"When the Green Movement Meets Jesus:
A Christ-Like Model of Environmental Leadership"

The world today is facing an unprecedented convergence of environmental crises—from climate change, biodiversity loss, and widespread pollution. These challenges threaten the foundations for sustainability of both human and natural systems. Despite scientific warnings and proven solutions, our individual and collective responses to these issues remain grossly inadequate. Based on a book by the same title, this plenary discussion wrestles with some key questions: what if all environmental leaders applied a Christ-like model to environmental leadership at all levels, from the home, community, nationally and globally? What are the core elements of a Christ-like model to environmental leadership? How can one start to apply such a model?

Drawing from a deep fusion of the speaker’s Christian journey and professional environmental leadership experience, this session reimagines environmental leadership through the ten core ­elements of Jesus’s leadership style. We will go on a journey across each of these ten transformative leadership principles—from the power of visionary purpose, passion, sustainable financing to self-sacrificial service and transcendence. Jesus embodied each of these principles. Today’s conservation leaders can apply the same principles as a strategic roadmap for mobilizing people, communities, and institutions toward a more just, equitable, sustainable and most of all a more loving world for people and nature.

This plenary will challenge environmental leaders to go from business-as-usual into mission-driven and values-based Christ-like leadership. By aligning our environmental conservation mission with the moral clarity of Christ-like leadership, a new generation of leaders can emerge with a renewed conviction of love for humanity and nature.

Robert Ddamulira (PhD, University of Delaware) is an accomplished systems thinker and global energy policy expert with over 20 years of experience in climate change, energy, and sustainable development. He is currently a board member of Au Sable Environmental Institute and trustee of The Nature Conservancy Pennsylvania and Delaware Chapter. Robert also serves as an Environment program officer at the C.S. Mott Foundation. Previously, he has held significant positions including researcher at the University of Delaware, Africa Energy Coordinator at the World Wide Fund for Nature, and environmental officer at Tullow Oil.

Robert is a prolific researcher with over 100 publications and has received numerous awards including the DENIN Fellowship Award (2019–2020) and the Rotary International Vocational Award (2017).

Robert is a lay member of the Dominicans’ Order of Preachers (OP) within the Catholic Church. He enjoys reading, writing, and spending time with his family in Flint, Michigan, which includes his wife Lydia, daughter Blessing (8 years old), and son Miracle (2 years old). On regular mornings, weather permitting, he jogs for 20–30 minutes on nearby forest or river trails.

The views and opinions expressed by Robert are his own and do not represent those of any of his current, previous, or future affiliations.

"Narrative Intelligence:
The Agency and Authorial Leverage of Storytelling Amidst Advancements in AI"

This keynote offers an integrated perspective on science, storytelling, and human behavior, with the overarching goal of aligning our passions with our purpose. Amidst the increasing desire for better AI, scientists must regularly answer to what it means for intelligence to be better and to what benefit we improve our inventions.

George Washington Carver, agricultural professor and inventor of the early 1900s, described our aspirations ultimately as our soul’s search for Truth. Our sense of advancement (toward truth), however, is weighted by the stories we can fit around our belief systems. In that sense, intelligence is crafted in our image, designed to serve the purposes that align with those narratives. If we suppose the greatest commandment is to love with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and we are not to delegate this to the tools we invent, then what agency do we have, as scientists, to tell the best stories that uncover and liberate Truth?

The main takeaways of this talk are (1) a brief history of Narratology and AI, (2) Behavioral Machine Learning and how well large language models can predict human sentiment, and (3) the amount of agency we have in our callings and what stories we want to author in light of that.

Sherol Chen has worked in artificial intelligence (AI) for over a decade. Currently, she is part of Google Research, working toward the expressivity of machine learning models. At Google, Sherol has advised on Machine Learning for Cloud enterprises as a subject matter expert, worked in research at Google Brain for Machine Learning in Music and Creativity for project Magenta, and built algorithmic search results for YouTube. She has taught AI for Stanford University Pre-Collegiate around the world in Kazakhstan, China, India, Chile, and Peru. Her PhD work is in computer science, researching storytelling and AI at the Expressive Intelligence Studio.

Sherol is also a founding member of the Google InterBelief Network and served as an inaugural steering committee member for Christians. Today, Sherol serves on the board of directors for the Monterey Jazz Festival as well as on various advisory boards. All Sherol’s views and opinions are her own and do not represent her affiliations.

"The Power of Partnerships to Bring About a Transformed World that Honors God Amid Mega-trends Affecting our World, the Church, and the Creation"

In this session, Abram J. Bicksler, the President and CEO of ECHO, will discuss ECHO's global work and its unique network of thousands of agricultural workers and organizations to reduce hunger and improve lives in over 190 countries. ECHO accomplishes this by co-creating and synergizing science, indigenous local agricultural knowledge, and faith. With that backdrop, learn about some of the mega-trends affecting the world now and in the future and how God is at work through His people in the world. You’ll gain practical insights into Biblical holism, the state of the Global Church, and how agriculture development and Creation Care impact lives globally by synergizing faith and science.

