National Conference

Thirty-first Annual National Conference

Science, Faith, and the Common Good

Boston College, Boston, MA

October 8-10, 2021

At this year’s Lilly Fellows National Conference, we will come together to explore the fruitful ways in which science and religious faith can mutually enrich one another. Although there has been a long history of animosities between science and religion, in this conference we will hearken to voices witnessing to their compatibility and cooperation. We will ponder how this reinvigorated conversation and cooperation can benefit the common good of humankind – what Pope Francis called “care for our common home.”

This theme is most appropriate, as the Lilly Fellows Program has begun a new stage of its mission. Branching outward from many years of conversations focused on the humanities and arts, the Lilly Fellows Program is now developing new models for integrating faith, higher learning and research in the fields of the natural sciences, social sciences and professional disciplines through its Faculty Fellows Program.

At the same time, Boston College has inaugurated its Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society, using science and technology to search for solutions to society’s most pressing challenges, while educating the next generation of science leaders in the areas of energy, health and the environment. These are the goals of its new interdisciplinary initiatives and undergraduate majors in “Global Public Health and the Common Good,” and “Human Centered Engineering.”

Plenary speakers:

Stephen Barr, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Delaware
Thea James, Vice President of Mission and Associate Chief Medical Officer, Harvard University and Boston Medical Center
Nancy Murphy, Senior Professor of Christian Philosophy, Fuller Theological Seminary