Scholar Community Members
Astronomy
Chuck is an adjunct professor of astronomy at San Diego State University, where he received his master of science degree. He instructs and certifies students in the operation of research grade telescopes. Over the years, Chuck has garnered an extensive amount of experience in the operation of large telescopes. He also participates on two research teams at the forefront of astronomy and cosmology. Their topics of research include fast radio bursts, type II-P supernova, Lyman-break galaxies, and the most distant stars and galaxies.
Cynthia Cheung is a retired astrophysicist with a PhD from University of Maryland and an AB from University of California, Berkeley, both in astronomy. She has worked for 35 years in various roles for NASA space missions. She has significant experience in space science mission operations and data management, data archive interoperability, applied information technology, robotics and intelligent control systems, modeling and simulation, and education and public outreach. Her research interests included high energy astrophysics, stellar evolution, and nucleosynthesis. Her work experience spans contractor, government, and academic environments.
Cheung had a bicultural upbringing and became a Christian in Hong Kong when she was very young. She has served in leadership positions in college fellowships and Chinese churches in the US. She has given science and faith seminars at church retreats and Sunday schools, in both English and Chinese.
Professor David Block is an astronomer and highly sought-after inspirational speaker who has devoted over 40 years of his life to encouraging audiences around the globe to always look up—and to never give up! He speaks from the heart as he shares in-depth lessons from his world of research.
Block was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society of London at the age of 19. A year later, his first research paper, on relativistic astrophysics, was published by the Royal Astronomical Society in London. He has been a visiting research astronomer at the Australian National University (ANU), the European Southern Observatory in Germany, the California Institute of Technology, and Harvard University. He has also published over 100 astronomy research journal articles and his research has twice been featured on the cover of Nature.
Until the end of 2019, Block served as a professor in the School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He now holds the title of professor emeritus.
Professor Block has received many awards and acknowledgments, including the NSTF-BHP Billiton Award recognizing him as one of South Africa’s foremost communicators in science. He received the University of the Witwatersrand's highest research accolade: the Vice-Chancellor’s Research Award.
Eric Klumpe received his PhD in astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin in 1999.
Fabo Feng is a postdoctoral fellow studying exoplanet detection, celestial dynamics, statistics, and interdisciplinary topics at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, DC. He received his PhD from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany.
Michael E. Summers is professor of planetary science and astronomy at George Mason University (Virginia). His undergraduate degrees are in physics, math, and Russian language from Murray State University (Kentucky). He has a certificate for Russian language and literature from Leningrad State University (now St. Petersburg University), an MS in space physics from the University of Texas at Dallas, and a PhD in planetary science and astronomy from the California Institute of Technology. His research interests concern atmospheric structure and evolution on planets, moons, and exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars as well as those that are not gravitationally bound to stars).
Robert Starr graduated from East Tennessee State University and earned an MA in instructional media from Radford University and an EdD in distance learning and instructional technology from Nova Southeastern University. He worked as professor and director of James Madison University’s Television Production Center before taking a three-month sabbatical at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. That experience turned into a twenty-year career as a civil servant with NASA, where Robert served as project manager of the Digital Learning Network (DLN), the Classroom of the Future (COTF), and the Educator Professional Development Network (EPDN), all part of the NASA Learning Environments and Research Network (LEARN). Dr. Starr retired from NASA in 2014, and resumed his video business, named Interactive Video Associates.
Biology
Molecular biologist Anjeanette “AJ” Roberts writes and lectures about the harmony between science and the Christian faith. She completed her BS in chemistry at the University of Tulsa in 1988 and her PhD in molecular and cell biology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1996. From 1997 to 2001, she conducted postdoctoral research in viral pathogenesis and “proof-of-concept” vaccine studies in Dr. John Rose’s lab at Yale University. She then spent two years in Samara, Russia, in Christian mission work and public health lecturing. From 2016 to 2020, AJ served as a research scholar for Reasons to Believe and developed a variety of influential resources on science and the Christian faith.
AJ has coauthored over 40 articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. She has also presented at numerous national and international scientific conferences and lectured at various institutions around the world. In 2005, she received the NIH Merit Award for her contribution to research in infectious diseases.
In addition, AJ has made many media appearances, including The Ride Home with John and Kathy, Live from Seattle with Michelle Mendoza, ABN’s Colliding Worldviews, Brian and Kathleen Mornings, and Karl and Crew Mornings.
AJ lives in Southern California.
Dale Burnside received his PhD in zoology from the University of Florida in 1969.
Daniel Hsu is a retired biochemical immunologist from the University of California, Davis. He has conducted research in molecular biology and mouse biology relating to animal lectins and dermatology. He has experience in electronic publishing as a science and production editor for an online medical journal, and an interest in digital protein drugging. Daniel endeavors to bring scientists and nonscientists to Christ by presenting science that corroborates the biblical message. His goal is to pique their interest so they’ll look into scriptural truths themselves.
Daniel and his wife live in South Dakota and are seasonal RV migrants. They enjoy hiking in the country, fishing, and wildlife photography.
David Kattes is a retired professor of entomology and agronomy at Tarleton State University (Stephenville, TX). He earned a BS and MS in entomology at Texas A&M University and a PhD in agronomy at Texas Tech University. His research focused on the biology and ecology of arthropod pests of field crops and livestock. His true love was helping his undergraduate and graduate students develop their love of nature through the scientific method.
David and his wife Molly have two married daughters, seven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. They live on a small farm where they raise cattle and produce vegetables to share with their friends.
Erik P. Johnson received his PhD in molecular biology from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where he did research on the genetics of the E. coli bacteria. He then studied the integrase protein of the HIV virus at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. After a visiting professorship at the Claremont Colleges in Claremont, California, Erik worked as a scientist at a clinical laboratory, Quest Diagnostics, where he developed novel tests for the detection of infectious agents like avian influenza, tuberculosis, and HIV. Erik is a scientific consultant in the field of infectious disease testing. He was the founding member of the UCSD chapter of Graduate Christian Fellowship, and enjoys answering apologetics questions from his Christian and non-Christian friends.
Dr. Katie Galloway received her PhD in chemical engineering with a minor in biology from California Institute of Technology in 2012. While at Caltech she focused on synthetic biology and systems biology and building synthetic genetic circuits that control cellular decision-making. In 2011, she was one of only three graduate students awarded the Caltech Everhart Lecture and, in 2013, her work was published in Science. Currently, Dr. Galloway serves as a NIH NRSA postdoctoral fellow at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles where she works on converting skin cells into neurons to study neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Galloway has also been a mentor for The Lab, RTB’s former student mentoring program.
Kirby Hansen served for 26 years on active duty in the US Navy as an engineering duty officer specializing in electronic systems. Following his retirement, he spent nine years as director of manufacturing engineering for 3Com Corporation (a provider of Ethernet equipment) in Santa Clara, California. After a Silicon Valley career, Kirby became fascinated with the study of biological systems. His major focus now is exploring topics in developmental and molecular biology in leading journals and textbooks. He is an active student of cell, molecular, and developmental biology. Kirby delivers presentations and writes occasional blog articles on various topics. He also serves as an RTB volunteer apologist.
Oscar Gonzalez is a biologist who was born and raised in Peru. He earned a PhD in interdisciplinary ecology from the University of Florida, an MS in zoology from Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Peru, an MS in tropical biodiversity management from Universidad San Pablo CEU, Spain, and a BS in biology from Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina, Peru. Oscar studies ornithology, plant-animal interactions, and conservation. He is the environmental science coordinator and associate professor of biology at Anderson University, South Carolina.
When Oscar teaches or interacts with colleagues about nature, he brings Scripture to the discussion. He is passionate about conserving God’s creation and showing how science can be used as a tool from the Lord.
Oscar divides his time between the United States and Peru. He likes to ride his bike everywhere and loves birdwatching with his wife, Marlene.
Richard is a trained Christian apologist (MA, Biola University) and a research conservation ecologist (MS, Boise State) specializing in birds of prey. He writes and speaks on these and other interests.
Bob’s original training was in botany, with specialties in plant ecology and paleobotany. He taught and conducted research in botany and ecology for many years in several colleges and universities, most recently as a researcher in forest growth modeling at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He led a field investigation in central Ohio to collect plant fossils from Mississippian sediments, and has retained his interest in paleobotany to the present. For the last 20 years of his career, Bob was active as a data scientist, initially for AT&T, then for NCR Corporation, where he led the yield management analytical team. He is the author of several books and a technical editor for the Practical Predictive Analytics series. In his retirement, he serves as an instructor at the University of California, Irvine, teaching many online and on-campus courses each year in effective data preparation. Bob also serves on the conservation advisory board of the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, where he provides botanical and analytical services.
Russ Carlson received his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Colorado in 1976. Before retiring, he served as executive technical director of the Energy-funded Center for Plant and Microbial Complex Carbohydrates at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, University of Georgia beginning in 1988.
Dr. Sharon R. Bloch is a professor of science at Lincoln Christian University where she enjoys engaging students in discussions about the relationship between science and faith. She has a BS in biology and chemistry from Millikin University and a PhD in cell and molecular biology from Saint Louis University. Prior to teaching, she had a productive research career in tumor imaging at Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Bloch believes that people need not choose between scientific findings and faith in God. “When I study science,” she says, “I see how God designed everything to work according to its purpose. Science and faith provide two different views of the same picture, and in order to see the whole picture you need both.”
Tim earned a BA in biology at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, in 1969 and a PhD in biomathematics at the University of Washington, Seattle, in 1973. He has worked primarily for fishery laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries. He specialized in the assessment and history of various marine fisheries globally, especially commercial whaling, and has published extensively in these areas. He retired in 2005 as senior scientist from the Woods Hole Laboratory of NOAA Fisheries.
Following an encounter with God in 1998, Tim pursued understanding the relationship between science and faith and how the apparent conflicts between the two affected him as a student and as a professional. His resolution of those conflicts is described in his book The Boiler Room Boys, which he uses in teaching students at Bethel Church’s School of Supernatural Ministry. He also currently works in Bethel’s Long Term Missions Department, where he focuses on missionary finances and debriefing missionaries returning from the field.
Since retiring, he has continued research and writing projects on the ecological history of marine resources, especially whales. He chaired a team of experts on marine mammals as part of the United Nations World Ocean Assessment , and is now active in developing a multipartner website (whalinghistory.org) that links museum collections with historical whaling data his team has collected from whalers’ logbooks over the past two decades.
Todd Primm is a professor in biological sciences at Sam Houston State University in Texas. He obtained a BS from Texas A&M and a PhD in biochemistry from Baylor College of Medicine. His current lab research is on the microbiome, the community of bacteria in and on us. His educational research focuses on how to teach students metacognitive approaches to learning. Teaching and mentoring are his passions and he has served as affiliate staff with Cru (Campus Crusade) and is a deacon at his church. He and his wife have been married over 30 years and have four children and one granddaughter.
William Soo Hoo, PhD, is a biochemist studying molecular immunology at the University of Illinois, where he earned his doctorate. He also has an MA in Christian apologetics from Biola University. He is a published scientist and has worked in the biotech industry as an executive director in immunotherapeutics for cancer and infectious diseases. He has taught on science, faith, the Bible, and Christian apologetics to middle school students up to adults. His interests include abiogenesis, big bang cosmology, animal instinctive behavior, and problems with neo-Darwinian evolution. William regularly teaches at his church and has spoken on science-faith topics at other venues. Most recently, William published a chapter called “Abiogenesis: No Time, No Chance—No Way!” in a collection of apologetics essays in Faith Examined.
Yuxin Mao is a retired scientist of molecular and cellular biology. He received his PhD in fungal molecular genetics at University of California, Davis. His postdoc was in protein transport at Yale University and he later studied fungal cell surface proteins and became a faculty member at Yale and Oregon Health & Science University. Yuxin is currently a coach at Torsion Force Institute and is interested in teaching the harmony between science and Genesis.
Chemistry
Claude Sandroff received his PhD in physical chemistry from Brandeis University.
Cynthia received a BS in chemistry in 1979 from Howard University. Marrying her college sweetheart, they moved to Pascagoula, MS in 1979. After working as a lab technician for two years, she returned to school to receive her master’s in polymer science in 1985 and her PhD in 1987 from Carnegie Mellon University.
At the start of her polymer career she worked for ICI Films Division in Hopewell, Virginia. Later she moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, where she worked for Stockhausen Inc. developing emulsion-based polyacrylates for wastewater treatment. It was in Greensboro that Cynthia started working with the local chapter of the American Chemical Society (ACS) as chapter secretary in charge of the newsletter. She also initiated the Women’s Chemist Committee for the chapter.
Cynthia moved with her family to Warner Robins, Georgia, in 1999 where she started her teaching career. She taught at Mercer University as an adjunct before taking a full-time position at Fort Valley State University. Cynthia continued her affiliation with the local ACS in Atlanta, where she worked with the Chemistry Olympiad program. Later, with the support of the Mercer University chemistry department, she helped launch a local chapter of ACS in Middle Georgia.
Throughout Cynthia’s teaching career she has worked in public schools as well as at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. She currently teaches part-time at Brunswick Community College and online at Ocean College. She also consults as a visiting researcher at North Carolina State University where she uses her expertise in liquid crystalline polymers and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy in the textile division.
Darren Williams received a PhD in chemistry from Oregon State University in 1998 and a BS in chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin in 1992.
Don Olson received his BS in chemistry in 1957 from Gonzaga University and his PhD in analytical chemistry from Purdue University in 1961. He conducted postdoctoral research at UCLA (1961–1962) and was a NATO postdoctoral fellow at the H. C. Ørsted Institute in Denmark (1962–1963). In 1963, he joined Shell Development, the research arm of Shell Oil. During his career at Shell, Don’s research ranged over several fields of chemistry, including a new analytical technology called flow injection analysis (FIA). He is now an internationally recognized leader in the field. He has authored over more than 30 papers and holds more than 20 patents. At retirement in 1992, he held the position of senior staff research chemist at Shell.
In addition to his industrial work, Don has been active in the academic world. He has taught a number of short-courses on FIA, analytical quality assurance, and electroanalytical chemistry. He was a member of the Industrial Advisory Board of the Center for Process Analytical Chemistry, as well as an affiliate professor, at the University of Washington.
Don is currently an entrepreneur. In 1992, he found Global FIA Inc., where he still serves as CEO, to develop and market new FIA technology. Olson and two other scientists at Global FIA developed a new technology called Zone Fluidics, which takes flow analysis to a higher level of capabilities and scope.
For most of his life, Don was an agnostic. He came to Christ in his 60s. He was a member of the Harbor Covenant Church in Gig Harbor, Washington, for 15 years. While there, he served on the Adult Christian Education Committee, taught several classes on topics like science and faith, wrote numerous articles for the church newsletter, and led a Bible study group. He is now a member of the Believers Fellowship Church in Gig Harbor. He recently made trips to China and India to teach at YWAM’s Discipleship Training School (India) and lecture at universities on modern scientific discoveries that support Christian beliefs. Don also served for a number of years on the board of directors for the Swedish Council of America.
Eugene Lopata obtained his PhD in physical chemistry at the University of Michigan in 1973. He worked in the field of plasma-enhanced vapor deposition and atomic layer deposition at a variety of industries before retiring in 2008.
Jacob “Jake” Plummer is an associate professor of chemistry at Wingate University outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. Jake earned BAs in chemistry and history with a minor in religion from Northwestern College (in Iowa) in 2002 and then worked at Novartis Pharmaceuticals before earning a PhD in synthetic organic chemistry at the University of Notre Dame in 2009. This was followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvey Mudd College and a visiting professorship at the Claremont Colleges. Jake’s research interests include new organic methodologies, small molecule synthesis, and forensic pedagogy. He also enjoys studying apologetics and is a fan of the martial arts.
Jason Vohs is a professor of chemistry at Saint Vincent College, a small, Catholic liberal arts institution in southwestern Pennsylvania. As an undergraduate student he studied chemistry, biochemistry, and classical studies at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Both his graduate work at the University of Georgia and his current research interests focus on the synthesis and characterization of organometallic complexes that may serve as building blocks for solid-state materials. Jason is married and has four children and two dogs. He loves gardening, hunting, kayaking, and the outdoors.
John Campbell is an analytical chemist at the global biopharma company GSK in Philadelphia. He specializes in degradation chemistry with many years of experience in pharmaceutical development, using stress-test experiments to understand degradation mechanisms, characterize protein structure-function relationships, and ensure drug stability. He holds a PhD in organic chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
John Drach is professor emeritus at the University of Michigan. He held faculty positions in the School of Dentistry and College of Pharmacy. He holds three degrees from the University of Cincinnati: a BS in pharmacy, an MS in pharmaceutical chemistry, and a PhD. in biochemistry. After working for four years as a research scientist at Parke, Davis & Company in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in 1970, where he taught pharmacology, aspects of virology, and related subjects. He also ran a research program involving discovery and mechanisms of action of antiviral drugs.
John Millam received a BS in chemistry and physics from the University of Arizona in 1992, and a PhD in theoretical chemistry from Rice University in 1997. He completed post-doctoral work at Wayne State University (1997-2001) that was focused on developing code for molecular dynamics calculations.
Katy Eggeman received her PhD in biochemistry from the University of Kansas, where she studied the structure of neuronal glutamate receptors. During her postdoc at the University of Colorado, she investigated neuronal models for memory formation. She then became a full-time mother, taught Sunday school, and volunteered at schools and several church ministries, including Bible Study Fellowship and Crossroads Prison Ministries. Katy spent 10 years developing curriculum and teaching junior and senior high school science classes at Christian home-school enrichment programs. She uses her background in Scripture and education to translate scientific reasons to believe in God to the layperson.
Katy lives in Lakewood, Colorado, with her husband. She loves walking, hiking, and gardening with self-sufficient plants.
Dr. Matt Carlson has spent the past 15 years teaching science in public schools and the past 25 years as a volunteer youth leader at church. He created Dr. Carlson’s Science Theater as the first youth-oriented science video series on iTunes. It later migrated to YouTube, where the 50+ videos have accumulated a total of over 1.2 million views. A firm believer in passing on the fun of science, he now teaches high school physics and chemistry in West Lafayette, Indiana. He is a National Board Certified teacher in physics and is licensed to teach biology, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, physics, physical science, and general science. He has a BS (with honors) and a PhD in chemistry from Caltech. He is also the manager/scheduler/wrangler for his wife (Dr. Erica Carlson), their three kids, and his wife’s many speaking engagements.
