I have been Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia since 1978 and Director of the Center for the Study of Science and Religion since 1999. I am as well a Lecturer at the Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (since 1998), an adjunct Professor for Science and Religion at Union Theological Seminary (since 2002), and at New York Theological Seminary (since 2008), and an adjunct professor of Religion (since 2002). I was Dean of Columbia College from 1982 to 1989. I received the Alexander Hamilton Medal from Columbia University and the Gershom Mendel Seixas Award from the Columbia/Barnard Hillel, and have held a Guggenheim Fellowship. 

In fall 2009 I will be the director of the Biology Department's Independent Research course, C3500. Since 2006 I have been a member of the teaching faculty of the Columbia College Core course, Frontiers of Science. I teach two sections of the Seminar in the fall semester, as well as presenting three plenary lectures, on the emergence of information, life and consciousness. In the spring semester I teach a graduate course at Union Theological Seminary CE220 “DNA, Evolution and the soul.” I also teach a 4-day intensive course on the same subject in January, at the New York Theological Seminary.

I am the author of more than a hundred research papers on the oncogenic phenotype of mammalian cells in culture. In addition I have written many opinion pieces and reviews on aspects of molecular biology, medical ethics and science education, and have edited two books on these matters for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

In 1994 I chose to cease my own basic research in the laboratory, and to concentrate instead on questions that lie at the junction of science and other intellectual and emotional domains, in particular religion. This work led to the publication of three books to date, and to the establishment of the Center for the Study of Science and Religion in 1999.

My 1994 book, Signs of Life: the Language and Meanings of DNA, received the Lionel Trilling Award, and has been translated into six languages. For more information, see Houghton Mifflin and Amazon.

My second book, The Missing Moment: How the Unconscious Shapes Modern Science, was published by Houghton Mifflin and translated into Japanese in 2001.

My 2000 book, The Faith of Biology and the Biology of Faith: Order, Meaning and Free Will in Modern Science, was published as the inaugural volume of a Columbia University Press series of books on Science and Religion.

I am currently working on a book on the persistence of identity, and also, with my wife Amy, working on a children’s book on Grandparents.

The CSSR has received support from the Office of the Vice Provost for Research, Columbia University, the John Templeton Foundation, the Cummings Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Metanexus, and the Fetzer Institute. Since 2002 the CSSR has been a center of the Earth Institute of Columbia University, which also provides an operating grant.

CSSR Seminars and Symposia are open to the public, but require an RSVP by email to CSSR@columbia.edu. The CSSR website features videos of all public events.

I serve on the Boards of the Columbia/Barnard Hillel and Congregation Ramath Orah. I am a Fellow of the AAAS. I have been a member of the Century Association since 1997.

My grandparents were immigrants to the United States from Eastern Europe. I grew up in Brooklyn, attended P.S. 188, Mark Twain Junior High School, Abraham Lincoln High School and Columbia College, graduating with a major in physics in 1961. I hold a Ph.D. in biology from Brandeis University. I have been a research scientist at the Weizmann Institute and at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, an assistant professor of Pathology at NYU Medical Center and an associate professor of Microbiology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Curriculum Vitae

Center for the Study of Science and Religion

Frontiers of Science

DNA, Evolution and the Soul