Reflections on Aristotle and Aquinas for the 21st Century
Friday, March 21st: Does character matter? What are virtues and are they relevant today? How might faith help or hinder one’s character formation? Theologian Dr. Ben Burkholder (PhD, Duquesne) will be speaking on the topic of the relevancy of virtue ethics for today, followed by audience Q&A.
Join us on February 27, 2025 for a global, multi-generational day of prayer for revival and awakening on college campuses worldwide.
We will be broadcasting our annual Collegiate Day of Prayer Simulcast from Texas A&M on Thursday, February 27th at 8-11pm ET. Would you pray with us, and join in this global, multigenerational day of prayer for revival and awakening on college campuses by tuning into livestream?
It should constantly be our care to see God’s presence in everything, and not only to raise our minds to him when we are at prayer. — Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)
How do you plan to observe Lent this year? Will you fast from something?
Will you add a devotional experience? The options before us are vast, but one thing tends to reliably bear fruit: sharing one’s Lenten practice with a community. Whether you have never observed a Lenten prayer practice before or if you have regular traditions, we invite you to enter into a gentle rhythm of prayer with us this year.
During Lent, InterVarsity’s Emerging Scholars Network, Women Scholars and Professionals, and Faculty Ministry invite you to a “retreat in daily life.” Starting on Ash Wednesday, March 5, we will follow an adapted version of the Spiritual Exercises together.
March 12, Noon
with NICOLE MASSIE MARTIN In this transformative resource for leaders of all ages, Nicole Massie Martin leads us through seven areas of traditional leadership that need to be reframed: power, ego, speed, performance, perfection, loyalty, and scale.
February 20, Noon
We might be discouraged, disillusioned, or devastated by our work. We might experience trauma or harassment on the job, or we may have experienced work loss by getting fired. If you’ve been beat up, burnt out, or brokenhearted by work, you’re not alone.
Saturday, January 25, 2025 at 1:00 pm ET/10:00 am PT
“AI & Christianity” with Joanna Ng and Rosalind Picard. 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 Derek Schuurman will be facilitating this important conversation.
Joanna Ng is a former IBM-er, pivoted to a start-up founder, focusing on Artificial Intelligence, specialized in Augmented Cognition, by integrating with IoT and Blockchain, in the context of web3, by applying design-thinking methodology. With forty-nine patents granted to her name, Joanna was accredited as an IBM Master Inventor. She held a seven-year tenure as the Head of Research, Director of the Center for Advanced Studies, IBM Canada. She has published over twenty peer-reviewed academic publications and co-authored two computer science books with Springer, The Smart Internet, and The Personal Web. She published a Christianity Today article called “How Artificial Intelligence Is Today’s Tower of Babel” and published her first book on faith and discipleship in October 2022, titled Being Christian 2.0.
Rosalind Picard is founder and director of the Affective Computing Research Group at the MIT Media Laboratory; co-founder of Affectiva, which provides Emotion AI; and co-founder and chief scientist of Empatica, which provides the first FDA-cleared smartwatch to detect seizures. Picard is author of over three hundred peer-reviewed articles spanning AI, affective computing, and medicine. She is known internationally for writing the book, Affective Computing, which helped launch the field by that name, and she is a popular speaker, with a TED talk receiving ~1.9 million views. Picard is a fellow of the IEEE and the AAAC, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. She holds a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech and a Masters and Doctorate, each in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, from MIT. Picard leads a team of researchers developing AI/machine learning and analytics to advance basic science as well as to improve human health and well-being, and has served as MIT’s faculty chair of their MindHandHeart well-being initiative.
Many of our local chapters, affiliates, and partner organizations will be hosting watch parties and a list of them will be posted here as we get closer to the event. If you are interested in holding a watch party, email dana@asa3.org.
Passing of Henry Brecher
Henry Heinz Brecher, life-long devoted member of the Byrd Center, passed away July 27, 2024, just shy of his 92nd birthday. Henry joined his first polar expedition in 1959 to Byrd Station in Antarctica. He was immediately captivated and joined a subsequent tractor train traveling from Byrd Station to Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in 1960, where he took snow measurements for Richard Goldthwait of Ohio State’s Institute of Polar Studies (now the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center). Henry was invited to work with Doc Goldthwait at Ohio State in 1965, marking the start of his 60-year commitment to the OSU Byrd Center. Henry participated in numerous field campaigns to Antarctica, Africa, Greenland, Canada, and Peru, working with various Byrd Center research teams and engaging with countless students.
Henry completed degrees at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Ohio State, and ITC in Delft, Netherlands. While he officially retired from Ohio State in 1988, Henry continued to collaborate at the Byrd Center, and even came in and worked in his office most days to remain an active member of the Byrd research and outreach communities. He was known for his willingness to volunteer, excellent copy-editing prowess, and enthusiasm to join colleagues for a meal. Henry’s spirit was captured in a 2022 interview where he said of his career, “It has been better than working for a living.”
The Henry Brecher Technical Achievement Award and Henry Brecher and Garry McKenzie Endowed Undergraduate Scholarship both honor Henry’s contributions to the Byrd Center. Brecher Glacier and Mount Brecher, both in Antarctica, are named for Henry.
His Byrd Center family will miss him deeply, but we find peace in knowing that he has now been reunited with his biological family that he lost so long ago.
To learn more about his life, please read Who is Henry Brecher?, written by Savannah Stearmer.
Should you have a fond memory or photo of Henry that you would like to share, please email to byrd-contact@osu.edu. These will be shared at a Byrd Center gathering in Henry’s memory to be announced.
Henry Brecher at the Nordkette peak in Innsbruck at 2300 meters above sea level. 2022. Image credit to Emily Mazan.
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Date and Time: June 12, 2024 08:00 PM Eastern Time
Believe it or not, the book of Genesis might have been the most Darwinian text in the ancient world. And throughout the opening books of Scripture, we find ideas that would also become prominent insights of the biologist Charles Darwin interlaced with the Bible’s one-of-a-kind origin story. Biblical scholar Dru Johnson calls us beyond typical creation-versus-evolution debates to explore the conceptual worlds underlying both Scripture and evolutionary science. He points toward remarkable continuities and discontinuities between the Bible’s central concerns and those of Darwin and modern science—ideas so fundamental that they can easily escape our notice.
Dru Johnson (PhD, University of St. Andrews) directs the Center for Hebraic Thought and has been a research fellow at the Herzl Institute (Jerusalem), Logos Institute (St. Andrews), and Henry Center (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School). He is the author or editor of numerous books, including Biblical Philosophy, Human Rites, and Knowledge by Ritual. He is ordained as an EPC minister and is cohost of the OnScript podcast.