Nicholas Leadbeater received a PhD in chemistry from the University of Cambridge, UK, and a BSc in chemistry (highest honors) from the University of Nottingham, UK. He has been a professor of chemistry at the University of Connecticut (UConn) since 2004. His main area of research is in the field of organic chemistry, specifically developing methods to make molecules in cleaner, greener ways. He has a passion for teaching and mentorship. Nicholas has developed new lecture and lab-based courses, training future chemists through exposure to state-of-the-art chemical reactions, equipment, and educational tools. He has also incorporated undergraduate students into UConn’s research work, giving them an opportunity to make meaningful contributions to ongoing projects and helping them develop their critical, communication, and interpersonal skills.
Robb Wilson has had a varied career. After earning a PhD and doing a postdoctorate in chemistry at the University of Michigan in microwave spectroscopy, he was assistant professor at Louisiana State University Shreveport. Then he worked as a chemist with Signature Science, where he also served briefly as a contractor in Baghdad, Iraq. Later, he directed the undergraduate physical chemistry lab program at University of Texas at Austin and led the Christian Faculty Network. Robb also worked in a startup, did home remodeling, and now works in IT and cybersecurity. Throughout his diverse career, he’s been active in various ministries. Robb’s passion is to help Christians deepen their walk with Christ and confidently share their faith.
Robert DiSilvestro is an emeritus professor of human nutrition at Ohio State University. Dr. DiSilvestro earned a PhD in biochemistry from Texas A&M University. His current research emphasizes nutritional and nutraceutical pharmacology along with commercial development in these areas. Robert has produced 115 peer-reviewed research articles in biochemistry, physiology, pharmacology, toxicology, nutraceutical intervention, and clinical nutrition.
Robert resides in Columbus, Ohio, with Janet, his wife of almost 50 years. He enjoys vigorous exercise and plays fantasy baseball and football.
Steven W. Baertschi earned his PhD in organic chemistry at Vanderbilt University in 1989 and joined Eli Lilly and Company as a research scientist that same year. He retired from Lilly in 2015 and now consults for numerous pharmaceutical companies. His research interests include drug stability and purity, drug degradation chemistry and photochemistry, control strategies for impurities (including mutagenic impurities), and analytical methodologies. He has organized or chaired numerous scientific conferences, published more than 60 refereed scientific articles, 30 book chapters, and edited two editions of a book on drug degradation. Steven is an American Chemical Society member since 1980 and was elected a fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (2007). He is also an active member of the Indianapolis chapter of Reasons to Believe.
Steven and his wife, Cheryl, live in Carmel, Indiana. They have four sons, one grandson, and a granddaughter. They are active in Bible Study Fellowship and their local church, College Park Church in Carmel.
Terry “Mr. Li” Rathman received his PhD in organoalkali/alkaline chemistry in organic synthesis from Virginia Tech before completing postdocs at Penn State Milton S Hershey Medical Center in the Biological Chemistry Department and then in a material science department of NASA. He then took a bench chemist position at FMC Corporation, where he went on to become a group leader, the R&D director of organometallics, and the technical sales representative for the lithium division’s organo- and metalorgano-products. Dr. Rathman has given talks around the world and published in numerous venues.
William B. Collier, PhD, is senior professor of physical chemistry at Oral Roberts University (ORU). His research includes molecular and computational spectroscopy, philosophy of science, chemical evolution, and intelligent design issues. Dr. Collier is a Fulbright scholar, Turkish Science Foundation (TUBITAK) fellow, Cooperative Studies fellow, Associated Western Universities-DOE faculty fellow, NSF-ROA fellow, and short-list awardee for the best journal article of the year, Spectrochimica Acta. He is an author or coauthor on 25 publications, 38 presentations, and 1 book, and has presented numerous talks and seminars to groups and churches on apologetics, science, and faith. He recently published a new book, From Darwin to Eden: A Tour of Science and Religion Based on the Philosophy of Michael Polanyi and the Intelligent Design Movement. Dr. Collier pursued his PhD at Oklahoma State University and lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with his wife, Susan, and a family of four grown children.
William (Lin) Coker received his BS in chemistry from St. Andrews University and his PhD in analytical chemistry from North Carolina State University. He is currently the chair of the Department of Chemistry and Physics and associate professor of chemistry at Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina. His current research as a soils scientist includes metal uptake in plants.
Lin enjoys helping students transition from high school to college. He has realized at all stages of his career (from high school student to college professor) that there’s a perceived tension between science and faith. He enjoys making the case that this tension is only “perceived.”
Lin lives in Harnett County, North Carolina, with his wife and twin daughters. He loves science fiction and Alabama football. Roll Tide!
Earth Science
Joe Akins lives in Chino Hills, California, and works as registered nurse (RN) in the Cardiac Catheterization and Electrophysiology Lab at Pomona Valley Health Medical Center. Prior to his work as an RN, Joe was a Navy corpsman for the Marines. He also earned a PhD in experimental geophysics from the California Institute of Technology.
The journey Joe has taken from being an atheist to a born-again Christian is quite a remarkable one. He became a Christian in 2006 through what he would refer to as giving “intellectual assent,” but shares that his commitment to “saving faith” wasn’t until 2013. His faith journey began when he met his wife Veronika. They were listening to a radio message from Pastor Chuck Smith, of the Calvary Chapel movement, as he shared that seekers who hold to an old-earth perspective should read Hugh Ross’s book The Fingerprint of God. This book, along with several others from RTB, deeply resonated with Joe and he began attending Dr. Ross’s Paradoxes class.
Joe and Veronika have a passion for reaching out to young-earth proponents in their church. Together, Joe and Veronika now homeschool their children and hope to continue participating in and developing a classical education group for Christian students.
José Campos is CEO of the Sustainable Agriculture Network and has 40 years of international leadership experience in sustainable forestry, agriculture, and natural resource management. He earned a B.Sc. in forestry from the University of São Paulo, a master’s in natural resources management from CATIE/University of Costa Rica, and a doctorate in forestry from the University of Oxford. He formerly served as director general of the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center and held board roles with CIFOR, ICRAF, and IUFRO, as well as advisory positions with the World Bank and IDB. After a season of atheism, Campos experienced a profound spiritual transformation and now explores apologetics to unite his love of science and faith.
José lives in Costa Rica with his wife, Silvia, and enjoys family time, travel, and nature.
Ken Wolgemuth received a BS in chemistry from Wheaton College and a PhD in geochemistry from Columbia University. He began his career at Dickinson College, where he taught for seven years while he was also a visiting professor at the Federal University of Bahia in Salvador, Brazil. He then transitioned into the oil industry, working 40 years as a petroleum geologist for the Hess Corporation, serving as a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, and, since 2002, teaching oil industry short courses on geology and petrophysics. He is currently an adjunct professor of geosciences at the University of Tulsa.
Since 2000, Ken increasingly invested his time in science-and-faith discussions in the church, focusing on the controversies over the age of the Earth and the Grand Canyon. He founded Solid Rock Lectures to communicate the geology of creation—presenting lectures at about 20 venues, including seminaries, churches, and conferences. He is a Colson Fellow from the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and a fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA). He is the coauthor of several papers on radiocarbon dating in the Christian Research Journal, for BioLogos, and ASA’s Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith. He authored essays about geology for Zondervan’s Dictionary of Christianity and Science, and is a contributing author to the groundbreaking book written expressly for the church, The Grand Canyon, Monument to an Ancient Earth: Can Noah’s Flood Explain the Grand Canyon?
Kevin Birdwell has a PhD in physical geography with an emphasis in paleoclimate/environmental change from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He also holds a BS and an MS in geography with an emphasis in math and remote sensing from Murray State University in Kentucky, as well as an AA in biblical studies from Central Bible College (now part of Evangel University) in Missouri. Kevin has memberships in the American Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Union, and American Nuclear Society. He has 35 years of experience in meteorological operations and research, which has focused on complex terrain meteorology and air quality, dispersion meteorology, Quaternary paleoclimate, and nuclear energy safety. His dissertation research described the interaction of winds with complex terrain and the resulting implications for the prediction of atmospheric and pollutant flows. Kevin currently conducts research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee on nuclear energy safety, atmospheric effects on wind energy, weather model performance in complex terrain, boundary layer and surface weather interfaces, and dispersion of pollutants in complex terrain. Kevin has also taught Earth and space science—as well as meteorology—intermittently for Lee University Online in Cleveland, Tennessee, since 2014. Kevin has served as a volunteer apologist with Reasons to Believe since 1998 and has been a part of the RTB Scholar Community since 2012. He has also served as an apologetics speaker, mostly on earth science and environmental topics, since the 1990s. Kevin and his wife, Marsha, have been married for 30 years. They live on the Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee and have two grown sons, Keith and Kyle, and a daughter-in-law, Caleigh, who is married to Kyle. Kevin’s hobbies include apologetics and Bible teaching, getting out in nature, hiking, and home improvement projects.
Marty Crossland’s background includes 14 years of applied earth science as an exploration geophysicist in the petroleum industry, followed by 30 years in higher education as a professor of computer information systems and administrator. He is currently associate vice president of instructional technology and online education, and chair of computer information systems programs at MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, Kansas.
Stephen Chua obtained his PhD from the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, where his doctoral work involved borehole data for subsurface geological modeling and using records from sediment cores in Singapore to reconstruct Holocene sea level and morphological and environmental changes. Stephen is currently a research fellow in the Earth Observatory of Singapore looking at palaeoenvironmental change in Singapore and the region. He is also passionate about discipleship, outreach, and apologetics, and is currently serving in Alpha ministry in his home church.
Steve Mittwede earned his MS and PhD at the University of South Carolina. His doctoral work focused on the geology and tectonic history of a supposed terrane boundary in northwestern South Carolina, and particularly on possible evidence for a suture zone in the central Piedmont. Though he has taught middle and high school science for the last decade, he also engages in collaborative research. His current research concerns an unusual mesic biocrust community in northern Alabama and a geochronological investigation of panned heavy-mineral concentrates from streams draining the Cat Square terrane, interpreted more recently as a Siluro-Devonian remnant ocean basin, west of Gaffney, South Carolina. Steve also has two graduate theological degrees and an EdS in Educational Leadership. He serves in his home church in a variety of capacities and especially enjoys opportunities to teach the Bible and theology.
Engineering
Andre Slonopas comes from a broad background of research, academia, and government experience. He holds a PhD in aerospace engineering from the University of Virginia and is a former Presidential Management Fellow with the US Office of Personnel Management. Andre leads software development in support of national cyber missions and has authored dozens of publications and book chapters in the field of cyber and hardware security. He presents regularly at scholarly venues and is an avid believer in energy revolution.
Andrew Labun received his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Alberta. Since 1991, Andrew has engaged in technology computer-aided design research and development. As part of Digital Equipment Corporation's semiconductor division, he developed simulations of thin film etch and deposition process steps used in manufacturing the world's fastest microprocessor, the 64-bit Alpha chip. He also developed algorithms to predict interconnect parasitics variation. From 2005 to 2010, he served as an associate professor at University of British Columbia's School of Engineering in Kelowna. In 2010, Labun founded Trajectory Design Automation Corp. to develop multiphysics circuit analysis software. After 2015, his interest turned to solving the puzzles of the fabulous chronologies of Genesis and the ancient Sumerians.
Barrie Winn was born in the US, grew up in Switzerland, and earned a BS in chemical engineering from Imperial College London. Following graduation he worked for an engineering/science consultancy in London for 8 years, including 14 months seconded to IFDC in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. He then worked for nearly 32 years in North Carolina, where he is a registered professional engineer, at one of the world’s largest phosphate mining and manufacturing complexes. During this time he worked in chemical plant operations as well as in the environmental and technical departments. In his final position before retiring, he managed the process development, quality control, and customer services activities at the North Carolina complex as well as a similar complex in Florida. These activities covered phosphate products used in plant and animal nutrition, as well as phosphate and fluoride products used in a range of industrial and food applications.
After retiring Barrie earned an MA in science and religion from Biola University. His current ministry activities include helping with the college ministry and teaching team at his church, serving as a volunteer apologist with RTB, helping in a team effort to provide apologetic support for Christian ministries at Appalachian State University, and serving on the leadership team of the Charlotte Colson Fellows Cohort, a ministry of The Colson Center for Christian Worldview. He and his wife, Robin, live near Boone in the mountains of North Carolina. They have two adult children and two grandchildren.
Brad Sargent was born and raised in Southern California where he received his PhD in bioengineering from UC San Diego. He continued his academic work in Switzerland and New Mexico before moving to industry to focus on medical device development, especially medical diagnostic devices. He is now vice president of engineering for Omnica Corporation, a medical device development company in Irvine, California. Raised in a Christian home, Brad has always had a passion for integrating the truth of the gospel with the truths revealed from science.
Curtis Hrischuk received an MEng (1995) and a PhD (1998) in systems and computer engineering from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. His work in the high-tech sector has included products ranging in size from RFID tags to web-based distributed application clusters. He has been published in several international, refereed journals and conference proceedings, and received a Best Paper Award at the Computer Measurement Group’s international IMPACT conference in 2006. Curtis is currently a technical product manager at a high-tech startup company, where he focuses primarily on the optimization of emerging technologies. He is also a member of the Reasons to Believe Apologetics Community and a director for the North Carolina State University, Raleigh chapter of the apologetics organization Ratio Christi.
Daniel Maxwell, PhD, is an AI trainer and consultant in the research computing department at the University of Florida. His areas of expertise include artificial intelligence practice and education, scientific research systems, research methods, and software engineering. He consults with faculty, staff, and students on best practices in data analysis, essentials of programming in Python and R, data wrangling, and reproducible science in GitHub. He is a seasoned data scientist with more than 30 years of experience.
Dan is also an avid reader who loves to frequent local art museums. Dan currently resides in Gainesville, Florida, with his wife and an energetic Bichon Frisé named Casey.
David Winyard teaches mechanical engineering at Grace College in Indiana. He earned his PhD in science and technology studies at Virginia Tech, his MS in mechanical engineering at the University of Rochester, and his BS in mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland.
David and Traci, his wife of almost 40 years, are active members of Knox Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Mount Vernon, Ohio. They enjoy bird-watching and tandem cycling and have three children and five grandchildren.
Biography
The 1960s space race led David Winyard to study engineering, beginning in high school at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. During college, he worked as a co-op at a US Navy research and development (R&D) lab. Through the end of the Cold War, he worked as an engineer on hydraulic systems and pumps for navy ships and submarines, earning five patents in the process.
Later, at the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), Winyard led value engineering projects to cut weapon system costs. He returned to R&D as technical manager for an Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD). The three-year ACTD and a follow-up project produced a deployable distribution center, the DDXX, that has supported military, humanitarian, and disaster relief operations worldwide.
After retiring, Winyard led the launch of engineering studies at Mount Vernon Nazarene University (MVNU). Later he taught and supported the engineering program rollout at Grace College. Both programs have achieved ABET accreditation.
Today, Winyard’s focus is science-faith integration, especially how biblical Christianity speaks to emerging technologies. He encourages Christians to actively shape our technology-saturated world.
Dennis Nelson holds a PhD in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio and is the founder and consultant at MIM Software, specializing in medical imaging technology. With extensive experience in cardiac, neurological, and general nuclear medicine research, Dennis has contributed significantly to the fields of radiology and radiation therapy. Currently, Dennis’s research focuses on molecular radiotherapy (MRT) and theranostics for cancer treatment and management, advancing innovative solutions for improved patient care.
Dennis and his wife, Nancy, live near Cleveland, Ohio, for eight months of the year and in The Villages, Florida, for the other four months. They’re active in youth ministry and enjoy photography during nature walks.
Dominic Halsmer is the former dean of the College of Science and Engineering at Oral Roberts University (ORU). He now serves as the director of the Center for Faith and Learning at ORU. He has been teaching science and engineering courses at ORU for 24 years, and is a registered professional engineer in the state of Oklahoma. He received his BS and MS degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Purdue University in 1985 and 1986, respectively. He earned a PhD in mechanical engineering from UCLA in 1992 and an MA in biblical literature from Oral Roberts University in 2013. His current research interests involve the integration of faith and learning, contributions from the field of engineering to the current science-theology discussion, reverse engineering of complex natural systems, and the preparation of scientists and engineers for missions work within technical communities.
He is currently the principal investigator for a science and theology project, entitled Science and the Wisdom of God, funded by a four-year, $160,000-grant through the BioLogos Foundation’s program on evolution and Christian faith. This is an interdisciplinary project to help Christians gain an appreciation for the ingenuity behind our evolving universe. It involves the development of books and presentation materials to help the church sort through the complex issues and evidence relating to questions in science and faith. He is currently also working on a book about how engineering helps make sense of the universe.
Dustin is a computer scientist with a focus on computer vision and deep learning. He has extensive medical technology experience in private industry and took a somewhat unorthodox road to computer science. He completed a BS in physics in 2012 at the University of Central Florida before discovering that his lifelong love for all things mathematical, combined with a newfound talent and passion for data analysis, could be an effective launching point for a software engineering career focused on medical computer vision. He then proceeded to earn his PhD in computer science in 2018 from UCF. Dustin lives in central Florida with his wife and son, where he continues to work in private industry applying his skills to ophthalmic surgical technologies.
Frank Pyrtle received his PhD in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. In 1996 and 1999, he received his BS and MS degrees in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University. Frank is a licensed, practicing professional engineer in Florida.
Dr. Fred Wieland earned a BS in astronomy from Caltech (1983), an MS in information science from the Claremont Graduate School (1988), and a PhD in information technology (IT) from George Mason University (2000). He published two papers in astronomy from his work at Caltech, and has published almost 100 papers in the field of IT. Wieland’s current research is in the area of air traffic control, specifically the integration of unmanned aerial systems into the National Airspace System.
