“Theological understandings need to face the challenge of science, but also within those theological traditions there is a wisdom that has relevance to how science is developing. It’s not just a one-way process of theology trying to come to terms with the explosion in scientific and biological knowledge. It’s also what theological perspective might have to say to the way the science is developing.”
Professor Celia Deane-Drummond
University of Notre Dame
Biography
Professor Celia Deane-Drummond is currently Professor in Theology at the University of Notre Dame where she holds a unique appointment concurrent between the Department of Theology in the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Science. She was elected Fellow of the Eck Institute for Global Health at the University of Notre Dame in September 2011.
She graduated in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University and obtained a doctorate in plant physiology at Reading University prior to two postdoctoral fellowships at the University of British Columbia and Cambridge University. She subsequently took up a lectureship in plant physiology at Durham University prior to turning her attention more fully to theological study, obtaining an honors degree in theology and then a doctorate in systematic theology from Manchester University.
From 2000 to 2011 she held a professorial chair in theology and the biological sciences at the University of Chester, and was Director of the Centre for Religion and the Biosciences that was launched in 2002. In May 2011 she was elected Chair of the European Forum for the Study of Religion and Environment. She was editor of the international journal Ecotheology for six years from 2000 to 2006. From July 2009 to July 2010 she was seconded to the spirituality team at the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development (CAFOD), working explicitly in the area of environmental justice and climate change
Since then she has published numerous articles, books, edited collections and contributions to books, focusing particularly on the engagement of systematic theology and the biological sciences, alongside practical, ethical discussion in bioethics and environmental ethics. She has lectured widely both nationally and internationally on all areas relating theology and theological ethics with different aspects of the biosciences, especially ecology and genetics.
For full c.v.: http://theology.nd.edu/assets/120334/fullsize/cvcedd1204.13.pdf”>http://theology.nd.edu/assets/120334/fullsize/cvcedd1204.13.pdf
Dr. Deane-Drummond was among the very first to offer encouragement for this project.
Sad to say, she is involved with another major project at the time of our Brussels meeting but will continue as an active member of the consultation.