5:15 pm | Mass at Basilica of the Sacred Heart
6:15 pm | Reception at Jordan Hall of Science, Galleria
7:00 pm | Lecture in 105 Jordan Hall of Science
Cosmic Origins and Christian Creation
Karin Öberg, Ph.D.
Where does our universe come from, and what is our place in it? Some scientific discoveries about our origins, from the Big Bang to evolution, are widely believed to contradict or disprove Christian ideas of divine creation. But Truth cannot contradict Truth, and this talk explores how the two fit together, weaving one unified story about our created cosmos.
Karin Öberg is the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences at Harvard University. She obtained her B.Sc. in Chemistry from Caltech and her Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Leiden. Her scholarship aims to uncover how chemical processes in different astrophysical environments, i.e. astrochemistry, affect the outcome of planet formation, including the habitability of nascent planets.
She is also deeply invested in understanding the origins of life on Earth and its possible links to the chemistry that preceded Earth’s formation. She has published over 200 refereed articles, including in Nature and Science, and her scholarship has been recognized with the Barry Prize for Distinguished Intellectual Achievement by the American Academy of Sciences and Letters, the Harnack Lectureship by the Max Planck Society, a Simons Investigator Award, the American Astronomical Society's Newton Lacy Pierce Prize, a Packard Fellowship, and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship.
She is Board Member of the Society of Catholic Scientists and of the vice-Chair of the Board of the Pontifical University of Thomas Aquinas in Rome (Angelicum), a member of the American Academy of Catholic Scholars and Artists, and a frequent public speaker on the relationship between science and faith.
Sponsors:
University of Notre Dame College of Science
University of Notre Dame College of Engineering
McGrath Institute for Church Life
Notre Dame Chapter of Society of Catholic Scientists
Originally published at science.nd.edu.