James McClymonds earned his PhD. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University, and worked for Raytheon and Raytheon Technologies (now RTX Corporation) for 42 years in the areas of microwave semiconductor development, humidity-resistant semiconductor coatings, and humidity testing of semiconductors. His developments enabled Raytheon to build microwave assemblies, such as phased array radars, at a much lower cost. James is an experimentalist at heart, and his best work is done in a laboratory. He lives in Massachusetts.
Jia Xu was a class one registered architect in China. She received her PhD in architecture from the University of Melbourne, Australia, in 2013 and taught architecture at Zhejiang University of Science and Technology in China from 2014 to 2018. Now, she practices as a freelance architect in Melbourne.
John P. Abraham has been a professor of computer science at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley since 1976. He has established several programs at the university and held different administrative and faculty positions. He preaches regularly at several churches and serves on numerous boards including Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, Comfort House, and hospital and church boards.
After a 40-year electrical engineering career, Kevin Rogers joined the University of South Australia as a research fellow in 2012. In 2021 he obtained his PhD in UAV-based acoustic atmospheric tomography, the continuous measuring of 3D temperature and wind velocity fields in the lower atmosphere. Kevin has also taught power electronics and drives, a course about the use of high-power semiconductors for high-power applications such as speed control of motors and high-voltage DC links. He has also supervised students for their masters research projects. He is now mainly retired but continues his research and publishes research papers on a voluntary basis.
Kevin Williams received his MS in civil engineering in 1997 from Utah State University, where he developed a passion for software and mathematics. Since then, Kevin’s career has focused on data modeling and computer vision technologies. In 2000 he wrote the first commercial software for automated building extraction from airborne LIDAR, and in 2006 he founded ClearEdge3D and developed the first commercial software for automated analysis and modeling of terrestrial 3D LIDAR data. In 2017 ClearEdge3D was acquired by Topcon, where Kevin retained the role of CTO and coordinated technical teams around the world to build cutting-edge sensor and computer vision technology.
Kwok W. Cheung earned a PhD in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, and worked as the director and CTO of global market management solutions at GE Grid Software Solutions for over 30 years before forming his own consulting company in 2024. He is the founder and CEO of KC-Exousia Consulting, which provides independent consulting services to electric utilities and government agencies worldwide in grid modernization, control, and electricity market design and implementation. Cheung has authored and/or coauthored over 120 technical papers published in international journals and conference proceedings. He has been a keynote speaker at many international conferences on power and energy. He is a registered professional engineer in the state of Washington, a senior fellow at General Electric (GE), a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).
Kwok is deeply interested in apologetics, focusing on the scientific and philosophical interpretations of biblical creation, free will, predestination, and divine consciousness using general relativity, quantum mechanics, and modern cosmology. He explores how these fields inform one another, particularly in understanding the biblical creation narrative and its implications for human agency, the nature of existence, and the universe.
Kwok lives in Redmond, Washington, with his wife, Jasmine. They have three grown children. He enjoys playing music, leading worship, and practicing martial arts.
Marty Pomeroy has a BA in music composition and a BS in computer science. For the past four decades Marty has developed software and worked closely with hardware and mechanical engineers to build systems that do useful things. Among these have been blood analysis units, cable modems, a video editing system, bone density analyzer, and network traffic switches. This work has often led Marty to engage with the underlying science behind sensors, fluids, materials, cells, and even electrons. This diverse science-oriented engineering background has provided a unique perspective from which to recognize the design of systems.
Marty has a passion to help others see the glory of God in all he has done, and to remove stumbling blocks to faith, joy, and confidence. Marty brings a conversational style to discussions about faith, especially as it relates to science and the Bible, but also on the existential questions of our culture.
Marty leads small groups in his local church and serves in several ways in his local HOA (including trying to beat fellow members of the chess club). Marty and his wife live near West Palm Beach, Florida, and they have a son who lives and works in Chicago.
Dr. Micah J. Green received his PhD in chemical engineering from MIT along with a minor in Christian history from Harvard Divinity School. Currently, he is a professor of chemical engineering at Texas A&M University. Micah has received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Young Investigator Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the DuPont Young Faculty Award for his work in nanomaterial processing, with applications to composites, dispersions, and 3D printing. He also serves in the leadership of the Christian Faculty Network at Texas A&M.
Micah lives in College Station, Texas, with his wife, Heather, and their four children. He is active at his church in a teaching role and is passionate about showing how the Christian worldview provides a workable framework for science, engineering, and ethics to thrive.
Michael J. Williams is an alum of three Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), receiving his BS in physics, an MS in material science/physics, and a PhD in optics from Delaware State University. He currently works as an applications specialist for Boston Electronics, a photonics distribution company. Michael is a travel enthusiast, a great orator, and he loves to meet new people, experience different cultures, and learn new innovations in science, technology, and the humanities. His present goal is to connect people with the truth of the gospel, using the concepts of light to reveal the characteristics of Jesus as the light of the world.
Norm Helgeson received a BS in chemical engineering from the University of Idaho and a PhD in chemical engineering from the California Institute of Technology. He is a licensed mechanical engineer and has helped develop engines for industrial processes and technologies for noise and pollution abatement for Navy jet engines. Norm holds four patents and lives in California.
Otis Graf received a BS in physics and math and a PhD in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. He joined NASA and was part of the Apollo lunar landing team, working on mission planning and analysis. He also worked on the Space Shuttle program. Dr. Graf then joined IBM in Houston where he had the opportunity to work with national laboratories in NASA, the Department of Energy, NOAA, and research organizations in the UK, Japan, and South Korea.
After retiring from IBM, Dr. Graf joined the adjunct faculty of Houston Community College where he teaches math and physics. He also writes and does research on the subject of Christianity and science, and has been involved with Reasons to Believe since 2005. Otis and his wife live in Katy, Texas. They have two children and two grandchildren.
Randall (Randy) Schunk received his PhD in chemical engineering and materials science from the University of Minnesota in 1989. In 2009, Schunk was appointed a national laboratory professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of New Mexico, where he remains active. He also recently retired from Sandia National Laboratories. His research focuses on the manufacturing science underpinning films and coatings, additive manufacturing, and nanomanufacturing. Schunk’s work on material microstructure led him to conclude that the laws of nature used to tailor materials performance can only come from an intelligent designer and are a gift to scientists that reveal God’s mysteries.
Randy lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife, Andrea. He enjoys God’s beauty in the mountains and rivers of the area, usually while on skis or with a fly rod.
Patrick McGuire is a senior reservoir engineering consultant at International Reservoir Technologies, Inc., with 40 years of energy industry experience working for ARCO, BP, and IRT. He is a world-class expert in enhanced oil recovery (EOR). For years, he worked designing and implementing advanced oil recovery processes for Alaska’s North Slope, home to North America’s largest oil fields. McGuire previously did energy research for Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has authored numerous technical papers on topics such as drilling technology and enhanced oil recovery. McGuire also holds seven US patents. While serving as a distinguished lecturer for the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) during 1998, 1999, and 2018, McGuire addressed over 40 SPE sections in Canada, Mexico, Europe, Australia, Asia, and the Middle East.
McGuire first became acquainted with Reasons to Believe in 1987, when he met Hugh Ross in Anchorage. He was the president of the RTB Alaska Chapter before moving to Denmark in 2009, and has spoken on intelligent design to science and engineering students in China. He is currently working on EOR projects in Alaska, Russia, and the continental US.
Paul Lorenzini graduated from the US Merchant Marine Academy in 1964, later earning a PhD in nuclear engineering from Oregon State University and a law degree from Loyola Law School. During his career he served as President of Pacific Power and Light, headed a 5,000-person operation at the Hanford nuclear site in Eastern Washington, and in 2007 cofounded NuScale Power, a company that develops small modular nuclear reactors for commercial use. In 2002 Paul was inducted into the Oregon State University Engineering Hall of Fame. He served for several years as a trustee of the Oregon State University Foundation Board, chaired the Board of Trustees in 2010–11, and currently serves on the Board of Regents for the Honors College.
A student of Francis Schaeffer, Paul has taught church classes on being a Christian in the twenty-first century while applying Schaeffer’s cultural theories to shed light on the underlying dynamics of the nuclear power controversy. He teaches a colloquium in the Honors College on the historical tensions between the sciences and the humanities. Paul is writing a book on the Sixties, Humanizing the Cosmos: The Quest for Meaning in Post-Sixties America, and he is active in Kairos Prison Ministry International.
Peter Waller is an associate professor of biosystems engineering at the University of Arizona. His research includes biosystems and irrigation projects such as biofuel production from algae and rubber production from guayule, a native desert plant. On the teaching side, he has taught biosystems analysis and design and a natural science course, formation of a planetary biosystem. As a result of this class, he began exploring the universe through the eyes of Moses and science as he sought to understand how God created our planetary biosystem.
Ray Usell is a retired engineer trained in science and the humanities. He attended University of Cincinnati for 8 years, earning his BS in metallurgical engineering in 1964, and his PhD in materials science in 1967. He received his JD from Detroit College of Law in 1974.
Robert Varga earned AB and BSEE (electrical engineering) degrees from the University of Notre Dame, and a Masters and PhD EE from the University of Florida. His forty-plus years in high technology have encompassed research at Bell Laboratories and leadership roles in a variety of business startups, and turnarounds, within public and private companies. He now serves on the Executive Advisory Board for the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering at the University of San Diego, and its Industry Scholars Program that provides mentorship for engineering students. He also tutors high school math and manages a San Diego franchise of a national tutoring organization.
Ron Behrens has worked as a subsurface research engineer in oil and gas recovery for 37 years, applying a mix of engineering skills ranging from the fundamental to the pragmatic. He holds a BS in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota and a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Delaware. Learning the fundamentals of thermodynamics and heat and fluid transfer enabled a multi-specialty career. Behrens has worked at seven locations on three continents, tasked with roles spanning from R&D to operations for a diverse set of technical projects, including miscible enhanced oil recovery, reservoir characterization and modeling, 4D seismic, and heavy oil thermal recovery. Over the last dozen years, his work has included technical supervision of engineers for reservoirs, wells, facilities, and various other projects.
Dr. Ronald Bell currently serves as an engineering scientist at the University of Texas at Austin and is an instructor in the UT Austin Cockrell School of Engineering. He received a BS, MS, and PhD in engineering from University of Missouri, Columbia, and University of South Florida, Tampa. Dr. Bell has received several awards such as a place on the Texas Society of Professional Engineers’ 2001 Engineering Dream Team (1 of 50 chosen in Texas to have had the greatest contribution to the field of engineering).
Sean Oesch is a researcher at a national laboratory, where he helps lead research at the intersection of machine learning and security. He also slings code, mentors students, and asks tough questions of data. Sean received his PhD in computer engineering from the University of Tennessee. His dissertation focused on the security of password managers and was published at top venues in both security and human-computer interaction (HCI). His research recommends strong passwords and multi-factor authentication whenever possible, and concerns the future use of single sign-on and continuous authentication for cybersecurity.
Sean enjoys helping people grow—whether professionally or spiritually—as they navigate complex questions about philosophy, science, and Scripture. He’s currently interested in finding ways that artificial intelligence (AI) can benefit society and how Christianity can inform the ethical quandaries surrounding the rapid growth of AI.
Steven Anonsen is a Christian apologist with master’s degrees in Christian apologetics (2012) and science and religion (2024) from Biola University. He spent 33 years at Microsoft as a software architect and distinguished engineer, building diverse products, covering Microsoft Office client and cloud apps, SharePoint, business management (Dynamics 365), database (SQL server) and developer tools (Visual Studio).
Steven lives in Fargo, North Dakota,, with his wife Sheila. They have two grown daughters and three grandchildren. His interests include photography, old movies, reading, and playing music.
Steven Dobbs received his BS in Aerospace Engineering from Cal Poly Pomona and his MS in Mechanical Engineering from Cal State Long Beach.
Professor Thomas R. Bieler earned a BA in applied mechanics (with a minor in literature) at the University of California, San Diego in 1978 and an MS in ceramic engineering at the University of Washington in 1980. He then worked on high-rate deformation at Sandia National Laboratory in Livermore, California, for five years. He completed his PhD in materials science (with a minor in continuum mechanics) at the University of California, Davis in 1989 and has been at Michigan State University thereafter. His research has focused on how cracks form in titanium alloys and solder joints, and how nanoscale defects affect the performance of pure niobium superconducting particle accelerator cavities.
Dr. Thomas “Tom” Gould is a senior reservoir engineering consultant and board member at International Reservoir Technologies, Inc. Dr. Gould has over 50 years experience in the upstream petroleum industry and is a world-class expert in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) with several patents under his belt. He recently specialized in EOR miscible floods, thermal recovery, shale oil production, CO2 sequestration, and geothermal energy. Dr. Gould has received the Cedric K. Ferguson Medal from the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and is a Distinguished Member of SPE.
Tom lives on Lookout Mountain (7,300 ft) near Golden, Colorado, with lots of snow and abundant wildlife. He has received several callings in recent years: leading trips to Israel, researching biblical archaeology to confirm Scripture, creating the Extending God’s Grace (EGG) foundation, discipling, and volunteering with Christ Care Medical Center (CCMC) in Lira, Uganda, as an honorable member of the board and advisor to the executive director.
Tim Draelos received his PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of New Mexico with a focus on artificial neural networks. He worked as a research and development engineer at Sandia National Laboratories for 34 years (until retirement in 2021) in the areas of signal processing, cryptography, deep learning, and artificial intelligence. His research has been grounded in the belief that the mind is more than the brain and humans have access to the mind of God and his divine reason. Tim was the founder (in 2017) and chair for the first three years of the annual Sandia Machine Learning and Deep Learning Workshop, a gathering of researchers for collaboration in machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL).
Timothy Gordon is a resident of Boise, Idaho and currently works as a clinical data analyst for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Prior to that, Tim was a software engineer for Micron Technology Inc. for over 15 years. He is also a retired US Navy Commander. Tim recently completed his doctorate in scientific apologetics from Southern Evangelical Seminary.
Zachary Leung received his PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has more than 25 years of experience working in both Asia and North America, all in the area of technology and innovation, covering: (1) entrepreneurship; (2) management in multinational corporations; (3) teaching, research, and technology transfer in universities; and (4) mentoring and investments in young startups. His research interests are in machine learning, artificial intelligence, speech recognition and understanding, and neural networks. Zachary has received certificates from the RZIM Academy, and is currently pursuing his MA in science and religion at Biola University. He is currently based in Hong Kong.
Humanities
Lynn Matthews is an assistant professor of marketing at the Barton School of Business at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas. She earned a PhD in business marketing as well as an MS in survey research and methodology from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Matthews is a mixed-methods scholar whose academic work focuses on branding strategy and methodology. She is specifically interested in issues of personal branding, and branding strategies for service providers, small businesses, and entrepreneurs. Her work emphasizes managerial relevance, using appropriate qualitative, survey, and/or experimental approaches for each question.
Her apologetics interest centers on giving a reasonable defense for the hope of the gospel to those around her, including those in academia.
Lynn lives in Wichita, Kansas, with her husband (also an RTB scholar) and two children. She loves to sing and to tell stories that capture people’s imaginations.
Abdu has tackled complex issues in Q&A forums, debates, and dialogues at leading universities such as Yale University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan, University of Florida, Laurentian University, California State University San Marcos, Universidad Científica del Sur in Peru, and others around the world. He has also addressed political and business leaders in the United States, Canada, Peru, and Hong Kong. Abdu hosts the podcast and YouTube shows All Rise, Deliberations LIVE, and CouldaShouldaWoulda. His YouTube videos have been viewed millions of times across the globe.
Murray holds a BA in psychology from the University of Michigan and earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School. While an attorney at two major law firms in Detroit, he was named to Best Lawyers in America and to Michigan Super Lawyers.
Murray lives in Metro Detroit with his wife and their three children.
Andrew Corbett has been pastoring Legana Christian Church in northern Tasmania since 1995. He is on the national leadership team of A2A (Acts 2 Alliance), a movement of churches around Australia. He is the former director of the Tasmanian Family Institute. He is the co-author of the Salamanca Declaration, a joint statement by the heads of major Tasmanian churches upholding the sanctity of life, religious liberty, and the unique role that a mother and father play in having and raising children. He was a lecturer on hermeneutics at Tabor College and is now the president of ICI Theological College in Australia. He holds a degree in biblical studies from Emmanuel College, and a doctor of ministry degree from the University of Cambridge. He is the author or What Is a Family? And Why It Matters, The Most Embarrassing Book in the Bible: Understanding the Book of Revelation, The Most Embarrassing Verse in the Bible: Answering C. S. Lewis. His apologetics website, www.findingtruthmatters.org, includes a blog and a bi-weekly podcast.
Joe Manning is the senior pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Arkansas, where he has served since 2009. He has also pastored in Hawaii, Georgia, and Texas. Manning holds a doctor of ministry and a PhD in apologetics and theology. Joe and his wife have been married for 50 years and have two grown daughters and two grandsons. He enjoys walks with his wife and playing golf.
Brad DeSandro, a patent attorney, worked as a US patent examiner with the US Patent and Trademark Office, in private practice with large law firms, and currently in a solo practice. He has been a perennial faculty lecturer on licensing intellectual property rights for the Licensing Executives Society USA & Canada, and has held leadership positions with the American Bar Association’s Section of Intellectual Property Law and with the American Intellectual Property Law Association. DeSandro has provided intellectual property law advice as an Allied Attorney to Alliance Defending Freedom, and is a Colson Fellow committed to engaging the culture with a biblical worldview.
After graduating from engineering school and then becoming a committed Christian and student of the Bible, Brad was introduced to intelligent design, where much of his apologetics interest lies today.
Brad lives in Phoenix when it’s not hot and in Colorado when it is hot. He enjoys drone, 360-degree, and action videography.
J. Brian Huffling, PhD, is associate professor of philosophy and theology at Southern Evangelical Seminary (SES), where he also serves as the director of their PhD program in philosophy of religion. He has previously served SES as the dean of students and as the director of the Bible College. He has a BA from Lee University in history with a minor in Bible and an MA from SES in three majors: apologetics, philosophy, and biblical studies. Brian also earned his PhD in the philosophy of religion from SES, and has an MA in military operational art and science with a concentration in joint warfare from Air University. He has participated in several academic debates and panel discussions at academic conferences. Brian teaches at Apologia (Christian homeschool) and has taught at The Art Institute of Charlotte and Arborbrook Christian Academy, both in North Carolina.
