With grant support from the John Templeton Foundation, the NDIAS will help chart a new course for future scholarship with its Templeton Colloquia that encourage scholars to reflect on the broad questions that link multiple areas of inquiry and to do so in a manner that embraces a value-oriented interpretation of the world. Especially important to a complex, highly technical world is the integration of the sciences, focused as they are on the descriptive, with other disciplines—namely philosophy and theology—with their concern for normative questions.
Templeton Colloquia are led by our Templeton Fellows in residence at the NDIAS. These fellowships provide an opportunity to integrate the exact sciences into a vision of the unity of knowledge based on the categories of the true, the good, and the beautiful; an opportunity to foster a vibrant and substantive interdisciplinary exchange in which ”secular” and spiritual knowledge are seen not in opposition to but as complementary elements of the human pursuit of truth.
This year’s Templeton Fellows at the NDIAS are Douglas Hedley and Jonathan Marks, both scholars with extensive records of academic accomplishment.
Douglas Hedley (left) is Reader in Hermeneutics and Metaphysics at the University of Cambridge in the Faculty of Divinity. He specializes in Neoplatonism, the Cambridge Platonists, aspects of Romantic and Idealistic thought, and Philosophy of Religion. His research project, while in residence at the NDIAS, is titled “The Iconic Imagination.” Professor Hedley’s research assistants are: Sarah Lovejoy and Jack Yusko.
Jonathan Marks (right) is Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and specializes in the study of human evolution and human diversity. His primary interest lies at the intersection of anthropology, evolution, and genetics. His research project, while in residence at the NDIAS, is titled “How to Think about Human Evolution.” Professor Marks’s research assistants are: Sean Gaudio and Iona Hughan.
The research projects of the two Templeton Fellows at the NDIAS explore broad questions that link multiple areas of inquiry, integrating the exact sciences into a vision of the unity of knowledge based on the categories of the true, the good, and the beautiful. Undergraduate Research Assistants work up to ten hours per week alongside the fellows, contributing to a vibrant and substantive interdisciplinary exchange in which ”secular” and spiritual knowledge are seen not in opposition to but as complementary elements of the human pursuit of truth. Eric Bugyis, Undergraduate Research Coordinator and NDIAS Alumni Fellow, oversees the contributions of the research assistants.
Templeton Undergraduate Research Assistants
Sean Gaudio ’16
Pre-professional Science and Philosophy
2013-2014 Research Assistant for Jonathan Marks
Iona Hughan ’14
Program of Liberal Studies
2013-2014 Research Assistant for Jonathan Marks
Sarah Lovejoy ’14
Program of Liberal Studies
2013-2014 Research Assistant for Douglas Hedley
Jack Yusko ’14
Program of Liberal Studies
2013-2014 Research Assistant for Douglas Hedley
Undergraduate Research Coordinator
Eric Bugyis
574-631-4838
eric.bugyis.1@nd.edu
If you are an undergraduate at Notre Dame and interested in serving as a Staff Research Assistant or Research Assistant for Templeton Fellows at the NDIAS, please contact Associate Director, Donald Stelluto, for more information on the positions’ expectations.