Robert John Russell

Professor Robert J. Russell is the Founder and Director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS), and the Ian G. Barbour Professor of Theology and Science at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), Berkeley. 

Russell is the author of Time in Eternity: Pannenberg, Physics, and Eschatology in Creative Mutual Interaction (University of Notre Dame Press, 2012) and Cosmology from Alpha to Omega: Towards the Mutual Creative Interaction of Theology and Science (Fortress Press, 2008).  He has co-edited a multi-volume series of books focused on scientific perspectives on divine action through an international research conference program co-sponsored by CTNS and the Vatican Observatory, including such topics as quantum mechanics, chaos theory, evolutionary and molecular biology, the neurosciences, and quantum cosmology.  His current research topics include: resurrection, eschatology and scientific cosmology; quantum mechanics, biological evolution and divine action; evolution, theodicy and Christology; philosophical assumptions in contemporary scientific cosmology and their theological roots; and time and eternity from a Trinitarian perspective in relation to time in physics.

Prof. Russell has been the P.I. of several CTNS international programs, including "Science and the Spiritual Quest" (SSQ), "Science and Religion Course Program," (SRCP), and "Science and Transcendence: Advanced Research Series" (STARS).  He has served on the John Templeton Foundation Board of Advisors since its inception and is a past judge for the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. Russell serves as Co-editor of Theology and Science. Dr. Russell co-edited Resurrection: Theological and Scientific Assessments, (Eerdmans, 2002) and edited Fifty Years in Science and Religion: Ian G. Barbour and His Legacy (Ashgate, 2004). He was the winner of a PCRS/Templeton Grant for Research and Writing on the Constructive Engagement of Religions and Science for Time in Eternity: Theology and Science in Mutual Interaction.

Dr. Russell holds a Ph.D. in experimental physics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, an M.Div. and an M. A. in theology and science from the Pacific School of Religion, an M. S. in physics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and he triple-majored in physics, religion and music at Stanford University. He is ordained in the United Church of Christ, and is. a member of the Society of Ordained Scientists. His wife, Charlotte, is a UCC minister and they have two grown daughters, Christie Lavin and Lisa Galicia.