Prof. Pranab Das is Professor and Chair of the department of Physics at Elon University and Executive Director of the Institute for Technology, Science and Culture (InTerSeCt). He was educated at Reed College and the University of Texas at Austin, where he obtained his PhD in the Dynamics of Small Asymmetric Self-Connected Hopfield Neural Networks, lectured and engaged in post-doctoral research. He moved to Elon in 1993 and, in 2004, was visiting scholar at Duke University.
A regular conference speaker, especially on science and religion, Prof. Das is the recipient of a number of awards, notably a shared award to the ISSR and InTerSeCt from the John Templeton Foundation in support of the creation and competitive distribution of a canonical library of texts in the field of science and religion. As Principal Investigator and Program Director for the Global Perspectives on Science and Spirituality (GPSS) Major Awards Program he oversees the identification, support and development of scholars and programs in science and spirituality in Eastern/Central Europe and Asia.
Selected recent publications on Science and Religion
- ‘The Intrusion of Unknowability: Chaos Theory and Free Action’ in Aesthetics and Chaos: Investigating a Creative Complicity, Grazia Marchiano ed. Traubin Press, Turin, 2002
- ‘Chaos Theory, Human Freedom and the Transcendent’ in Science and Religion, Antagonism or Complementarity. Nicolescu and Stavinschi eds. 21 Eonul Dogmatic, Bucharest, 2002. (Also appears in translation in the volume Stiinta si Religie. De la Conflict la Dialog)
- ‘Void Space and Physical Motion: Philoponus, Islam and the European Middle Ages’ in Cosmology Through Time, S. Colafrancesco and G. Giobbi eds. Mimesis Edizioni, Milan, 2003.
- ‘Emergence, Discovery and a Platonic Perspective on Complex Systems’ in Science and Orthodoxy: A Necessary Dialogue, Nicolescu and Stavinschi eds. Curtea Veche, Bucharest, 2006.