Brian has authored numerous articles and has served as guest academic editor for Religions, an open-source journal, and is currently publishing a debate book on God and the problem of evil. He has served in the Marine and Naval Reserves and currently serves as a reserve Air Force chaplain at Dobbins Air Reserve Base as the Deputy Wing Chaplain. Brian has a YouTube channel and podcast called Classical Theology with Dr. Brian Huffling.
Clay Williams is a professor in the English Language Teaching Practices program of the Graduate School of Global Communication and Language at Akita International University (Japan), where he has taught various graduate and undergraduate courses on linguistics, psycholinguistics, and research methodologies for linguistics and language acquisition since 2010. He received a PhD in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching from the University of Arizona. His research interests include cross-script word recognition, literacy acquisition, technology integration into L2 acquisition, and the genesis of language in the human species. He is the author of Teaching English Reading in the Chinese-Speaking World: Building Strategies Across Scripts and Teaching English in East Asia: A Teacher’s Guide to Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Learners.
Clay lives in Akita, Japan, with his wife and two children. In his free time, he enjoys playing music on his ever-expanding collection of guitars and other instruments.
Clifford L. Fry has a PhD in economics and is currently the associate director of the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A&M University. For two decades prior, Fry was co-owner of RRC, Inc., a national economics consulting firm located in Bryan, Texas. He has worked at Washington State University, the University of Houston (head of department of finance), the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Crocker National Bank in San Francisco. He devoted years of service to the International Rett Syndrome Foundation (IRSF) and supports efforts to find a cure for the genetic disorder. His apologetics interests include countering atheistic evolution and returning the idea of a Creator to scientific classrooms.
David Huwiler is an international educator who holds a PhD in English and American Literature from the University of California at Davis. He has served as a humanities dean, a chief academic officer, and as president of universities in the US, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Most recently Huwiler has done consulting work in higher education in the US and in the Middle East and specializes in university governance and accreditation systems. His involvement in higher education around the world has led to an interest in how Christian academics can influence university culture and diminish academic resistance to open discussion of religious faith on university campuses.
David lives in Carlsbad, California, with his wife Svetlana, his son Daniel, and Max, their golden retriever. He loves traveling with his family and spending time at their retreat in Datça, Turkey.
Don Deal teaches advanced scientific apologetics at Veritas International University. He is also the director of classical apologetics at Norm Geisler International Ministries. Don spent the first ten years of his professional life as a naval aviator (P-3 antisubmarine aircraft) and the next twenty-five years as a pilot for FedEx, flying the MD-11 and the B-777. He has spoken at the National Conference on Christian Apologetics more than a dozen times, written more than a dozen articles for encyclopedias, and cowrote a chapter in a book on apologetics. Don is married to Nerisa and has two teenage boys, William (17) and Richard (14).
Edward Russell received his Ed.D. in curriculum instruction and educational psychology.
George Haraksin serves as Scholar Community program director and a staff scholar at Reasons to Believe (RTB). He has a long history with RTB. While in college, he would drive 30 miles to the old RTB Sierra Madre office in Southern California to retrieve Hugh Ross’s white papers on various science and faith topics, all stuffed in cubbyholes in the back of the office. As a pastor of a local church, he frequently partnered with RTB, hosting and participating in events and bringing RTB staff scholars to speak to his congregation. Currently, George serves as a senior adjunct professor in philosophy and ethics at Azusa Pacific University (CA), where he has taught since 2002. He was also previously on the adjunct faculty for A. W. Tozer Theological Seminary, Simpson University (CA). At his church, George served as lead pastor for 5 years and as an associate pastor for over 15 years. He and his wife, Tracy, attended and led in that church community for 28 years, participating on the worship teams (George as drummer and percussionist; Tracy as worship leader and vocalist), leading ministry teams to Romania and India, and serving on ministry teams to Hungary, Venezuela, Serbia, and the Czech Republic. George was an elder board member and chairman, a teaching team member, and an apologetics instructor. George holds a BA in comparative religions from California State University, Fullerton; an MA in philosophy of religion and ethics from Talbot School of Theology, Biola University; and an MA in philosophy from Claremont Graduate University, CA. George has studied under well-known philosophers, ethicists, and apologists such as J. P. Moreland, William Lane Craig, Stephen Davis, the late Dallas Willard, Richard Swinburne, and Linda Zagzebski. His areas of academic interest include philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, metaethics, ethical systems of reasoning (normative ethics), applied ethics, and both philosophical and cultural apologetics. George has been married to his wife Tracy for over 30 years, and they have two adult sons—one who works in cybersecurity for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the other as an IT professional for a financial institution.
Godwin Adeboye earned a BA in religious studies and a master of philosophy of religion from the University of Ibadan (Nigeria). He also earned a master of theology with a specialty in Islam from the University of Pretoria (South Africa) in partnership with the Oxford Centre for Religion and Public Life. He participated in an African Biblical Hermeneutics PhD program at the VID Specialized University (Norway). Adeboye is deeply passionate about apologetics and studying the relationship of science and faith. He has been involved in Christian apologetics, theological research, and pastoral leadership in Africa for a decade.
J.T. Bridges earned his PhD from Southern Evangelical Seminary, where he is academic dean and professor of philosophy. His work has focused on the philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, and the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas.
Jason Neill holds a PhD in counselor education and supervision and is a licensed professional counselor and full-time professor at Anderson University in Anderson, South Carolina. Specializing in trauma and spiritual issues, he integrates Christian faith into both clinical and academic settings. Jason lives with his family in South Carolina.
Jason Rampelt is a historian of science specializing in the early modern period, but with interests in all periods. After completing his PhD in history and philosophy of science (HPS) at Cambridge University, he was a research fellow at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion. He teaches part-time in HPS at the University of Pittsburgh and is a fellow in Christianity and science at the Greystone Theological Institute in Pittsburgh.
Jeffrey K. Lyons received an MA and a PhD in communication from Regent University, Virginia. He taught for 10 years as an adjunct professor at three universities in Hawai’i. Jeffrey has published articles in Global Media Journal, Journal of Radio & Audio Media, and The Hawaiian Journal of History. He is the author of Evolution Myths: A Critical View of neo-Darwinism (2018). Jeffrey and his wife both served as full-time missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators and Youth With A Mission (YWAM). They served in Guatemala with YWAM from 1990 to 1994. Jeffrey has a passion for apologetics and campus ministry.
Jefrey Breshears earned his PhD in history at Georgia State University. He stayed on at Georgia State and taught history, philosophy, and religion. He later taught the same subjects at Kennesaw State and Reformed Theological Seminary. For several years, Jefrey also pastored Marietta Community Church. In the early 1980s he cofounded Crossroads: An Atlanta Christian Forum, a publication that focused on religious issues and events in the Atlanta area. In 1999, Jefrey began teaching courses in Christian history and apologetics to churches in the metro-Atlanta area. In 2003, he founded the Aréopagus, a Christian study center and education ministry that offers seminars and forums in Christian history, apologetics, contemporary cultural issues, science-related issues, and literature, and the arts.
Dr. Jennifer Burton is an associate professor of marketing at the University of Tampa. She holds a BA from Indiana University, an MBA from Wake Forest University, and a PhD in marketing from the University of Texas at Austin. Her academic research interests focus on integrated marketing communications, social media, and persuasion. Her apologetics interests are in the intersections of business and psychology in light of key biblical principles. Burton has been published in top marketing journals such as the International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, Journal of Services Marketing, and Internet Research. She has also worked in marketing management, marketing analysis, regulatory marketing, and partner marketing for firms including MCI, Carolina Power & Light (now merged with Duke Energy), and Harris Group.
Burton lives in the Tampa Bay region where she enjoys playing guitar, singing, and writing songs to glorify God with her church praise band.
Jennifer McCullough is a manpower, personnel, and training lead and human systems integration (HSI) subject matter expert for the United States Marine Corps (USMC). She has a PhD in curriculum and instruction, two master's degrees (one in human systems integration and the other in education administration), and a bachelor's degree in biology. Before working for the USMC, Dr. McCullough was a K–12 and a university educator. Now, besides championing HSI for marines, she is also interested in the impact of personality in workplace culture. She lives in Virginia.
In 2017, John DePoe began serving as an administrator in Kingdom Preparatory Academy’s (KPA) upper school before becoming headmaster in 2022. Prior to working at KPA, DePoe earned tenure and the rank of associate professor as a philosophy faculty member at Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania. His published works include over 20 peer-reviewed articles and academic book chapters in addition to editing and contributing to the book, Debating Christian Religious Epistemology: An Introduction to Five Views on the Knowledge of God. He earned a PhD in philosophy, two MAs in philosophy, an MA in religion, and a BA (philosophy and theology double-major; biblical languages minor). He resides in Lubbock, Texas, with his wife, three children, and two dogs.
Dr. John D. Martin is a missionary, freelance writer, and professional translator living in Bavaria, Germany. He has translated multiple Christian books into English and translates from English into German for Towad Jerusalem Council II and Reasons to Believe. His background is in Germanic philology and he has several academic publications in the field of Old Norse and Middle High German literature. He regularly writes freelance for Salvo and Touchstone magazines.
Dr. Joseph “Joe” P. Bassi is an online instructor in national security studies at Angelo State University and at the University of Texas at El Paso. He is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and specializes in the history of space sciences. During his PhD program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Joe was a Guggenheim predoctoral fellow in space history at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. From 2010 until 2017, he was an assistant professor of arts and science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida. Joe is a retired US Air Force officer with 26 years of active duty. He also has graduate degrees in meteorology from Penn State University, astrophysics from the University of Colorado, and history from George Washington University. He graduated from Manhattan College with a BS in physics and was a distinguished graduate of the Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program.
Joe is interested in the relationship between Christianity and science, particularly in how Christianity contributed to the development of science in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Joseph R. Miller began his academic career at Pennsylvania State University where he earned a bachelor’s degree in architectural engineering. Since then he has earned five additional degrees, including an MDiv from Oral Roberts University, an MASR (master of arts in science and religion) from Southern California Seminary, and a DMin from Biola University. He completed his ThM and PhD in ethics from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. For more than a decade, Dr. Miller has taught a variety of courses at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral level covering a variety of topics, including the integration of science and faith. He currently works as Assistant Professor of Christian Worldview at Grand Canyon University. He has authored multiple books on leadership, church history, and biblical theology, including his latest works, Elders Lead a Healthy Family: Shared Leadership for a Vibrant Church and Set Apart: How Genesis Stands Alone.
Outside of academics, Miller has over twenty years of experience in pastoral ministry. He currently disciples college students through the ministry Ratio Christi. He also helps Christians apply the truth and love of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the most challenging social issues of our day through his nonprofit called the Center for Cultural Apologetics. His podcast, educational videos, sermons, and blog archives can be accessed for free at www.morethancake.org.
Joe and his wife Suzanne live in Glendale, AZ, with their three sons.
Joshua Kugler received an MDiv from Cincinnati Christian University in church history.
Kelley Keller, JD, is a professional writer, public speaker, and legal lecturer specializing in issues at the intersection of law and worldview. She holds a JD from the Catholic University of America and is a doctor of ministry candidate in Christian apologetics at Southern Evangelical Seminary. Prior to her writing career, Kelley worked on intellectual property aspects of global trade for a decade, followed by 15 years of private practice in intellectual property law. Among her several writing and speaking projects, Kelley documents her complicated conversion from Marxian feminism to Christianity on Substack through her newsletter Confessions of a Truthaholic, and she hosts a podcast on the legal history of abortion, I Am Roe, Hear Me Roar.
Kristen Davis is the founder of DoubtLess Faith Ministries and speaks internationally. She has a PhD in philosophy of religion from Southern Evangelical Seminary and is the senior manager of the systems integration team for a financial tech company where she leads an international team of software developers in building and supporting multiple applications. She studied world religions in India and biblical archaeology in Israel, and her passion is to defend the truth of Christianity through the use of both philosophy and archaeology. Her website is doubtlessfaith.com.
Kyle Keltz is professor of English and philosophy at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas. He holds a PhD in philosophy of religion from Southern Evangelical Seminary, an MA in composition from Liberty University, an MA in Christian apologetics from Southern Evangelical Seminary, and a BBA in finance from Texas Tech University. Kyle specializes in the problem of evil and classical theodicies. He is the author of Bringing Good Even Out of Evil: Thomism and the Problem of Evil and Thomism and the Problem of Animal Suffering, and his articles have been published in The Heythrop Journal, The Journal of Value Inquiry, New Blackfriars, Nova et Vetera, and Sophia. Kyle lives in Lubbock, Texas, with his wife Laci and their two young boys. They attend First Baptist Church of Lubbock where Kyle and Laci have led a Sunday school class for young married couples. Kyle’s academic website is bkylekeltz.com, and he occasionally publishes apologetics/philosophy/theology lectures on YouTube (B. Kyle Keltz) and on PodBean (Philosophy Apologetics & Theology). Kyle was raised in a Christian home but was indifferent (and sometimes hostile) to Christianity but, after studying philosophy of religion during his time in the military, he became convinced that God must exist. Aside from having been a hardheaded youth, Kyle attributes his former nonbelief to a lack of Christians in his life who had answers to hard questions concerning Christianity. So, Kyle has devoted his life to studying and making sense out of philosophy, theology, and the Bible and being able to provide answers to people seeking truth as he did in his earlier years.
Lacey D. Huffling is an associate professor of science education in the Department of Middle and Secondary Education at Georgia Southern University. Her research interests include agency and identity in environmental education, science education, and teacher education. She is currently an Early Career Research Fellow for the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Louis Hatcher is a senior litigation partner who specializes in employment and healthcare law and has extensive jury trial experience in both the civil and criminal courts. Louis has an “AV” rating by Martindale-Hubbell, which is the firm’s highest rating for ethics and professional abilities. He is admitted to practice law in Florida, Georgia, a number of federal district courts, and the federal Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Louis has long been active in his community—serving 16 years on the local board of education, and coaching youth and high school sports and other extracurricular activities. Louis is a lay speaker in the Free Will Baptist denomination, a Sunday school teacher, and a small group leader. He has begun work toward an MA in Christian apologetics.
Marie Teilhard is a strategic consultant to nonprofit organizations and she has two MA degrees: one in arts management from Carnegie Mellon University and one in philosophy and religion from Harrison Middleton University. She will complete her doctor of arts degree in philosophy and religion by spring 2024. Marie loves to travel the world and currently serves in the US and abroad as an arts advocate, where she gives lectures on art, science, and faith (using her apologetics background) to make the case for the arts and creativity as evidence of the imago Dei.
Mark T. Clark, PhD, is professor emeritus of political science and director of the National Security Studies program at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB). He has published in a variety of scholarly venues on national security, nuclear weapons, arms control and intelligence, and the Christian perspective of just war doctrine. He coauthored (with Hugh Ross and Kenneth Samples) the book Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men: A Rational Christian Look at UFOs and Extraterrestrials.
With the help of several grants, he has helped establish CSUSB as an Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence (ICCAE) and he codeveloped a new MS degree in National Cyber Security Studies (along with the MA in National Security Studies), the first of its kind in the nation. With George Mason University, he has worked as lead analyst to demonstrate how evidence-based reasoning using a learning agent, called Cogent, can improve critical and analytical thinking skills and improve intelligence analysis with such tools in a crowd-sourced environment. He also has led seven different open-source research projects for the Institute for Analysis of the National Security Agency (NSA).
Mark served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1973 to 1977. Mark and his wife, Mara, serve in their local church, Sierra Vista Community Church, in Upland, CA. They live in La Verne, CA, and Durango, CO.
Since the 1990s, Mark has worked closely with RTB in a variety of roles, including volunteer apologist, president of the RTB Los Angeles, CA Chapter, and regular instructor of the Critical Thinking Skills course for Reasons Institute and Hope International University. He served as an RTB local visiting scholar at RTB headquarters, helping develop resources to improve the critical thinking skills of Christians and applying philosophy of science to Christian apologetics.
Mark has taught critical thinking and problem solving in the government sector (primarily to managers) and has made presentations on apologetics, critical thinking, and philosophy of science to church groups and other Christian organizations. Mark is a contributing author to the RTB book Thinking about Evolution with coauthors Anjeanette Roberts, Fazale Rana, and Sue Dykes.
After 36 years in law enforcement, including 15 years as a police executive, Mark retired from the Los Angeles Police Department as a Deputy Chief of Police. Coming out of retirement, he joined the RTB leadership team in 2022 as RTB’s chief operating officer (COO). While working full-time as RTB’s COO, he also continues research in decision-making, cognitive biases, and other aspects of critical thinking to engage real-world problems, including those found in Christian apologetics and management development.
Mark earned a BA in philosophy and an MA focusing on analytic philosophy of science from California State University, Los Angeles, and acquired a California State University Certificate in Teaching Critical Thinking. He also holds a masters in Public Administration from American Military University with an emphasis on organizational development.
Mark loves music and his favorite composer is J. S. Bach. In his spare time, he enjoys podcasts on a wide variety of subjects including music studies, artificial intelligence, physical, biological, and cognitive sciences, management theory, and military history. His favorite activity of all is playing with his grandson.
Dr. Mary Bean is an independent researcher and health coach. She holds a master’s degree in biology and received a PhD in health psychology from Walden University in 2018. She is developing a paper for publication from her dissertation. Her research interest concerns the application of neuroscience research to the coaching field. Her passion is empowering all people, especially those in the special needs community, to have maximum health of mind, body, and soul. She believes that her study of apologetics will augment her research and expertise to aid a person’s relationship with God.
Matt Raley has a PhD in aesthetic philosophy and theology from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has pastored churches in Oregon, California, and Pennsylvania for more than 25 years and currently pastors Bethel Grove Bible Church in Ithaca, NY. He is the author of Fallen: A Novel and The Diversity Culture. Matt lives in the Ithaca area with his wife Bridget and their two sons. In his spare time he enjoys playing the violin.
