Michael Dowd
(Academic):
Michael Dowd is an American Progressive Christian minister, author, and eco-theologian known as an advocate of Big History, Religious Naturalism, and the Epic of Evolution.
His evangelizing to some 1,800 audiences starting in April 2002 provided material for Thank God for Evolution in 2008. This book is noteworthy for its breadth and depth of endorsements; it includes six Nobel Prize-winning scientists. On April 2, 2009, Dowd at the United Nations addressed the lack of an evolutionary worldview which he maintains has resulted in a global integrity crisis. Overcoming this crisis, he says, requires a deep-time view of human nature, values and social systems. He maintains a Christian perspective and accepts the theory of evolution.
Dowd expanded his outreach program with the founding of EvolutionaryChristianity.com in 2010. Thirty-eight religious leaders from diverse backgrounds joined him in an audio seminar introduction.
Alan Stern
(Academic):
S. Alan Stern is an American planetary scientist. He is the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express.
Stern has been involved in 24 suborbital, orbital, and planetary space missions, including eight for which he was the mission principal investigator. One of his projects was the Southwest Ultraviolet Imaging System, an instrument which flew on two space shuttle missions, STS-85 in 1997 and STS-93 in 1999.
Stern has also developed eight scientific instruments for planetary and near-space research missions and has been a guest observer on numerous NASA satellite observatories, including the International Ultraviolet Explorer, the Hubble Space Telescope, the International Infrared Observer and the Extreme Ultraviolet Observer. Stern was Executive Director of the Southwest Research Institute's Space Science and Engineering Division until becoming Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in 2007. He resigned from that position after nearly a year. In early 2009 Stern's name was ...
Alan Stern
(Academic):
S. Alan Stern is an American planetary scientist. He is the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express.
Stern has been involved in 24 suborbital, orbital, and planetary space missions, including eight for which he was the mission principal investigator. One of his projects was the Southwest Ultraviolet Imaging System, an instrument which flew on two space shuttle missions, STS-85 in 1997 and STS-93 in 1999.
Stern has also developed eight scientific instruments for planetary and near-space research missions and has been a guest observer on numerous NASA satellite observatories, including the International Ultraviolet Explorer, the Hubble Space Telescope, the International Infrared Observer and the Extreme Ultraviolet Observer. Stern was Executive Director of the Southwest Research Institute's Space Science and Engineering Division until becoming Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in 2007. He resigned from that position after nearly a year. In early 2009 Dr. Stern's name ...