Staff & Board

Principal Investigators

Board Advisors

  • Bonnie Zahl is a social psychologist with particular interest in the scientific study of religion. She has published on religious cognition, attachment theory, and measures of religiosity, and has previously taught courses on psychology of religion at St John's College Nottingham and University of Cambridge. For the past ten years she has served as a consultant to a number of funders on their programs to advance research and education on topics pertaining to religion and science. She holds a BA in psychology from Harvard College and a PhD in psychology from the University of Cambridge.

  • Celia Deane-Drummond is Director of the Laudato Si’ Research Institute and Senior Research Fellow in theology at Campion Hall, University of Oxford. She is also honorary visiting Professor in Theology and Science at the University of Durham, UK and was Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame from 2011-2019. She began her career with a degree in natural sciences, from the University of Cambridge followed by a doctorate and postdoctoral and teaching experience in plant physiology. She subsequently studied for a degree and doctorate in theology from the University of Manchester. She was Chair of the European Forum for the Study of Religion and Environment from 2011-2018. She co-editor of the international journal Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences, and Trustee of the International Society for Science and Religion. She has published hundreds of scholarly articles and book chapters and either edited or written as single author over twenty scholarly books. Her more recent publications include The Wisdom of the Liminal: Human Nature, Evolution and Other Animals (2014), Technofutures, Nature and the Sacred, ed. with Sigurd Bergmann and Bronislaw Szerszynski (2015), Ecology in Jürgen Moltmann’s Theology, 2nd edition, (2016), Religion in the Anthropocene, edited with Sigurd Bergmann and Markus Vogt (2017), Theology and Ecology Across the Disciplines: On Care for Our Common Home, edited with Rebecca Artinian Kaiser (2018), Theological Ethics Through a Multispecies Lens: The Evolution of Wisdom Volume I: (2019), Shadow Sophia: The Evolution of Wisdom Volume II (2021).

  • Harvey Whitehouse is Statutory Chair in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford and a Professorial Fellow of Magdalen College. His research focuses on the evolution of social complexity, religion, ritual, and warfare; the causes of recurrence and variation in the religious repertoire cross-culturally and historically; explaining costly pro-group action and cooperation; the development of ritual and instrumental reasoning in childhood; the nature and origins of morality; research-based public policy applications and practical interventions. His books include Inside the Cult (1995, OUP), Arguments and Icons (2000, OUP), Modes of Religiosity (2004, AltaMira), The Ritual Animal (2021, OUP), and Civilization: A Natural History (Forthcoming, Penguin). He is the founding director of the Oxford’s Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion.

  • Jeffrey Schloss is Distinguished Professor of Biology and T.B. Walker Chair of Natural & Behavioral Sciences at Westmont College, where he directs the Center for Faith, Ethics & Life Sciences. He also serves as Senior Scholar for the BioLogos Foundation. After undergraduate studies in biology and philosophy, Jeff did his doctoral work in ecology/evolutionary biology at University of Michigan and Washington University, and has been a Danforth Fellow, a Crosson Fellow at Notre Dame’s Center for Philosophy of Religion, a Plumer Fellow at St. Anne’s College Oxford, a Witherspoon Fellow in Theology & Science at Princeton’s Center of Theological Inquiry, and Senior Scholar at the Center for Humans and Nature. His twofold academic interests involve evolutionary accounts of altruism, moral cognition, and religious belief and practice, and the interdisciplinary entailments of such accounts. Collaborative volumes include The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical and Theological Perspectives on the Origin Religion (Oxford); Understanding Moral Sentiments: Darwinian Perspectives? (Routlege); Evolution and Ethics: Human Morality in Biological and Religious Perspective (Eerdmans); Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Dialogue (Oxford).

Administrators

  • Mike Hamilton is Vice President, Programs and Special Initiatives at Issachar Fund. He’s a historian of American Christianity, and has published numerous academic and popular articles on American evangelicalism. Prior to Issachar Fund, he served 16 years as Chair of Seattle Pacific University’s history department, and before that, 9 years directing the Pew Evangelical Scholars Programs at the University of Notre Dame. He also has extensive experience as a consultant in the design and evaluation of academic programs and grant programs in higher education.

  • Sara Merrilees works with the Issachar Fund as the Communications and Events Manager. Her experience is in international public relations and communications, specializing in event planning and management. At Issachar Fund, Sara oversees events, organizational communications, and public relations. Her previous roles were with RLM Finsbury in London and Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, Michigan, she resides in Edinburgh, Scotland.