Miguel Angel Endara is a professor of philosophy and religion at Veritas International University in Santa Ana, California. Miguel holds a PhD in philosophy from Saint Louis University, an MA in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, an MA in Christian apologetics from Simon Greenleaf University, and a BS in computer science from California State University, Los Angeles. Miguel has written chapters for books such as The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith (Harvest House) and Reasons for Faith: A Survey of Contemporary Christian Issues and Evidences (Crossway Books). His articles have appeared in professional journals such as The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Cognition and Culture, and Christian Scholar’s Review. He has also contributed articles to popular journals such as Touchstone and Christian Research Journal.
In addition to teaching at secular and Christian colleges and universities in the US, Miguel has also taught at Seminario Sudamericano (Semisud) in Quito, Ecuador. He is on the advisory board for the Scholl Institute of Bioethics and has done volunteer apologetic work for the Centro de Investigaciones Religiosas, a branch of the Centers for Apologetics Research (CFAR). Miguel has been a volunteer at Reasons to Believe since 1988. He and his family attend and serve in a Spanish-speaking Presbyterian Church.
Myla Razel P. Sarmiento is an attorney who specializes in business, employment, real estate, and general civil litigation matters. Her apologetic interests include intelligent design and cultural apologetics. Myla lives in Fontana, California, and enjoys reading, dancing (specifically hip hop and ballet), and spending time with her friends and family.
Paul Shockley earned his Ph.D in philosophy from Texas A&M University in College Station. He also holds an MA in humanities history of deas from the University of Texas at Dallas, a ThM from Dallas Theological Seminary in systematic theology and biblical exposition, and a BA in history from Stephen F. Austin State University.
Dr. Peter Wyns began preaching when he was a teenager and has continued ministering for more than 45 years. He served as the senior pastor of four congregations, planted several new churches, and founded a Christian school and a discipleship training ministry in Canada called Foundations Training Institute. Peter has extended apostolic oversight to more than a dozen congregations and has traveled to more than 40 nations teaching God’s Word. In recent years he’s continued his education, receiving a doctorate degree from North Carolina College of Theology.
Peter is the author of 11 books, half of which have been translated into other languages. Presently, he is the president and founder of Christians for Messiah Ministries and the senior pastor of Antioch International Church in Fort Mill, SC. He continues to travel to speak at churches and conferences internationally, visiting groups small and large, and is a friend and mentor to many pastors and congregations.
Although he teaches on a wide variety of themes, he is often called upon to speak on the following topics: prayer, church growth, breaking generational curses, Israel in the last days, and equipping God’s people for the work of the ministry.
He brings apostolic insight and care when it is called upon. Whenever he teaches, people are inspired and godly change follows. They are challenged to step out in faith and believe God for greater things.
Richard Robertson has his JD and is the founder and shareholder of Richard L. Robertson & Associates, P.A.
Dr. Ryan Montague has a PhD in communication from the University of Missouri and is the founder of Divine Opportunity Ministries. Before starting the ministry, Ryan spent over a decade as a professor of communication management in higher education specializing in emotional intelligence in personal and professional relationships. Ryan is the author of two books, Divine Opportunity: Finding God in the Conversations of Everyday Life and Untapped Potential: Moving from a Mediocre to a Miraculous Testimony. As for his ministry, Ryan specializes in teaching three content areas:
1) Kingdom Coupling: How to Attract, Date, and Select a Godly Spouse
2) Kingdom Mindset: How to Be Set Free and Stay Free despite Fierce Pressure from the Outside World
3) Kingdom Moments: How to Demonstrate God’s Love and Presence in Everyday Life
Ryan and his wife Debra live in Los Angeles, California and have three children, David, Makenna, and Bella.
Sean Lake is a professor in the humanities division at Valencia College, Orlando, Florida. He received his PhD in classics from Fordham University, New York City. Sean has studied archaeology at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens as a Philip Lockhart Fellow, and in the Classical Summer School of the American Academy in Rome. Recently, he has been working on humanities-based projects that serve veterans and first responders. His interest in apologetics is related to his training in history, manuscript evidence, the ancient Greek language, and archaeology.
Sean lives in Riverview, Florida, with his wife and three daughters. He plays guitar at his church and for various other musical projects. He enjoys trail running and mountain biking, and tries to compete in a few sprint triathlons each year. Occasionally, he finds time to do some woodworking.
Stephanie Thomason is a professor of business management and the associate dean of the Sykes College of Business at the University of Tampa (UTampa), where she has been working since 2007. In 2007, she earned a PhD in business administration from Florida Atlantic University where she had previously earned an MBA.
Since 2016, Stephanie also has overseen UTampa’s executive coaching program as an associate director for the TECO Energy Center for Leadership. The program pairs upper-level undergraduate students and professionally trained coaches and community leaders with advanced business degrees.
In 2023, UTampa recognized Stephanie with the Louise Loy Hunter Award, the university’s most prestigious award for outstanding faculty members. That award afforded her the opportunity to deliver the December 2023 commencement ceremony address where she encouraged graduates to remember that truth matters. She has also served as the president of the Society for Experiential Education, working to enhance a community of educators dedicated to engaging students with rich experiential learning opportunities.
She is married and is a mother of two young adult sons who began their college pursuits in 2023 and 2024 at the University of Tampa.
Stephen McAndrew holds a JD in law and a PhD in philosophy. He practiced law with a concentration on mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, and corporate governance before returning to academia to complete his doctorate in philosophy. His areas of specialty are social and political philosophy and applied ethics. Stephen is deeply motivated to use philosophy and apologetics to further the gospel. He was the global chapters director of Reasonable Faith for four years and has been involved in apologetics ministry for the past seven years, speaking and training in his local community in Western New York. Stephen currently teaches philosophy at Canisius College and the University at Buffalo (SUNY) and has published articles in political philosophy and applied ethics. Stephen was born in Ireland and now resides in Buffalo, the hometown of his wife Michelle. Stephen and Michelle have been blessed with three wonderful children: Hannah, John, and Sarah.
Thomas Alderman is a trial attorney who has practiced law in Eugene, Oregon, since 1974. Through the 1980s and 1990s, he was active in pro-life causes. In 1998 his interests turned to the study of science for his own edification and for equipping himself to defend the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He has since appeared many times on university campuses for debates with members of chemistry, physics, biology, and philosophy faculties concerning the relative merits of neo-Darwinian theory and old-earth creation theory. Mr. Alderman’s other interests include classical guitar, tennis, running, and hiking. He is married and the father of three adult sons.
Thomas In-sing Leung earned his PhD in philosophy from the University of Hawaii. He is an adjunct professor at Trinity Western University, a project officer at the School of Humanity and Religion, Peking (Beijing) University, and an adjunct professor at Jinan University. In 1994, he founded the Culture Regeneration Research Society (CRRS) and remains the society’s president to this day. Dr. Leung also serves as the editor-in-chief of the academic journal Cultural China, and as an advisor of the International Confucian Association. Leung published his first book in 1976. Since then, he has produced 36 books, over 5,000 articles, and 100 gospel tapes/CD/DVDs. His publications often focus on answering the major questions that people with a Chinese cultural background have about the Christian faith.
Thomas lives in Vancouver, BC. He loves collecting antique Christian items such as icons and Bibles.
Thomas G. Oey earned his PhD in religion and history of Christian thought from Vanderbilt University in Tennesee, is a doctor of philosophy candidate in global studies at Leipzig University in Germany, and has published 12 scholarly articles. He is a guest lecturer at the Indonesian Baptist Theological Seminary in Semarang, Indonesia, as well as coordinator of the Indian Ocean International Christian Fellowship in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is interested in Indonesian and diaspora Christianity, the history of world Christianity, contextualization, and the intersection of Christian faith, philosophy, and science.
Thomas resides in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife Liping and son Mark and enjoys walking their dog, learning foreign languages, and watching historical videos.
Tricia Scribner is a Christian apologist, author, and speaker with a PhD in philosophy of religion and an MA in apologetics from Southern Evangelical Seminary. She also holds an MS, with a major in nursing, from Northwestern State University. Tricia’s doctoral dissertation focused on the untenability of theistic evolution from a Thomistic position. Tricia has worked as an RN, an assistant professor in a school of nursing, and as a high school teacher. Tricia enjoys spending time with her three daughters and their families, including ten grandchildren. Tricia has been married to Randy for 46 years and they live in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Mathematics
Douglas Faries earned a PhD in statistics from Oklahoma State University and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at Eli Lilly and Company.
Dr. George Seber is an esteemed academic and dedicated Christian. He holds a BSc in maths and physics, an MSc with first-class honors in maths from Auckland University (Australia), and a PhD in mathematical statistics from Manchester University (Indiana). He has had a successful academic career serving as a lecturer, associate professor, and head of the mathematics department at Auckland University and was also appointed as a professor of biometry at Otago University (New Zealand). Dr. Seber is a recognized authority in statistical ecology and has authored numerous books on advanced statistics, ecology, counseling, and apologetics. He has been an active member of Windsor Park Baptist Church for over 40 years. Dr. Seber remains committed to serving God and sharing the evidence for Christianity through his involvement in apologetics.
Marvin Bittinger received his PhD in mathematics education from Purdue University in 1968. He is professor emeritus of mathematic education at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis. He is one of Pearson Education’s top-selling authors, having sold over 13 million copies of his college mathematics textbooks in 250 books/editions.
Scott Warlow completed his PhD in mathematical physics at the University of Toronto (specializing in quantum gravity) in 1992. Following doctoral-level study in finance at the Schulich School of Business, Scott has worked in the asset management industry since 2002, both in the private and public sectors, and he has developed a deep knowledge of statistical methods. He holds an Intermediate Certificate in Science Apologetics from RTB and has been a volunteer apologist since 2013. He is currently completing his MDiv at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto, specializing in biblical studies.
Scott came to faith as an adult while completing his Ph.D., and was baptized in 1992. He lives in the Toronto area with his wife of more than 20 years and their two daughters, and currently serves as a teacher in his congregation, Milestone Ministries, a church of over 1,000 people located in Toronto.
Medicine
André Van Mol, MD, is a board-certified family physician who’s been in full-time practice for 30 years in California. His education includes a bachelor’s degree in biosciences from the University of Southern California and an MD from the Medical College of Wisconsin. He completed his residency at Charleston Naval Hospital and flight surgeon training at the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute. He cochairs the Christian Medical & Dental Association’s (CMDA) Sexual & Gender Identity Task Force and is the transgenderism scholar for both the CMDA and the American Academy of Medical Ethics. André serves as an elder at Bethel Church in Redding, California, and apologetics has been a fire in his gut since adolescence during the 1970s. He uses the many excellent materials available—including RTB’s resources—in his lectures and apologetics writing.
André, his wife Evelyn, and their two youngest children love to walk, hike, fish, swim, and camp in the outdoors of far northern California, which offers seemingly limitless places to enjoy God’s creation. They also enjoy cooking, gardening, games, and family movie nights.
Andrew “Andy” Moyes, MD, is an ophthalmic surgeon practicing in Kansas City, Missouri. He specializes in cornea, cataract, and refractive surgery. He trained at the University of Kansas, where he earned a BA in chemistry and an MD. He completed an ophthalmology residency at the University of Michigan and a cornea fellowship at the University of Minnesota. Moyes participates in clinical research in the fields of cataract and refractive surgery. His professional motto is, “Jesus washed feet, we clean eyeballs.” He considers every day a chance to bring his patients joy through sight. For 15 years he has served the residents of Haiti who’ve needed cataract surgery and has recently added Jamaica to his medical mission trips.
Andy lives in Parkville, Missouri, with his wife of 35 years, Cathryn. They have eight children (four by marriage). Andy enjoys bird-watching and mountain climbing.
Aubrey Lee Cartwright received his PhD from North Carolina State University in 1982. He later received an MBA from Salisbury University in 1991. He held a post-doctoral position as physiologist at both University of Georgia and USDA-ARS Russell Research Laboratory in Athens, Georgia (1982-1984). At Texas A&M University, he lectured and taught graduate and undergraduate courses in nutrition, biochemistry, food chemistry and physiology.
Bernard Palmer was awarded an open scholarship to the Royal London Medical School for clinical training. He undertook his surgical training in major London hospitals and took the exams to be both a physician and a general surgeon. He was a senior registrar at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London and during this time performed research in tumor immunology at the Institute of Cancer Research. In 1983 he was appointed consultant surgeon at the Lister Hospital in Stevenage where he worked until he retired. He was a general surgeon with major interests in surgical oncology and gastrointestinal surgery. He wrote many medical papers.
Dr. Palmer became a convinced Christian as an undergraduate at Cambridge and has been a Bible teacher since then. He has been active in the Christian Medical Fellowship and has been one of their trustees for many years. He is the author of Cure for Life, which has been translated into many languages. This book was originally written for his patients as an answer for their questions about the purpose of life, but has since found a worldwide niche and has been translated into many languages. In 2000, Bernard was asked to help found Christchurch Baldock, where he regularly teaches.
Bernard is a popular speaker in universities and churches both at home (UK) and overseas. He has written widely on the evidence for the Christian faith and what being a Christian means.
Dr. Bruce Hennigan has been a radiologist with the Willis-Knighton Health System in Shreveport, Louisiana, for over 40 years. He received his bachelors and his MD from Louisiana State University. He is a published author of multiple books and a co-author on Hope Again: A Lifetime Plan for Conquering Depression, which is in its third edition. As an apologist with Reasons to Believe, Bruce incorporates apologetics in his written works. He is currently one of the “in-house” apologists at his church, Brookwood Baptist, in Shreveport. Bruce has a certificate of apologetics from Biola University and is a certified apologetic instructor with the North American Mission Board.
Bruce Smith is a recently retired dentist living in Vancouver, Canada. After receiving a BS in biochemistry and a DMD degree from the University of British Columbia, Bruce practiced general family dentistry in Vancouver for 37 years. He has been involved in his local church in many capacities over the years and has been connected to Reasons to Believe as an apologist since 2001.
Charles Premkumar Joseph earned a postprofessional masters in cardiopulmonary physical therapy from the Christian Medical College and Hospital in Vellore, India, where he then served as clinician, lecturer, and researcher. Curious to explore and understand mind-body interactions, he went on to complete a masters in psychology as well. His passion for rehabilitating the soul in addition to the body and mind led him to join RZIM as a writer and itinerant speaker. He is currently enrolled in the masters in Christian apologetics program at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, motivated by a desire to understand the spirit/soul aspects of personhood. Charles hopes to someday pursue doctoral studies integrating all of his body-mind-spirit learnings.
Dr. Christina (Chris) Cirucci is a board-certified obstetrician/gynecologist who has worked for 20 years in private practice in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She received her BS in mechanical engineering from Virginia Tech and after working for seven years for Westinghouse in the field of nuclear power, she pursued a career in medicine. Dr. Cirucci earned her MD from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and completed her OB-GYN residency at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, Virginia. She also received a Certificate in Biblical Studies from Columbia International University, Columbia, South Carolina. Chris is a member of the Christian Medical and Dental Associations and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. She is also a NAMS Certified Menopause Practitioner (NCMP) with the North American Menopause Society. Chris’s real passion is volunteering her medical skills overseas in underdeveloped countries. She’s worked in hospitals in Gabon, Ghana, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (the place closest to her heart), where she has served six times. In addition to her medical mission work, Dr. Cirucci has a passion for defending the life of the unborn. She has become more involved in this work in the past five years and has published peer-reviewed articles on chemical abortion. She serves as Chair of the Board for the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. She is also an associate scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute and a Colson Fellow. Chris lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she is involved in her local church. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with friends, studying apologetics and cultural issues, walking, reading, and traveling.
Claudia C. Cotca is a three-time graduate of the University of Michigan, where she received a bachelor of science in chemistry and cellular molecular biology, a master of public health in toxicology, and a doctor of dental surgery. Dr. Cotca, an international lecturer and aesthetic restorative dentist, founded the Washington Institute for Dentistry & Laser Surgery in Washington, DC Metro, as well as the C3 Think Tank, a unique and first-of-its-kind private-sector joint venture, where she develops real-time oral systemic aesthetic advanced clinical protocols and medical devices. She is a subject matter expert on industry standards, including those of ANSI/NIST, the ADA Standards Committee on Dental Products, and the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, and is a US delegate to both the International Organization of Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission. For nearly two decades, she has been an active expert contributor on healthcare policy and innovation to the US Congress, the healthcare industry, and media outlets. Dr. Cotca is a fellow of the American Academy of Oral Medicine, the Pierre Fauchard Academy, and the International College of Dentists, and is a member of the International College of Prosthodontists.
Danielle C. Kauffman holds a PharmD from the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, an MBA in business administration from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a dual BS in computer information systems and business administration from Indiana Wesleyan University. She started her career working in computer programming, systems analysis, and project management. Later, after obtaining a pharmacy degree, she worked in a hospital setting as a pharmacist with a focus on informatics and technology. In addition, she completed a certificate program in pharmacogenomics and worked as a consultant, with public speaking engagements, to educate medical professionals in the use of pharmacogenomics testing to enhance clinical care. Currently she is employed as a director of clinical systems in the information technology department of a hospital system.
Her apologetic interests include topics related to science and faith, such as those published by Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross. She is also interested in finding the best ways to talk with others—especially skeptics—about science and faith andhow to evaluate information.
Danielle lives in East Tennessee and enjoys hiking, golfing, theater, spending time with others, and concerts.
David Stricklin is a retired internist who practiced in a medically underserved area in Southeastern Illinois for 35 years. He earned his MD and served his Residency at SIU School of Medicine in Springfield, IL and became a Fellow of the American College of Physicians in the late 1990’s. After retiring he became interested in Christian apologetics, especially as it relates to Science and the Bible. He currently lives with his wife Joni near Charlotte, NC and wants to continue serving the Lord Jesus in whatever capacity He leads.
Diana Parvinchi completed her PhD in “Brain Behavior and the Cognitive Sciences,” a subdiscipline of psychology at York University in 2012. Her PhD work focused on eye movement patterns in children with Tourette syndrome and its comorbid conditions. Following graduate work, she completed several years of postdoctoral work at SickKids Hospital, McMaster University, and York University. She hopes her research will lead to better understanding of the underlying cognitive and socio-emotional mechanisms of behavior in children and aims to translate this research in applied contexts. She resides in Ontario, Canada, with her husband and two children.
