Pranab Das, physics department chair and associate professor at Elon University, has secured a $2 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation to support research in the field of science and spirituality. Das will serve as program director and principal investigator for Global Perspectives on Science and Spirituality, an international project that will provide research support for non-Western scholars.
Through 2006, scholars from Eastern Europe, Central Europe and Asia will receive grants to explore questions about the relationship of science and spirituality in the world, such as the role of spirituality in healing. Their findings will be published in major publications and are expected to generate new regional research initiatives around the world, Das says.
“The Global Perspectives awardees will bring to the discipline unique insights,” says Das. “They will offer cultural, scientific and technological experiences from Eastern Europe and Asia that are quite different from those of the West.”
Global Perspectives on Science and Spirituality will be administered through Elon and the Interdisciplinary University of Paris, a private research organization that supports research and teaching.
Das has been a member of the Elon faculty since 1993. He has been an advocate of interdisciplinary collaboration to further scientific understanding, and has worked closely with a number of Elon colleagues in a wide range of disciplines. In 2001, he joined 60 of the world’s leading scientists in Paris for a dialogue focusing on the relationship of science and spirituality called “Science and the Spiritual Quest II.”
Das has three books in various stages of publication. He specializes in chaos theory and looks at neural networks in the brain. He has a bachelor’s degree from Reed College and a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin.
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