Saturday, January 24, 2026 at 1:00 pm ET/10:00 am PT

"The Role of Worship in Virtue & Character Development" with Charlotte and John Witvliet. This free 75-minute virtual symposium is open to ASA members and the general public alike. It includes key elements of the ASA approach — an opening talk on a vital science-faith issue of the day followed by Q&A. We are delighted that ASA Fellow Se Kim will be facilitating this important conversation.

Charlotte V. O. Witvliet, Ph.D. serves as a Senior Scholar with the Belmont Formation Collaborative for Initiatives focused on Whole Person Formation, Mental Health and Flourishing. She is also a Professor of Clinical Psychology and Character Formation. 

As she begins her work at Belmont during the 2025-2026 academic year, she is serving as a team member on the Belmont Formation Collaborative, as a collaborating leader for the interprofessional team of colleagues in medical fields participating Belmont's Kern National Network, as a contributor to internal assessment and research-related projects, and as a leader for virtue-related formation groups for students, staff, and faculty. Beyond Belmont, she is active in virtue-related research projects led by colleagues at Baylor University and Hope College, while also serving as a member of the Templeton Religion Trust Steering Committee.

Charlotte trained as a scientist-practitioner clinical psychologist at Purdue University and the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center affiliated with Duke University. Serving Hope College for 28 years, Charlotte invested in students through psychology coursework, co-directing an internship program, running an emotion and psychophysiology research lab, as well as mentoring students and collaborating with colleagues. She is grateful for awards and endowed professorships, and particularly proud of her students—their integrity and dedication to discovery, 15 Psi Chi Regional Research Awards, many presentations and publications. She conducted research on embodying virtue and mental health with a focus on fostering flourishing especially in facing challenges.

Charlotte’s scholarly contributions have illuminated the emotional and physiological side effects people experience when responding to interpersonal offenses, holding grudges and ruminating, cultivating forgiveness, welcoming accountability, generating gratitude, and engaging hope. Charlotte’s publications have appeared in journals such as Psychological Science, The Journal of Positive Psychology, and the Journal of Psychology and Theology.

Her work was supported by grants from The John Templeton Foundation, Templeton Religion Trust, and the Fetzer Institute, and she now serves on the Steering Committee of the Templeton Religion Trust. Her research has been featured in media outlets, including Time, Newsweek, O: The Oprah magazine, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, CNN, and Hidden Brain.

John D. Witvliet serves as senior scholar and program advisor for missional initiatives and professor of theology, worship and the arts at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he nurtures engagement around Belmont's ecumenical Christ-centered mission across Belmont’s 12 colleges, leads the team which implements campus-wide spiritual life programming, serves as theologian-in-residence for the Belmont Formation Collaborative, and facilitates plans related to worship and the study of worship on campus.

During the 2025-2026 academic year, he is leading several formational learning groups on character education, liturgical formation, receptive ecumenism, and the virtue of hope for Belmont students, staff, and faculty, serving on several university-wide planning teams, and visiting congregations throughout the Nashville area.  He also serves as contributing editor of Comment magazine.

Prior to joining the Belmont faculty in June 2025, he served for 28 years as the founding director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship (CICW) and professor at Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary, where he continues to serve as senior advisor.  At CICW he led teams which published works on fourth, sixteenth, twentieth century liturgical history,  edited multi-cultural collections of congregational song and choral music, organized Calvin University’s annual Symposium on Worship, collaborated on seminars hosted in Nepal, Mexico City, Northern Ireland, and Hong Kong, organized travel seminars in Northern Ireland and in the Southern United States, administered a small grants program which awarded grants to over 1300 worshiping community and teacher-scholars from Orthodox, Roman Catholic, mainline, evangelical, Pentecostal and non-denominational church traditions,  shaped a learning collaborative among the 142 grantees in Lilly Endowment’s Compelling Preaching Initiative, and curated comprehensive web resource libraries.

His areas of expertise and publications include Trinitarian theology of worship and the sacraments, the Psalms, intergenerational faith formation, and worship-related arts, especially congregational music for worship and choral music. Since 2020, he has co-led exploratory courses on cultural intelligence, African-American Religious Autobiography, and global Christianity.

Se Kim is trained in genetics and neuroscience, and her research work focused on the role of epigenetics in mammalian brain function and plant stress response. She received her BS in biochemistry from The University of Texas at Austin, a PhD in molecular and human genetics from Baylor College of Medicine, and an executive MBA from the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. Currently, Se serves as the Director of Membership and Governance at the National Academies of Medicine, where she oversees the election and works closely with the Board on Academy initiatives and member engagement. Previous to the National Academies, she was the Deputy Chief Program Officer at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and she also helped lead the AAAS Program on Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER) for five years. Se lives in the DC suburb of northern Virginia, where her husband serves as the English (young-adult) Pastor at a local Chinese-American church. She is passionate about building reflective leadership in mission-based organizations and encouraging fellow scientists to take part in engagement with faith audiences.