Dr. Eddy M. del Río, the grandson of an anesthesiologist and the namesake son of a highly patented inventor, came to medicine by a circuitous route. His first love is classical music and he trained extensively in it, having taught at the university and conservatory level. Later, he worked as a contractor to the US military, providing programmatic support to the Army’s Office of Aviation Electronic Combat, and authoring the US Army’s GPS integration guide for the UH-60 Blackhawk and CH-47 Chinook helicopter fleets. He also served as a manufacturing and design engineer for a man-portable L-Band radio-tag interrogator system for cargo crew of Air Mobility Command of the US Air Force.
At the age of 41, Eddy entered St. Louis University School of Medicine and earned the MD degree. He completed residency in family practice and has maintained board certification since. After five years of civilian sector practice, including medical missions, he joined the US Department of Veterans Affairs as part of the VA’s Veterans Health Administration, and renders primary care to former US military, and serves as a Chief Medical Officer.
A Christian since he was a young teenager, his interests emphasize pre-evangelism by means of apologetics—using all at his disposal from science, philosophy, theology, and the arts. After learning the intricacies of human anatomy and physiology, it was only natural for him to wed such knowledge with his appreciation for engineering learned at his father’s side. Eddy’s projects center on discovering analogies between human inventions and systems found in nature, especially those in the human organism, as well as exploring the nature of different information types. He has served as a guest writer for articles published for Today’s New Reason to Believe. He has degrees from four universities and also completed the Certificate in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He and his wife Lisa have two sons and five grandchildren and they reside in Gulfport, Mississippi.
Erick Thompson graduated from the University of Minnesota School of Veterinary Medicine in 1982 with a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. He went from barns to buildings seven years later to join 3M in St. Paul, Minnesota, heading the Professional Services unit of 3M’s Animal Care Products. He went on to lead KM initiatives in two multi-national organizations, leading up to his present position on the executive team of The Learning Forum Executive Council Network.
Erik Reite earned his medical degree from Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, and completed his residency at Eglin Air Force Base Hospital in Florida. He is board certified in family medicine and has a master’s degree in public health and tropical medicine. Reite currently works for Kaiser Permanente. Prior to that he spent six years working with the United States Air Force (USAF) at Vandenberg Space Force Base (previously Vandenberg Air Force Base) near Santa Barbara, California, and Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach, Florida. There he took care of active duty troops, family members, and retirees.
Ernest L. McClellan, MD, is a retired anesthesiologist who specialized in cardiac and neuroanesthesia. His training includes a masters in biochemistry from Baylor University, doctoral research at the Dallas Baylor Graduate Research Institute in coagulation chemistry, a medical degree from the University of Texas, and a residency at the University of California, San Diego. In addition to founding a medical practice in Kansas, Ernest helped organize the state and local emergency medical services systems and train and establish a multibase air ambulance system. He is currently active in teaching about the integration of science and faith in his community.
Francisco (Paco) Delgado is a medical doctor with a specialty in infectious diseases. After earning his MD from Universidad La Salle in Mexico City and completing his infectious diseases fellowship at Vanderbilt University, he has been in clinical practice for over 25 years.
Paco discovered Reasons to Believe (RTB) in 1997 while researching different views of Genesis in the history of the Christian church. He has been involved with the RTB Indianapolis, IN Chapter since its foundation and now serves as chapter president. He lives in the Indianapolis area with his French-Canadian wife, Claude, and three daughters. Paco and his wife help run a cooking club and enjoy playing pickleball.
Gailen Marshall is the R. Faser Triplett Sr. MD Chair of Allergy and Immunology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. He earned an MD and a PhD in immunology from the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston. He completed his internal medicine training at the University of Iowa, along with his residency and fellowship at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis. Marshall actively engages in clinical practice, education, and research, focusing on how the mind influences the immune system in health and disease. His work aims to bridge the gap between science and faith, reflecting his interest in apologetics.
Gailen lives in Ridgeland, Mississippi, with his wife, Liz. They have three grown children and five grandchildren. He enjoys astrophotography, amateur radio, and fly fishing.
Gary Lee, MD, is a board-certified internal medicine physician. He practices as a skilled nursing facility physician, attending geriatric patients on-site. He completed his medical degree from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California and his undergraduate degree in biochemistry at the University of California at Berkeley. Additionally, Dr. Lee received his law degree from UC Law San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings College of the Law) and has a part-time solo law practice.
Grace earned a PhD in neuroscience from the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, where she developed a protocol for 512-channel neural recording, discovered an algorithm that enables intelligence, and investigated the neurobiology of anxiety disorders and depression.
James Patterson is currently the interim chief of staff and chief of mental health service at the Overton Brooks VA Medical Center, Shreveport Louisiana.
James Small received a BA in chemistry from Colorado College (1972) and then enrolled in the medical scientist training program at Duke University. He graduated with his MD and a PhD from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in 1983. In January of 2018 he became a full time associate professor of pathology at Rocky Vista University.
Jeffrey Rose is a general surgeon who teaches residents at North Florida Regional Hospital in Gainesville, Florida. He earned BA degrees in physics and biochemistry from the University of Florida, and completed his MD at the University of Florida School of Medicine. Dr. Rose was Chief of General Surgery at the United States Air Force Academy and served with the US Air Force in the Gulf War. Rose is currently enrolled in the science writing program at Johns Hopkins University and he works to promote science education from a Christian worldview. He and his wife have adopted five children from Brazil and the family resides in Gainesville, Florida. He believes we experience God’s love for us when we meet him with our minds and our hearts.
Jim Painter earned a BS in nutrition from Southern Illinois University, an MS from Oklahoma State University, and a PhD from the University of Illinois. Jim has been a registered dietitian since 1980 and has served as the director of nutrition research for the California Raisin Marketing Board, and as a nutrition adviser for businesses and organizations including Sun-Maid Growers of California , Paramount Farms Wonderful Pistachios, and the National Dairy Council. He has also served on the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Healthier Diet Business Committee and the AHA Eat Right Task Force. He is currently a member of the American Society for Nutrition and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and is a former member of the Society for Nutrition Education.
He taught nutrition at the University of Illinois during the 1990s and chaired the School of Family and Consumer Sciences at Eastern Illinois University until 2013. He is currently a professor emeritus at Eastern Illinois University and an adjunct professor at the University of Texas.
His current research interests include reducing risk of heart disease through phytonutrient and dietary intervention, controlling weight through mindful eating and stealthy calorie intake restriction, and developing delicious dishes made with whole foods that are low in added sugar and high in nutrients.
Jim has more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and presentations to his credit and has authored the textbooks The Art of Nutritional Cooking and Nutrition You Can Use. His latest book, Let’s Eat Mindfully!, is designed for the lay person to use as a tool to consume less by changing the dining environment.
He and his wife Rosemary spend their time split between South Padre Island, Texas, and Champaign, Illinois, where their two sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren reside.
Joseph W. Bergeron earned his MD at Saint Louis University School of Medicine and is a specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation. Decades of experience in treating musculoskeletal injuries gives Joseph unique insights about Jesus’s crucifixion. He has authored a peer-reviewed article on Jesus’s cause of death in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine and, in collaboration with Gary Habermas, a peer-reviewed article in the Irish Theological Quarterly on hallucination hypotheses that seek to explain away Jesus’s resurrection. His book The Crucifixion of Jesus: A Medical Doctor Examines the Death and Resurrection of Christ is based on his academic research. Joseph lectures at conferences, churches, and universities on medical perspectives of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.
He lives with his wife and two sons in Indiana and enjoys playing the piano in his free time.
Dr. Keng Sheng Chew is currently the deputy dean of postgraduate studies, research and commercialization, of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. He is also a professor of emergency medicine and head of the medical education unit. Dr. Chew earned both his MD and a Master of Medicine in emergency medicine at Universiti Sains Malaysia. His teaching philosophy is “creating a legacy, whenever, wherever.”
Mark Olesen is a retired federal physician with 41 years of combined experience in the VA healthcare system and the United States Navy. After earning his MD from the Medical College of Wisconsin, he began a career of 29 years of active-duty service. He also earned an MPH from the Uniformed Services University and an MBA from the Naval Postgraduate School. Since his retirement, he has furthered his Christian education through online studies at Charis Bible College in Woodland Park, Colorado, and the School of Divinity at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he is close to completing his master of arts in Christian apologetics and cosmogony.
Mark lives with his wife Paula in rural Hertford, North Carolina. They enjoy the natural beauty of the area and visiting their two grown children, eight grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.
Mark Messinese studied premed and graduated with a bachelors in microbiology from the University of Florida in 1982. He then studied medicine at the American University in Washington, D.C. and trained in the UK for several years before returning to the US at Temple University in Philadelphia to do his residency in internal medicine. His first three years of practice were as a clinical instructor in medicine followed by 25 years in private practice in the Baptist Health Systems, where he served as both the chairman of medicine and chief of staff at Baptist Medical Center in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Mark is now the medical director of Fleet Landing CCRC in Atlantic Beach, Florida, and is actively engaged in the training of medical students and physician's assistants.
He's an avid fisherman and bow hunter and a student of Christian philosophical and scientific apologetics. Mark also serves as an officer of a local RTB Chapter and is a certified volunteer apologist with RTB. He is married to Debbie, a nurse (who works alongside him), and they have 5 children and 11 grandchildren.
Matt Hillsinger is an orthopedic manual physical therapist in the Duke University Health System. He graduated with his doctorate in physical therapy from George Washington University in 2018 and completed his Orthopedic Physical Therapy Residency in 2019 through Evidence in Motion—the leading provider of hybrid health care education solutions—where he is a faculty member. He recently completed an Orthopedic Manual Therapy Fellowship through Duke University and teaches in the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program, Orthopedic Residency, and Manual Therapy Fellowship curriculums. Matt’s interest in apologetics stems from the complexities of human life that point us toward a Creator.
Matt lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, and enjoys working out and playing golf in his free time. He volunteers at his local church and spends time hiking on the weekends.
Michael Henein is professor of cardiology at Umeå University, Sweden, and visiting professor at Brunel University London and St George’s, University of London. He is also a consultant cardiologist in both Sweden and the UK. He has published over 400 cardiology papers in peer-reviewed journals and edited seven textbooks, including chapters in the Oxford Textbook of Medicine. In addition, he started a new journal of Christian studies (TEACH–JCS) with the objective of publishing evidence-based peer-reviewed articles.
Michael is a practicing Coptic Orthodox Christian and is active in the fields of youth services, Coptic music, and Bible studies. He established The European Academy for Coptic Heritage (TEACH) in 2019, having been instructed by Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria. TEACH online started in 2020 with courses that have attracted over 100 students worldwide. Subjects include Coptic history, language, music, liturgical history, Christian counseling, interdenominational studies, biblical studies, and Pharaonic studies.
Mike Sabom is a retired cardiologist who has written and lectured widely on near-death experiences (NDEs). He earned a BA with honors from Colorado College, an MD with honors from the University of Texas at Galveston, and board certification in internal medicine and cardiology from the University of Florida. Prior to entering private practice in 1983, he was assistant professor of cardiology at Emory University for five years where he reported his first study of NDEs in Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation. A second NDE study was published in Light & Death in 1998, and a third book is underway.
Sabom was a major consultant/participant in the 2023 NDE documentary film After Death. He is currently focusing on physical (the brain), psychological (the mind), and spiritual (the soul) aspects of the NDE phenomenon from a Christian and scientific point of view.
Mike lives with his wife in Atlanta and enjoys fly fishing in the North Georgia Mountains.
Dr. Nicholas J. Tavani is a practicing family physician living and working in Washington, DC. He is residency trained and certified with the American Board of Family Medicine. Through his 35+ years in primary care medicine, Dr. Tavani has also found satisfaction for a spiritual calling to integrate good science with good faith in Christian service. Dr. Tavani currently serves as president of the Washington, DC Chapter of Reasons to Believe and has hosted several RTB events in the Washington, DC, area beginning in 2008.
Dr. Tavani graduated from Georgetown University School of Medicine where he also received both a masters and PhD in biophysics and physiology. He has taught courses at University of Maryland and George Mason University, spoken at seminars and conferences, and participated in medical missions around the world. In 2008, Dr. Tavani organized What Darwin Didn’t Know, a science-faith conference in Washington, DC. Nick has also presented papers at two Faith and Science conferences at Evangel University and initiated apologetics courses for students at his church.
Nick and his wife, Donna, reside in Haymarket, Virginia, and have six sons. Musical talent runs in their family. Dr. Tavani plays the piano for music ministries including the Tavani Family Ensemble (other family members play strings and piano). Nick and his wife were founding board members of the MasterWorks Festival. Nick enjoys hiking and swimming with his family and likes to read outdoors
Noel Brownlee graduated from Wofford College in 1993. He completed his dissertation work in the area of tumor cell biology at the Medical University of South Carolina. He then completed medical school at the University of South Carolina, earning his MD in 1998. He has practiced as a surgical pathologist and currently serves as medical director at North Greenville University.
Dr. Perry Santos, MD is a Otolaryngology (Ear, Nose & Throat) Specialist in Oklahoma City, OK and has over 37 years of experience in the medical field. He graduated from University of California, San Diego School of Medicine medical school in 1984.
Raj Kumar Songa completed his MBBS and MD (internal medicine) at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi. In 2008 he was selected by the US Consulate and later the High Commissions of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK to serve as their panel physician in Hyderabad, Telangana, where he then established the Centre for Migration Medicine. Raj had for a time served as the vice president of the International Panel Physicians Association.. He holds an MA in organizational leadership and management and loves to support Christian entrepreneurship. In Hyderabad, he also established the Epistles bookstore, which serves as a community hub and resource center for Christians.
John “Randy” Russell has been a family doctor in Lake Village, Arkansas, for over 45 years. He graduated from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville with a premed degree, and then received his MD from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine. He was in family practice at Lake Village Clinic until 2016, and then served as medical director of a physical rehabilitation facility. Randy and his wife have two children.
Raphael Samuel is a Christian speaker, apologist, and practicing anesthesiologist in Ontario, Canada. Born in Durban, South Africa, he obtained his medical degree and a master’s degree in medicine there. He further obtained fellowships in anesthesiology from the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He is currently completing his master’s degree in Christian apologetics at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, in Southern California.
His specific areas of interest include pro-life advocacy, human consciousness as evidence for the soul, medicine and miracles, and the evidence for God from the human body.
Rene Chun received a BS from UCLA in chemistry and biochemistry and a PhD from UC Irvine in molecular biology and biochemistry. Chun is an associate researcher at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the UCLA School of Medicine. The laboratory he works in utilizes a mouse model to study the prevention and treatment of orthopaedic implant infections. Over his research career, Chun’s been involved in labs that have studied vitamin D, HIV, and mouse retroviruses.
Robert M. Sandmann obtained a BS in pharmacy from Drake University and a doctor of pharmacy from Butler University. His interest in the fields of medical care and faith often intersect.
Robert grew up near Kansas City and went to schools in Iowa and Indiana. He currently lives in Huntsville, Texas, with his wife, Danielle, and their two children.
Ron Sisel received his undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where he then completed his surgical residency training as well. He served as a community general surgeon in the north San Diego and south Riverside County area in California until his retirement in 2005. Ron and his wife, Judy, have two daughters and four grandsons.
Ryan Matthews attended Grove City College in western Pennsylvania in 2011, majoring in biochemistry with a minor in biology. He received his MD from Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He then completed a pediatric residency at Loma Linda University Children's Hospital in Loma Linda, California. Subsequently, Ryan moved to Kansas to join his wife, Lynn, and has been raising his son, Ronen, and working as an online tutor.
Dr. Sonya Shaw is a highly accomplished and dedicated healthcare professional with extensive experience in nursing. She worked as a registered nurse in the emergency department for six years and as a family nurse practitioner for 23 years. Sonya earned a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) from Old Dominion University and has spent her career serving the healthcare needs of military service members, Native Americans, and federally qualified health clinics. After retiring from the US Army, where she served as a family nurse practitioner, Sonya became a locum tenens provider and has worked in a variety of settings to provide care where it is needed most. She is passionate about rural health and believes everyone deserves access to high-quality healthcare regardless of location or background.
Stan Lennard is a retired general surgeon who received his MD degree in 1968 and ScD degree in 1976. After practicing medicine for 30 years, he devoted himself to online teaching through Reasons Institute and apologetics research and writing. He has published two books and has a web page and blogs to which he contributes from ongoing research into dualist interaction between the Mind of God and the mind of Man. The neural synapse is the model for his research.
After graduating as a Phi Beta Kappa from Emory University with a major in music, Dr. Steven Willing attended the Medical College of Georgia, where he received his MD. Dr. Willing then secured an internship in pediatrics at the University of Virginia, a residency in diagnostic radiology at the Medical College of Georgia, and a fellowship in neuroradiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Willing went on to spend 20 years in academic medicine, first at the University of Louisville, followed by nine years at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and six years at Indiana University. He also earned an MBA from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1997. During his academic career, Willing published over 50 papers in the areas of radiology, informatics, and management. He is the author of Atlas of Neuroradiology, which was highly popular among radiology trainees of that decade. Currently, he is a clinical neuroradiologist at Children’s of Alabama, a consultant in radiology at Tenwek Hospital in Kenya, a visiting scholar with Reasons to Believe, and an adjunct Professor of Divinity at Regent University. His personal blog on science apologetics, The Soggy Spaniel, can be found at www.swilling.com. Steven is the author of Superbia: The Perils of Pride. The Power of Humility.
Tim holds a PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from Mercer University and has a thirst for knowledge. He is currently a pharmacist at a nonprofit hospital. In his spare time, Tim enjoys playing the guitar and creating computer software. Always curious, he is forever trying to discover more about God’s creation.
Tyler Manning received his PhD in experimental pathology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in 2016. His research focused on viral disease and vaccine development. Tyler was called to ministry in 2023, and he is currently the discipleship pastor at Hyde Park Baptist Church in Austin, Texas.
Vaughn Mancha received his medical degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Virgil Robertson received his doctorate in Chiropractic medicine from Southern California University of Health Sciences in 1985 and added a Family Nurse Practitioner degree from Samford University to his resume in 2012.
