science: Work-Family Conflict in Academic Science (NYU, 2016).

She received a Ph.D. in 2004 from Cornell University, where she was the recipient of the Class of 2004 Graduate Student Baccalaureate Award for Academic Excellence and Community Service. Today, she teaches classes at the graduate and undergraduate levels on research methods, immigration, sociology of science, sociological theory, and the sociology of religion. In 2013 she received the Charles Duncan Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement. In 2018 she gave the Gifford Lecture at The University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Elaine is interested in university leadership and in new approaches to mentoring. She is privileged to have worked with multiple postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduate students in research, and she is interested in supporting institutional growth, both at Rice University and of academic organizations more broadly. To that end she has served seven years as Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Sociology at Rice, founded the Religion and Public Life Program at Rice in 2010 and served as director for 12 years, was president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR), is incoming president of the Religious Research Association (RRA), and has served on various university evaluation and research committees.

Andra Gillespie is Associate Professor of Political Science & Director of the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory University. Her research focuses on the political leadership of the post-civil rights generation. In particular, she studies African American politicians who attempt to transcend race and how Black voters respond to them. She earned her PhD in Political Science from Yale University. She is the author of The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark, and Post-Racial America (2012) and Race and the Obama Administration: Symbols, Substance, and Hope (2019) and the editor of Whose Black Politics? Cases in Post- Racial Black Leadership (2010).

Nancy Hill is a developmental psychologist whose research focuses on parenting and adolescent development. She, along with Alexis Redding, have recently published a book focused on the developmental benefits of delaying adulthood, The End of Adolescence: The Lost Art of Delaying Adulthood, (Harvard University Press, 2021). This book provides evidence for the historical precedence and rationale for extending the time to adulthood.  

In addition, Hill’s research focuses in on two broader areas. First, she studies the ways race, socioeconomic status, and community context interact and impact youths’ opportunities for upward mobility, especially through secondary school and postsecondary transitions. Second, her research focuses on the relational supports and mechanisms associated with adolescents’ emerging sense of purpose and views of the economy as they influence post-secondary transitions to college and career. These include familial and school-based supportive relationships and how they support youth as they engage in school, succeed academically and hone their goals, aspirations, and sense of purpose. Hill is known for her work identifying developmentally sensitive strategies to maintain parental involvement in education during adolescence.

Hill’s current research projects include two research-practice partnerships. One is a longitudinal study following adolescents across high school, focusing on economically and ethnically diverse youth and their emerging sense of purpose and views of the economy as they influence post-secondary transitions to college and career. The second is focused on academic engagement and postsecondary planning among immigrant youth. In addition, she and her colleagues are collaborating with a large urban school district on how families experience school choice and the impact on equitable access to high quality educational opportunities.

Hill’s research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals in the fields of developmental psychology and education, including Child Development, Developmental Psychology, and Journal of Educational Psychology. She has edited five books in the areas of parenting and academic achievement during adolescence and among ethnic minority populations.

Hill was a recipient of the William T. Grant Foundation’s Distinguished Faculty Fellowship to support her engagement with the Massachusetts’ Executive Office on Education, under Governor Deval Patrick. She was awarded the Ernest Hilgard Award for Lifetime contributions to psychology from Division 1 of the American Psychological Association. Hill was named to the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine’s (NASEM) Board on Children Youth and Families. She is president-elect of the Society for Research in Child Development.

John Owen is Amb. Henry J. and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. A former Chair of the Politics Department, he is a Senior Fellow at University if Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and the Miller Center of Public Affairs. His latest book is The Ecology of Nations: American Democracy in a Fragile World Order (2023). He is author of Confronting Political Islam (2015), The Clash of Ideas in World Politics (2010), and Liberal Peace,  Liberal War (1997). He has published in a number of academic journals and media outlets, including Foreign Affairs and the New  York Times. A former Editor-in-Chief of Security Studies, he has held fellowships at Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Oxford, the Free University of Berlin, the WZB Berlin Social Science Research Center, and the University of British Columbia. In 2015, he received a Humboldt Research Prize (Germany). He holds an AB from Duke University, an MPA from Princeton University, and a PhD from Harvard University.

Abram Van Engen is Professor of English and Chair of the English Department at Washington University in St. Louis. Van Engen has published widely on religion and literature, focusing especially on seventeenth-century Puritans and the way they have been remembered and remade in American culture.

Van Engen began his career with a study of sympathy in seventeenth-century Puritanism, drawing together abiding interests in the history of emotions, theology, imagined communities, and literary form. Those interests led to his first book, Sympathetic Puritans, and numerous related articles on early American religion and literature.

Beginning with these concerns, Van Engen has moved from a study of the Puritans in their own place and context to an interest in the way Puritans have been recollected and re-used by later generations. Studying the life of texts and the effects of collective memory, Van Engen has produced a second book, City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism, along with several other publications that together study the creation and curation of American exceptionalism.

Work on his second project was furthered by participation in the Humanities Digital Workshop at Washington University in St. Louis, where Van Engen has been leading a team to study the concept and creation of American exceptionalism through a history of the phrase “city on a hill.” That work has led to multiple related digital projects, all in teams with undergraduate and graduate researchers. Collaboration remains essential to his work, with co-edited journal issues, co-written articles, co-taught courses and working groups that bring together literature, history, religion, politics, and psychology.

Van Engen’s undergraduate courses have included Literature, Spirituality, and Religion (a freshman seminar); Early Texts and Contexts; American Literature to 1865; Natives and Newcomers in Early America; City on a Hill (for American Culture Studies); and Morality and Markets (co-taught with the Business School). Graduate seminars have included Puritanism, Literature and Religion, Intro to Graduate Studies, and Marilynne Robinson.

Troy Van Voorhis is the Robert T. Haslam and Bradley Dewey Professor  and Department Head of Chemistry at MIT. Troy earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry and mathematics from Rice University and his PhD in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard, he joined the faculty of MIT. His research focuses on the intersection of quantum mechanics and chemistry.