Faith on the Frontiers: Origins, Cosmos, and Extraterrestrial Life

Karin Öberg is Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University. Her specialty is astrochemistry and her research aims to uncover how chemical processes affect the outcome of planet formation, especially the chemical habitability of nascent planets. Dr. Öberg obtained her B.Sc. in chemistry at Caltech in 2005, and her Ph.D. in astronomy, with a thesis focused on laboratory astrochemistry, from Leiden University in 2009. She did postdoctoral work at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as a NASA Hubble fellow, focusing on millimeter observations of planet-forming disks around young stars. In 2013 she joined the Harvard astronomy faculty as an assistant professor. She was promoted and named the Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor in Astronomy in 2016, and promoted to full professor with tenure in 2017. Dr. Öberg’s research in astrochemistry has been recognized with a Sloan fellowship, a Packard fellowship, the Newton Lacy Pierce Award from the American Astronomical Society, and a Simons fellowship.

Christopher T. Baglow is the director of the Science and Religion Initiative in the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame, where he also serves as Professor of the Practice in the theology department. He is the author of the textbook Faith, Science, & Reason: Theology on the Cutting Edge (2nd ed., Midwest Theological Forum, 2019) and his work has been featured by the Word on Fire Institute and in That Man is You, Crux, Notre Dame Magazine and Church Life Journal. He is a consultant for the USCCB Committee on Catechesis and Evangelization, and his thirty-two year career in Catholic education has spanned high school, undergraduate, graduate, and seminary teaching. Baglow earned a bachelor’s degree from Franciscan University of Steubenville, a master’s degree from the University of Dallas, and a doctorate from Duquesne University. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Society of Catholic Scientists.

He is best known for his work helping Catholic educators integrate faith and science in their classrooms, most notably for creating and directing the Steno Learning Program in Faith and Science (named for Blessed Nicholas Steno) and the Integrating Faith and Science at Catholic High Schools Nationwide project. Baglow was one of four people to receive an Expanded Reason Award for Teaching in 2018 from the University of Francisco de Vitoria and the Vatican–Joseph Ratzinger Foundation. He lives with his family in the South Bend, Indiana, area.

Jonathan Lunine is the David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences and Chair of the Department of Astronomy at Cornell University. Lunine is interested in how planets form and evolve, what processes maintain and establish habitability, and what kinds of exotic environments (methane lakes, etc.) might host a kind of chemistry sophisticated enough to be called “life”. He pursues these interests through theoretical modeling and participation in spacecraft missions. He works with the radar and other instruments on Cassini, continues to work on mass spectrometer data from Huygens, and is co-investigator on the Juno mission launched in 2011 to Jupiter. He is on the science team for the James Webb Space Telescope, focusing on characterization of extrasolar planets and Kuiper Belt objects. Lunine is currently PI for a JPL-led study to send a probe into Saturn’s atmosphere, and has contributed to mission concept studies for space-based astrometry and microlensing missions. Lunine is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has participated in or chaired a number of advisory and strategic planning committees for the Academy and for NASA.