Dr. William P. Cheshire is a professor of neurology at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, where he has practiced for more than 30 years, specializing in disorders of the autonomic nervous system. He received his BA in biochemical sciences from Princeton University, his MD from West Virginia University, and his MA in bioethics from Trinity International University. He completed his residency in neurology and fellowship in pain management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has served as president of the staff at Mayo Clinic in Florida and president of the American Autonomic Society. In 2019, the Christian Medical & Dental Associations recognized him as Educator of the Year. He and his wife of more than 40 years attend Church of the Redeemer, which is affiliated with the Anglican Church in North America.
Physics
Alan Tai received his PhD in physics, specializing in quantum well research, from Boston College and a graduate certificate of completion in biblical foundations from Grand Canyon University. His doctoral thesis compared random systems with periodic and quasi-periodic systems in quantum wells. The analytical approaches he studied can be applied and extended to other structures, like DNA. He authored the book A Physicist’s Perspective on God: Roadmaps to Wisdom through Science and Life (2020).
Alan is passionate about sharing how science and nature are in harmony with the creation processes revealed in the Bible. As a Scholar Community member and visiting scholar at RTB, Alan joins the other scholars to present the Good News from Scripture with sound reason and scientific research. He also writes on topics related to science, life, and faith at his website, scienceandlife.org.
Dr. Alexei Tsvelik is a theoretical physicist originally from the Soviet Union. He graduated from Moscow Physical Technical Insitute in 1977, received his PhD in theoretical physics in 1980, and was hired to a research scientist position at the prestigious Landau Institute of Theoretical Physics in 1983. He and his family left the USSR in 1989 and after working at the University of Florida and at Princeton and Harvard Universities, he moved to Great Britain. Between 1992 and 2001 he worked as a lecturer and then as a professor at the University of Oxford. In 2001, Alexei and his wife returned to the US, where he has since been the senior research scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. His area of expertise is condensed matter physics and quantum field theory. Alexei has published more than 250 papers in refereed journals and three books in natural theology.
His apologetics interest centers on arguments for grand design. He maintains that the most powerful argument for design is derived from the fact that the number of parameters in the laws of physics is infinitely smaller than the number of conditions necessary for the existence of sentient beings.
Dr. Tsvelik lives in Stony Brook on Long Island, New York, and his son and grandson live in London. He enjoys fine arts, swimming, and cross-country skiing.
Bijan Nemati received his PhD in high-energy physics at the University of Washington in 1990, and during his graduate school years he converted from Islam to Christianity. He is currently a senior engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, working on telescopes that directly image planets around other stars. His areas of expertise include high-precision metrology, stellar astrometry, and the modeling of advanced astronomical instruments.
Brandon Reddell works at the NASA Johnson Space Center and teaches physics and astronomy at the University of Houston at Clear Lake. He holds a PhD in physics from the University of Houston (specializing in high energy/space physics) and most of his work has focused on ionizing radiation problems associated with human spaceflight. Currently he is an assistant program scientist for the International Space Station Program.
Since 2016, Rev. Daniel McLean has been a full-time pastor at Court House Nazarene Church in Washington Court House, Ohio. His responsibilities include teaching biblical truth to all ages, organizing musical worship, pastoral care and preaching, and developing discipleship and leadership. Dr. McLean is also a photophysicist who has focused on the application of laser hardening (a heat treating process) for 30 years. Pursuit of solutions in this challenging field led McLean to grow his expertise in subjects such as optics, modeling, and experimental physics, as well as to develop and publish proposals in the field.
David Newquist retired in 2010 from a career as a missionary in Taiwan with OMF International. He received a BS in physics at Wheaton College, an MS in physics at Iowa State University, and a PhD from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Arizona. In Taiwan he taught in the physics department at Tunghai University, mainly teaching astronomy and atmospheric physics. Dr. Newquist also taught an elective course on natural science and religious faith, for which he wrote the textbook in Chinese. He also was involved in the ministry of the campus church and student fellowship. He and his wife Judy now live in Kearney, Nebraska, finding opportunities the Lord brings them for spiritual interaction with Chinese people.
David Snoke is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh, where he has been since 1994.
Dr. Eric Hedin is professor emeritus of physics and astronomy at Ball State University (BSU) in Indiana. His research interests focused on computational nanoelectronics and higher-dimensional physics. Hedin developed and taught the Boundaries of Science course for six years at BSU’s Honors College. In 2013, his course came under attack by a national atheist organization for allowing student discussions in class to consider evidence that nature is not all there is and that our lives have eternal meaning and value within a universe crafted with biocentric design. Based on Hedin’s experience with this course, he wrote the recently published book, Canceled Science: What Some Atheists Don’t Want You to See, highlighting scientific evidence that points to design.
Hedin served as professor of physics and chaired the department of chemistry, physics, and engineering at Biola University from 2019–2021. He now speaks at universities around the country at God’s Not Dead Events, led by Dr. Rice Broocks. These evangelistic outreaches present evidence from science, philosophy, and history for God as Creator.
Hedin writes articles that highlight intelligent design for the Discovery Institute website, Evolution News & Science Today.
Dr. Erica W. Carlson is professor of physics at Purdue University. Dr. Carlson holds a BS in physics from the California Institute of Technology (1994), as well as a PhD in physics from UCLA (2000). A theoretical physicist, Dr. Carlson researches electronic phase transitions in novel materials. In 2015, she was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society "for theoretical insights into the critical role of electron nematicity, disorder, and noise in novel phases of strongly correlated electron systems and predicting unique characteristics." A member of the faculty at Purdue University since 2003, Dr. Carlson also serves as faculty advisor for Cru and Ratio Christi. She occasionally does speaking engagements on the intersection of Christianity and science.
Hugh Henry received his PhD in physics from the University of Virginia in 1971, retired after 26 years at Varian Medical Systems, and currently serves as lecturer in physics at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights. Dr. Henry was recently named Kentucky Commissioner for Low Level Radiation.
Jack Crenshaw received his PhD in Physics from Auburn University.
James Small earned BS and PhD degrees in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He served two years as a US Army lieutenant and was a university professor of optics and physics for 14 years—6 years at the University of Arizona and 8 years at the University of New Mexico. He then served over 20 years as a defense industry scientist, manager, and corporate executive. James is a creative inventor who has authored about 50 US patents. He serves on the board of advisors for two small technology companies. James likes to engage engineers and scientists on topics like universal moral conscience and where thoughts come from. He also likes to probe questions like "Is probabalistic radioactive decay an event without a proximal cause?”
Dr. Jeffrey Samuel Steinman graduated from California State University Northridge (CSUN) in 1981 with a double-major in Computer Science and Physics. He then earned a PhD in High Energy Elementary Particle Physics in 1988 from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) where he measured the quark structure-function of high-energy virtual photons. Dr. Steinman worked from 1988-1996 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he pioneered a variety of supercomputing technologies related to Modeling & Simulation (M&S). This work resulted in five U.S. patents, more than 80 technical papers, and technology insertion into very large military programs for the United States Department of Defense. Dr. Steinman is currently the President and CEO of WarpIV Technologies, Inc., where his supercomputing research and development in M&S continues.
Jeff Steinman is a messianic Jew who came to faith in 1985. His religious focus has been the subjects of (1) prophecy, with special emphasis on constructing a consistent timeline for the second coming of Jesus Christ, and (2) government and society by using artificial intelligence and game theory to score relationships between individuals and collectives.
John A. Bloom, PhD, is a professor of physics and the founding director of the MA, science and religion program at Biola University in La Mirada, California. Dr. Bloom earned a PhD in physics from Cornell University, then went to seminary and completed a second PhD in ancient Near Eastern studies (Old Testament backgrounds) so that he would have advanced formal training in both science and theology. For the past 29 years, he has taught a range of physics courses at Biola University, and from 2010 to 2019 he chaired the chemistry, physics, and engineering department there. He also teaches undergraduate and graduate courses that integrate Christianity and the natural sciences, and he published The Natural Sciences: A Student’s Guide with Crossway in 2015, as part of their Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition series. Dr. Bloom’s interests are wide ranging, from responding to “parallelomania” in Old Testament Studies (the overreach in claiming parallels between biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts and cultures) to advocating fine-tuning and design in cosmology and in cell biology. In 2020 he served as the invited guest editor for a special issue of Religions journal, Christianity and Science: Fresh Perspectives. In addition, he has authored and coauthored book chapters and articles that use fulfilled prophecy as evidence for the truth of Scripture. In his role as director of Biola’s science and religion program, Dr. Bloom has transitioned it from traditional on-campus courses to a fully online format, making it accessible to a global audience of students. It remains the premier conservative evangelical program of its kind in the world.
Dr. Bloom and his wife Claudia live in La Mirada with their son David and attend Fullerton Free Church in Brea, California. Dr. Bloom was an early adopter of solar energy and has had panels producing electricity for his house for over 20 years.
Kirk Bertsche earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1989. His graduate research involved the design, construction, and operation of a small, low-energy, cyclotron for radiocarbon dating. Dr. Bertsche has worked at a number of DOE national laboratories on projects involving particle accelerator design and operation, including radiocarbon dating with AMS. He has over 60 scientific publications and 18 patents.
Mike grew up with an interest in science and theology, so in 1977 he chose to go to Biola University, where he could study both subjects in detail. From there he decided to pursue a graduate degree in physics at UCLA. During his first few years of graduate school, he developed an increased interest in quantum mechanics and subatomic physics and decided to do research in a field that dealt with these subjects. Thus, he joined a high energy physics experimental group doing research at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to actively participate in research at SLAC. Mike graduated in 1988 with a PhD in high energy physics (a.k.a. elementary particle physics).
In August 1995, he accepted a job as an assistant professor of physics at the University of Oklahoma (OU) in Norman, Oklahoma. OU has a vibrant high energy physics research group involved in exciting current research. For about 15 years, he did research at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), with the DØ experiment. Currently, his research is conducted at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, otherwise known as CERN, where he is a collaborator on the ATLAS experiment. This is one of two experiments that used data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to discover the Higgs boson in 2012.
Mike loves spending time with his wife and children. They have a great church home at Wildwood Community Church in Norman, Oklahoma. Over the last few years Mike has had a number of opportunities to speak at universities and churches throughout the world and to work with Reasons to Believe on the relationship between science and Christianity. His book, The Creator Revealed, helps laypeople understand a physicist’s perspective on the evidence for the big bang and the Bible.
Randy Goodall received his BS in Physics from Caltech and his PhD from the University of Oregon in experimental physics studying the Quantum Hall Effect.
Regan Stinnett received his PhD in plasma physics from the University of Texas. He worked as a researcher and manager at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) in the areas of fusion, beams, microsystems, materials, and nanotechnology. From 2006–2012 he led SNL’s National Institute for Nano Engineering . Regan took entrepreneurial leave from SNL to start Quantum Manufacturing Technologies, Inc. where he served as president and CEO. Upon his return, Regan was part of SNL’s Advanced Concepts Group and also worked to create partnerships between national laboratories, universities, and industry. Regan received US Department of Energy awards for STEM Mentorship and Contributions to the Nuclear Weapons Program.
Richard McCall is a professor emeritus at the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy (UHSP) in St. Louis, Missouri. He earned a PhD in physics from Ohio State University with an emphasis on optical properties of organic semiconductors and conducting polymers. Further research involved the study of time-dependent and temperature-dependent behavior of photoexcited defect states in these materials. Later, he developed a strong interest in physics education. At UHSP St. Louis, he taught physics and math, focusing on applications to the human body. Interestingly, he found similar mathematical patterns for drug concentrations in the body and for defect states in polymers.
Richard lives in the metropolitan area west of St. Louis, Missouri. He enjoys spending time with family, especially his three grandchildren.
Robert Sheldon has an MA in religion (1985) from Westminster Theological Seminary and a PhD physics (1991) from University of Maryland, College Park. He has taught at the University of Bern, Boston University, University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Wheaton College. He is presently with Torch Technologies assisting the Army’s Advanced Photonics Testing Lab. His latest book, The Long Ascent: Genesis 1-11 in Science & Myth, vol. 2 will be available in fall 2019 and will be discussing the location of Eden.
Rodney Whitefield received his PhD in physics from Oregon State University in 1970. He spent his career working for IBM before retiring after 32 years of service. Since his retirement, his primary activity has been the study of biblical Hebrew, with the application of better understanding the early chapters of Genesis.
Thomas Phillips received his PhD in particle physics from Harvard University in 1986, and recently retired from the faculty at Duke University to work as an entrepreneur. He is also currently a research professor of physics at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Vaughan Rees is a principal inspector at the UK Office for Nuclear Regulation, specializing in nuclear and radiation safety. He is also an expert consultant to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Energy Agency. He has a PhD from the University of Surrey in applied nuclear physics and is author of God, Science and Creation: A Beginner’s Guide to the Beginning, a book that “gives a glimpse of the deep scientific issues with the creation of the universe and man, described in plain English with a kind and warm sense of humour.”
Theology
Balajied Nongrum currently serves as the lead consultant of research and apologetics for Reasons to Believe Asia-Pacific (RTB A-Pac). He holds a bachelor’s degree in veterinary science from the Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University, Hyderabad. After completing his master’s degree in philosophy and religion, he went on to pursue a second master’s in science and religion from Biola University, USA.
During his undergraduate studies, Balajied began grappling to understand meaning and purpose and how they are tied together with one’s existence. His transition from skeptic to ardent follower of Christ was dramatic when he learned Jesus is not only Savior but also the One who bestowed meaning to life. Thus began his journey of discovery in the pursuit of a relationship with Jesus as well as the conviction to proclaim him as Lord and Savior to others.
For the past 15 years, Balajied has served in various capacities internationally as both a speaker and trainer, equipping Christians to demonstrate the truth of the gospel and to engage non-Christians in productive dialogue. He has spoken widely on diverse subjects including ethics, philosophy, culture, science, and religion and has helped supervise training programs in Christian apologetics. His articles have appeared in A Slice of Infinity and Engage, magazines that address the topics of Christianity and its cultural relevance, as well as in the peer-reviewed Indian Theological Journal. He maintains a blog at balajiednongrum.wordpress.com where he pursues his area of interest in the intersection between science and the Christian faith.
Balajied has had the privilege of speaking in various academic institutions in India and abroad. When commending the love of Christ in schools, colleges, universities, and on the radio, his efforts have always been undergirded by apologetics. He is passionate about defending his faith and talking about the uniqueness of Christ.
At the invitation of the Election Commission, Balajied spoke on ethical voting in the specially curated Shillong Talks, ahead of the 2019 general elections in India. He has been part of similar strategic state government initiatives on peace, which have resulted in positive outcomes.
Balajied and his wife, Coniefer, make their home in the beautiful hill-station of Shillong with their son, Jedidiah.
Benjamin C. F. Shaw has a PhD in theology from Liberty University in Virginia and is president of Core Apologetics. He is the author of Trustworthy: Thirteen Arguments for the Reliability of the New Testament (IVP). Benjamin also serves as adjunct professor of theology at Liberty University and as an affiliate faculty member of Colorado Christian University. He has been working with Gary R. Habermas for over a decade to collaborate in philosophical, historical, and theological research and publishing. Ben is originally from South Florida and he has a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
Chad Brown is a pastor and Christian apologist who holds a BS in religion with a focus on youth ministry and an MTS in theological studies from Liberty University. He received a DMin in expository preaching and teaching from Liberty’s Rawlings School of Divinity. Chad’s doctoral thesis focused on combatting secular humanism with a strategy for teaching theology and apologetics to high school students. Chad teaches theology, philosophy, and apologetics at a Christian school and is writing holistic high school curriculum. He spends his summers speaking at camps and surfing. Follow him on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube @drchadbrown.
Charles “Chuck” White got his BA in history and literature from Harvard University. He then went to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and became the student minister in Boston’s Park Street Church. He began a PhD at Cambridge and finished it in Boston, specializing in nineteenth-century American religious life.
Chris Wells is the senior pastor of First Baptist Church Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. After receiving his BA in journalism and mass communication from Samford University, Chris went on to earn his MDiv and DMin in New Testament exposition from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Chris's DMin project focused on equipping Christians to make disciples through one-on-one Bible reading. Chris and his wife, Laura Don, have three children. He enjoys studying theology, watching SEC football, and writing middle-grade fiction. Follow him on Twitter at @rchriswells or Instagram at @rchriswellsauthor.
Daniel Cote is a science teacher, pastor, and Christian apologist. Dan began his career as an engineer and progressed into senior management in the semiconductor equipment industry. He then transitioned to teaching physics, philosophy, and apologetics at a Christian school.
Dan holds a BS in mechanical engineering from the University of Maine and an MS in electrical engineering from the University of Bridgeport. He also completed an MMin at Southern Evangelical Seminary and a DMin in theology and apologetics at Liberty University. In his doctoral research, Dan investigated original monotheism and the challenge it poses to naturalism and New Age beliefs.
Dan serves as associate pastor of his church and holds ordained ministerial standing in the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference. He is the founder of multimediaapologetics.com, a website ministry that defends the truth of Christianity with the goal of advancing the gospel.
Daniel Dyke received his MA in theology from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1981, and currently serves as a professor of Old Testament studies at Cincinnati Christian University in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Gavin Ortlund serves as the senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai in Ojai, CA. He holds a PhD in historical theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, an MDiv from Covenant Theological Seminary, and a BA in philosophy and religion from the University of Georgia. He is the author of several books, including Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals: Why We Need Our Past to Have a Future (Crossway), Anselm's Pursuit of Joy: An Interpretation of the Proslogion (Catholic University of America Press), and Retrieving Augustine's Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy (IVP Academic). He is also a popular blogger and writes regularly for sites like The Gospel Coalition and Desiring God, as well as his personal blog, Soliloquium.
Gavin is an ordained minister in the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference and served for six years on staff at Sierra Madre Congregational Church, where he met and became friends with Hugh Ross. Gavin has a passion for making the Christian faith clear and compelling for all different kinds of people.
Hock Seng Tan studied chemical process technology at Singapore Polytechnic University. He also studied theology and attained a doctor of theology degree from Asia Baptist Graduate Theological Seminary. He served with Singapore Campus Crusade for Christ (now Singapore CRU) from 1982–2008. Through that organization, the Lord called Hock Seng to the teaching ministry. He now serves his church in that capacity by teaching biblical studies.