Abram J. Bicksler earned his Doctorate and Master’s degrees from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, focusing on sustainable cropping systems, and completed his Bachelor’s degree at Taylor University in Environmental Science and Biology. As a global leader, networker and researcher in sustainable food and agricultural systems, Abram has been published in a myriad of peer-reviewed journals and various FAO and extension publications. He enjoys combining the practice of agriculture at the farmer-innovator level with the rigors of the scientific method, enabling co-creation and sharing of knowledge.

While at FAO, Bicksler guided and advised on agroecology and sustainable food systems initiatives in multiple world regions through technical and policy means. Before serving in Rome, Bicksler led the ECHO Asia Impact Center’s international staff team, coordinated and implemented regional networking and training events, initiated research culminating in multiple published studies, planned and began execution of the ECHO Asia Small Farm Resource Center, and grew the capacity of the ECHO Asia Seed Bank. As a visionary President/CEO of ECHO, Abram has led the ECHO team in re-imagining ECHO as a global organization with four Regional Impact Centers (RICS) serving a diverse and growing network worldwide by regionalizing resources and approaches. Building and serving ECHO’s diverse network with excellence is at the core of ECHO, and Bicksler has woven this throughout the year-long participatory strategic framework development process to lead and guide ECHO into the next five years of its history while fundraising to operationalize new Regional Impact Centers and initiatives in areas of greatest need and potential around the world.

Publications

• Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE)
• Sustainable Crop Pollination Services
• Climate Information for Farming Communities: What Farmers Need and What is Available
• 2025 Community Seed Bank Options Handbook

“Science as Worship in the Laboratory and the Church”

Most research scientists experience beauty, wonder, and awe from time to time in the course of their work. Christians in the sciences can take that experience further. Everything we learn using the tools of science reveals more about how creation worships God and witnesses to his glory. Our own worship—our prayers, praise, and indeed every aspect of our daily lives—can be magnified and enhanced by the discoveries of science. We are in the perfect position to help the Church learn how to use science to enhance our worship practices.

Ruth will explore a theological understanding of creation’s praise, the intrinsic value of science for worshipping God by enjoying his creation, and the utilitarian value of science for increasing the Church’s worship.

Although we cannot predict much about the new heavens and earth, these forms of worship may well be accessible to us, so we should help the Church start practicing now!

Ruth Bancewicz is Church Engagement Director at the Faraday Institute, where her remit is to equip and encourage UK churches to include engagement with science as part of their regular ministry and mission. She studied Genetics at Aberdeen and Edinburgh Universities, and (more recently) Theology, Ministry and Mission at Ridley Hall. After graduating she was Development Officer for Christians in Science, at the same time as doing Postdoctoral Research at Edinburgh University. Ruth joined the Faraday Institute when it was founded in 2006, to develop resources for churches. She was appointed as the Faraday Church Engagement Director in 2018, remains a member of Christians in Science, and is an elected Fellow of their US counterpart, the American Scientific Affiliation. Her current theology studies are with Highland Theological College. She is a Senior Research Associate at St Edmund’s College, cambridge, and a member of City Church Cambridge.

"Fearfully and Wonderfully (Self)Made:
Christian Faith and the Wonder of the Embryo"

The transformation of each of us from a fertilized egg to an organism with trillions of cells arranged in incredibly complicated ways is a wonder of biology. Each person is truly a “self-made” individual, as the future-directed program of development unfolds from humble beginnings.

Biologists are beginning to unlock the secrets of the embryo in increasing detail. The intricacies of this cellular world provide opportunities to experience profound beauty, wonder, and worship, and touchpoints with our students and colleagues.

The science of the embryo also raises larger questions for us as Christians: How should we situate the modern science of embryos—and ourselves—within the sweep of the biblical story? And how should our wonder and worship condition how we think about emerging technologies enabled by the remarkable ability of its cells to self-organize?

ASA member Jeff Hardin is the Raymond E. Keller and Wayland Noland Distinguished Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW). Jeff received his BS in Zoology and BA in German from Michigan State University, followed by a Master of Divinity degree at the International School of Theology. Jeff then pursued a PhD in Biophysics under Ray Keller at the University of California-Berkeley. After postdoctoral work at Duke University, Jeff joined the Zoology Department (now the Department of Integrative Biology) at UW in 1991.

Jeff’s research focuses on the basic cellular mechanisms that transform the shape of animal embryos during embryonic development. Jeff is also an award-winning biology educator and lead author of the widely used text, World of the Cell (Pearson).

He has extensive interests in the intersection of science and religion. Jeff is an affiliate in the Religious Studies program at UW; with historian Ron Numbers he co-founded the Isthmus Society to promote dialogue between the sciences and religion, and he co-edited The Warfare between Science and Religion: The Idea That Wouldn’t Die (Johns Hopkins University Press).

Nationally, Jeff served for many years as the Board Chair of the BioLogos Foundation, and as an advisor to the Dialogue on Ethics, Science, and Religion at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.