A staff scientist with the Vatican Observatory Research Group at Castel Gandolfo, Italy, and the University of Arizona, William R. Stoeger, S. J. is also an adjunct associate professor of astronomy at Arizona. He specializes in theoretical cosmology and high-energy astrophysics. Through his teaching and writing, he has contributed to epistemological aspects of the interrelationships of science, philosophy, and theology. A member of the Society of Jesus since 1961, Dr. Stoeger was graduated summa cum laude from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, and earned a master’s degree in physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1969. He received a second master’s degree in sacred theology at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California, and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1972. He received a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Cambridge University in 1979, the year he joined the staff of the Vatican Observatory as an astronomer. In the past, Dr. Stoeger’s research dealt with various problems connected with the physics of accretion onto black holes and mathematical and physical issues connected with torsion and bi-metric theories of gravity, as well as the harmonic map structures contained in gravitational theories. More recently, with colleagues in South Africa, England, and the United States, he has been concentrating on observationally-oriented projects in theoretical cosmology in an attempt to build more adequate bridges between theory and
cosmologically-relevant astronomical observations. He spent a sabbatical year in the applied mathematics department at the University of Cape Town and has been the Visiting Davies Professor at the University of San Francisco. Secretary of the Vatican Observatory Foundation, Dr. Stoeger serves on the board of advisors of The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) in Berkeley, California. He has published nearly one
hundred articles in scientific and other journals and was co-editor of the Philosophy in Science book series devoted to philosophical issues arising within the sciences. In addition, he has edited or co-edited four other books, including, most recently, (with Robert J. Russell and Francesco Ayala) Evolutionary and Molecular Biology: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, which was published in 1998 by the Vatican Observatory and CTNS.