Jana Harmon is a teaching fellow for the C. S. Lewis Institute in Atlanta and former adjunct professor in cultural apologetics at Biola University, where she received an MA in Christian apologetics. Jana also holds a PhD in religion and theology from the University of Birmingham (UK). Her research focused on religious conversion of atheists to Christianity and is the subject of her book Atheists Finding God: Unlikely Stories of Conversions to Christianity in the Contemporary West. She also hosts the Side B Stories podcast where former atheists and skeptics tell of their journey from disbelief to belief in God and Christianity.
Jim Johansen received his PhD in theology and apologetics from Liberty University. He earned his MS in in science and religion and MA in Christian apologetics from Biola University. He also earned his MS in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California.
John Battle received his M.Div. and S.T.M from Faith Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, and then obtained his Th.D. from Grace Theological Seminary in Indiana.
John Carpenter received his BA in religion and English at Samford University (Alabama). He has an MDiv (Fuller) and a ThM in systematic theology (TEDS), and he earned a ThM and PhD in church history from Lutheran School of Theology. He taught at overseas colleges for seven years and was a teaching assistant for Robert Fogel, a Nobel laureate at the University of Chicago. John pastors a church in Providence, North Carolina, and became aware of the need for theological and biblical scholarship to bolster the case for old-earth creationism when he realized a paucity of such sources existed. He sought to do his part to fill that need by writing an article in the Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies titled, “The Beginning of Days: A Response to Jeremy Lyon’s ‘Genesis 1:1–3 and the Literary Boundary of Day One.’”
Born in Budapest, Hungary, John Fischer is part of a family that miraculously survived the Holocaust. Dr. Fischer holds six college and university degrees, two of them doctorates. He received his PhD in Education and Religion from the University of South Florida, and a ThD in Judaic Studies from the California Graduate School of Theology. He has spoken and taught throughout the US and around the world.
Dr. Fischer serves as rabbi of Congregation Ohr Chadash (a Messianic synagogue in Clearwater, Florida), executive director of Menorah Ministries, vice president for academics at St. Petersburg Seminary and Yeshiva, rosh yeshiva (dean) at Netzer David International Yeshiva, member of the executive committee for the Messianic Jewish Rabbinic Council, and president of the International Messianic Jewish Alliance. He was also a founder of the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations and served for a number of years as its president.
Additionally, Dr. Fischer is the author of numerous articles and several books, including: The Olive Tree Connection: Sharing Messiah with Israel (1983), The Enduring Paradox: Exploratory Essays in Messianic Judaism (2000), and Messianic Services for the Festivals and Holy Days (1992). In 2004, John and his wife, Dr. Patrice Fischer, co-authored The Distortion: 2,000 Years of Misrepresenting the Relationship between Jesus the Messiah and the Jewish People, an analysis of the ongoing nature of religious anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism and the issues they raise.
John and Patrice have two grown children (Eve and Seth) and three grandchildren (Naomi, Gideon, and Jonas).
Johnson Philip is an expert in quantum nuclear physics and Christian apologetics. He earned his PhD in quantum-nuclear physics from Jiwaji University and ThD in Christian apologetics from International Theological Seminary.
Johnson started the creationism and apologetics movement in India in the 1970s. He has trained thousands of people in apologetics in 170 countries through his distance training program and has published numerous textbooks—including ones on systematic theology and apologetics—in the Malayalam language. He has also published a dictionary of theology and a four-volume Bible encyclopedia. In addition to such scholarly work, his main emphasis has always been Bible exposition and Christian apologetics meant for lay people. He is fluent in Hindi, Malayalam, and English and is a devoted student of Greek, Sanskrit, Urdu, and Arabic languages.
Joseph Palmer received his D.Min from Phoenix Seminary.
Ken Keathley is a senior professor of theology and occupies the Jesse Hendley Endowed Chair of Biblical Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, where he has been teaching since 2006. He also directs the L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture, a redemptive influence that seeks to engage culture, present and defend the Christian faith, and explore its implications for all areas of life. He is the coauthor of 40 Questions about Creation and Evolution (Kregel, November 2014) and coeditor of Old Earth or Evolutionary Creation? Discussing Origins with Reasons to Believe and BioLogos (IVP, July 2017). Ken and his wife Penny live in Wake Forest and are members of North Wake Church. They have a son and daughter, both married, and four grandchildren.
Kevin Daniels is a native inner-city Baltimorean and is currently a tenured professor in the School of Social Work at Morgan State University (MSU) and an international fellow with the International Institute Human Sciences . He was a postdoctoral fellow of the Leadership Institute at Harvard College and former senior fellow with the National Center for Health Behavioral Change (Kellogg Foundation). He is also the episcopal senior pastor at St. Martin Church of Christ. In 2015, after the Baltimore city unrest, he initiated the collaborative Cultural Competence Training for Baltimore City Police Department (BCPD) veterans and cadets on MSU’s campus and is currently working as one of the principal investigators for the community engagement portion of the Baltimore Consent Decree. This portion of the Consent Decree allows for conversational community engagement with the BCPD and communities across all nine police districts. Kevin also holds a license as a social worker and counselor and a certification as a community conferencing facilitator within the communities of Druid Heights and Madison Park.
Krista Bontrager is a theologian working in the realms of Bible exposition, the supernatural, and cultural apologetics (with a focus on race and justice). She is the cofounder of the Center for Biblical Unity and a popular YouTube teacher and podcaster.
Larry Siekawitch received his MDiv at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary with emphasis on New Testament Greek, ThM at Reformed Theological Seminary – Orlando in Reformation Studies, and PhD at University of Wales – Bangor in Historical Theology.
Mark S. Phillips is an educator, pastor, and Christian apologist who serves as vice president of academics and professor of apologetics at Tri-State Bible College in South Point, Ohio. As administrative pastor at First Baptist Church of Proctorville, Ohio, he has taught apologetics to high school students for two decades. He holds a DMin in apologetics from Southern Evangelical Seminary and enjoys integrating Scripture and science into apologetics, with a focus on general revelation, cultural apologetics, and classical methodologies.
Mark resides in Proctorville, Ohio, close to his two grandchildren. He is currently dogless, which could change at a moment’s notice. He enjoys reading, traveling, cooking, and exploring his native Appalachia.
Patrick Zukeran is adjunct professor of apologetics at Pacific Rim Christian University in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is also the founder and executive director of the ministry Evidence and Answers and he hosts the Evidence and Answers radio show. He received his BA from Point Loma Nazarene University in California, his ThM from Dallas Theological Seminary in Texas, his DMin in apologetics from Southern Evangelical Seminary in North Carolina, and his PhD in studies in biblical archaeology from Veritas International University in California.
Pete Wait serves as advisor to Anglican Frontier Missions (AFM) after pastoring the agency’s cross-cultural workers for more than 20 years. He earned a doctor of ministry from the University of the South (Sewanee, TN), School of Theology. After seminary, he spent 27 years in church ministry with a focus on renewal, evangelism, and leadership. The signature component, called “Eucharistic Healing of Nations,” of Wait’s doctoral project, “Developing A World Missions Focus,” is routinely utilized by AFM in planting the gospel among the world’s 2 billion unreached frontier people.
Old Testament scholar Richard “Rick” Hess has published a dozen books, including The Old Testament: A Historical, Theological, and Critical Introduction, and commentaries and studies on the biblical books of Genesis, Leviticus, Joshua, and the Song of Solomon. Rick is a member of the Committee on Bible Translation for the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible, and is working on commentaries on the books of Genesis and 1 and 2 Kings, and the study of ancient Near Eastern texts related to the Old Testament. Rick is ordained in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and copastors 316, a Celtic Christian church. He is also Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Denver Seminary in Colorado.
Dr. R. Scott Smith earned a PhD in religion and social ethics from the University of Southern California and an MA in philosophy of religion and ethics from Talbot School of Theology. He is currently a professor of ethics and Christian apologetics at Talbot. He has taught graduate courses in ethics, philosophy of religion, metaphysics, comparative religions, worldviews, and other courses. He is a prolific writer whose contributions span numerous articles, monographs, book chapters, reviews, and essays. Scott’s apologetics interests include addressing the fact-value split, contemporary critical theory, and the needed ontology to have knowledge. The latter topic allows him to explore the inadequacies of naturalism and nominalism to enable us to have knowledge, as well as make a positive case of what must exist for us to know what is real, including in science.
Scott lives in San Bernardino, California, with his wife, Debbie, and daughter, Anna. He enjoys saltwater fishing and Star Trek.
Ryan Willert is the founder of Meeting on Main Ministries. He received his DMin in theology and apologetics from Liberty University (Virginia). His major research topics include Gen Z studies, the Kalam cosmological argument, human sexuality, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Sarah Sumner is president of Right On Mission where she is sparking a global movement for moral courage. Dr. Sumner is the first woman theologian in U.S. history to be dean of a conservative seminary and the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Dr. Sumner has taught theology in approximately 40 seminaries/universities.
Shawn Dandridge Sr. is pastor of a small rural church in Virginia. He holds a BS in business from Averett University, an MDiv from Liberty University, an MS from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a DMin from Asbury Theological Seminary. He is an adjunct professor at Cornerstone College of Virginia. He is also a counselor and life coach.
Shawn is married and is a proud father of eight children. He enjoys reading, writing, traveling, and live music.
Shawn Madden earned his masters in library science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his PhD in historiography at the University of Texas at Arlington. He was associate professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he also served as seminary librarian. Shawn is a retired Marine and has been married to his wife Cathy for over 47 years. He is father to three children, Emily, Michael (deceased), and Nathan (deceased). Shawn currently does work in drone aerial photography and astrophotography.
Dr. Stan Wallace is president of Global Scholars, a ministry that equips Christian scholars in pluralistic universities to have a redemptive influence for Christ. He has done doctoral studies in philosophy at Marquette University and holds a doctor of ministry in Engaging Mind and Culture from Talbot School of Theology. He has served as an adjunct professor of philosophy at several institutions and has written about the integration of faith and scholarship in academic and ministry journals. Wallace has contributed to several books and edited others. Most recently, he authored Have We Lost Our Minds? Neuroscience, Neurotheology, the Soul, and Human Flourishing. Stan produces two monthly podcasts: Thinking Christianly, with Dr. J. P. Moreland, and College Faith. He also helps give leadership to the Lausanne Movement’s Academic Ministry and Educators Network and is on the board of Apologetics on Mission. His apologetic interests include the philosophy of science and ontology—the nature of reality.
Stan has been married to his college sweetheart, Lori, for 40 years, and they have four children—two daughters and two sons. He lives in the Kansas City area and enjoys reading, traveling, and good barbecue.
Stephen holds a PhD in the area of canon and text from Louisiana Baptist Theological Seminary. His focus of study was on the Gnostic texts and the canonical gospels for classwork and research. His dissertation was to do textual analysis on Codex H, covering the early patristic writings that contained readings from the LXX (Septuagint, or Greek Old Testament) and New Testament manuscripts.
Sung Wook Chung is professor of Christian theology at Denver Seminary and chair of the Korean Global Campus. He received his DPhil in Systematic Theology from Oxford University and an MDiv from Harvard University. Chung is an author, coauthor, editor, and translator of 35 books both in English and Korean. He is interested in the relationship between the Christian faith and science.
Tassos Lycurgo is a professor at the Department of Arts of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) in Brazil. He has also served on the faculties of several universities, including Oral Roberts University (ORU) in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as a visiting professor. In addition to his academic pursuits, Dr. Lycurgo is an attorney and the founder and president of Defesa da Fé Ministries, where he serves as pastor.
Lycurgo has held several positions throughout his career, including the national director of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Department and the national director of the Department of Cooperation and Promotion at the National Historic and Artistic Heritage Institute (IPHAN) in Brazil. In these roles, he was responsible for managing international and domestic relations with other institutions, such as UNESCO.
Lycurgo earned a doctorate of education in mathematics and logic from UFRN in 2002, and an MA in analytic philosophy from the University of Sussex (UK) in 1999. He also completed postdoctoral studies in Christian apologetics at ORU and sociology of law at the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB) in Brazil. He has a specialization in material and procedural labor law from Anhanguera University (UNIDERP) and holds degrees in law (URCA), philosophy (UFRN), advanced leadership (Haggai Institute in Thailand), pastoral ministry (Rhema Bible Training College in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma), and biblical studies (Rhema Bible Training College).
Tassos has written several books on various topics, including philosophy, law, education, culture, and Christian apologetics. He frequently travels domestically and internationally to speak at conferences in the secular academic and public arenas. There he advocates for faith with the aim of presenting the historical, scientific, and philosophical justifications for following Jesus Christ. Tassos is married to Camila and they have three children: Orlando, Lissa (in memoriam), and Tasya.
Ted Cabal is professor of apologetics at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he has taught apologetics and philosophy since 1998. Previously he taught at Dallas Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he received his PhD in philosophy of religion. Ted coauthored Controversy of the Ages: Why Christians Should Not Divide over the Age of the Earth (Weaver, 2017), is general editor of The Apologetics Study Bible (B&H, 2nd ed., 2017), and maintains a blog at tedcabal.com. Ted has been especially interested in the relationship of faith and reason ever since he came to faith in Christ as a professional rock guitarist and atheist while reading the book of Matthew.
Ted’s life has also been dramatically shaped by a diagnosis of terminal cancer (multiple myeloma) in 2001 followed by years of chemotherapy. Remarkably, Ted’s cancer has remained “asleep” for more than a decade without need of treatment. He and his wife, Cheri, have three married sons and eight grandchildren.
Teodor Dumitru has a PhD in biblical studies from Newburgh Theological Seminary (Indiana), an MS in software engineering from the University of Ottawa (Canada), and an MS/Bac in electronics engineering from the University of Bucharest (Romania). He developed software for Ericsson and Nokia telecommunications companies that’s used for wireless networks in Verizon and T-Mobile services. He also developed software for Qualcomm Wireless Systems that’s used for Samsung and Apple mobile phones.
Dumitru is a Christian researcher and he writes on his website, Edge Observations. He has authored several books including, The “Logos” Concept and Correlations with Contemporary Science, Isaiah 22–29: A Backbone for Other Prophecies, and Three Comings of Messiah, Three Intervals in 70 Weeks. Teodor cofounded two Christian associations and has taught several Bible studies as a Sunday school teacher.Teodor lives in San Diego with his wife and four grown children—all enthusiastic for the Lord. He enjoys coastal activities, gatherings with friends, and making presentations about the Word of God.
Thomas has served the local church for over 20 years in roles ranging from office assistant to senior pastor. Currently, he is the president of Families of Virtue, a ministry that exists to cultivate virtuous disciple makers to strengthen the family and build the church. Thomas also serves as program director for professional studies at Carolina College of Biblical Studies in North Carolina and as adjunct professor at Tri-State Bible College in Ohio. Thomas is active in his local church as pastor of families and education while he and his wife homeschool their three boys.
Arizona native Tim Boyle is a retired missionary to Japan. He holds MDiv and DMin degrees from Fuller Theological Seminary and a BS in physics from Arizona State University. From 1967 to 1968, Tim studied Japanese at the East-West Center in Hawaii and went on to serve as a short-term missionary on Hokkaido, Japan’s northern island, where he met his wife, Juji. From 1976 to 1982, Tim was a Japanese language pastor at churches in California. He is a member of the California-Pacific Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC).
Beginning in 1982, Tim and Juji were assigned, by a dual appointment of the UMC and the Presbyterian Church USA, to serve as missionaries in Japan. Their first assignment was to a rural church in Shintoku, Hokkaido. They went on to serve at the Tsukuba Christian Center in Tsukuba Science City for 21 years. Since 2007, they have lived in the Osaka-Kobe area, where Tim was first assigned to the Buraku Liberation Center and then to Kwansei Gakuin University.
Writing has long been part of Tim’s life. In 1994, he authored Bible Stories Hidden in Chinese Characters, a Japanese language book that explores “the origins of many Chinese characters and how their makeup fits in so beautifully with basic biblical truths.” An English version was released in 2001, under the title The Gospel Hidden in Chinese Characters. On behalf of Reasons to Believe, Tim has translated and published Japanese versions of The Creator and the Cosmos, Creation and Time, and The Genesis Question, and provided Japanese subtitles for Journey toward Creation (DVD).
Tim retired from missionary work in 2016. He continues to serve on the board of directors and handle communications with the Japanese branch of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. He also maintains a bilingual website at www.konkyo.org, which includes numerous RTB-related articles translated into Japanese. Tim and Juji are the parents of two adult daughters, Lisa Megumi and Jennifer Mari.
Travis Campbell received his PhD in philosophical theology from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in 2004, and currently serves as a history teacher at Deerfield-Windsor School in Albany, Georgia.
Vee Chandler earned her BA in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her MA and PhD in biblical studies from Trinity College and Seminary in Newberg, Indiana. In addition to history, she has taught the Bible as literature in public high school and many Bible courses for adults at Alamance Community College.
When her children were young, she was involved in establishing Burlington Christian Academy, a K–12 school, which has grown from 20 students to over 800 students. Her book, Biblical Boundaries of Forgiveness, was published in 2021, and she is working on the publication of her dissertation titled “Victorious Substitution: A Theory of the Atonement.”
Dr. Chandler is currently involved with a Christian ministry called Feed the Hunger, which serves the poor through partners worldwide. With this ministry, she has traveled to Haiti, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Vietnam where she has taught at Bible schools and churches. She also teaches at her local church.
Vee lives with her husband in Burlington, North Carolina. Her favorite hobby is tennis.
Mark Johnson earned a PhD from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he wrote on theologian and missiologist Lesslie Newbigin’s apologetic to the secular city. He has served with the International Mission Board (IMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention in Brazil for 30 years. Mark is associate cluster leader for theological education (TE) in the Americas and leads the TE team in Brazil. Mark teaches theology at all levels: advanced, formal, and informal. He works closely with Brazilian Baptist and Southern Baptist partners in these educational initiatives.
Mark and his wife, Caron, live in Brazil and love to help others grow in God’s Word.