Willem B. Drees next editor for Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science

After conducting an eight-month search and considering several academically outstanding and talented candidates, the Publication Board selected Drees.  Don Browning, co-chair of the Publication Board says, "Professor Drees is a world-class scholar with enormous energy.  He will take Zygon even beyond its present leadership position in the field of science and religion."  The current editor Phil Hefner comments,  "Willem Drees is one of the most distinguished senior religion-and-science thinkers in the world today--and he brings twenty years of experience with Zygon to his work.  He is a superb choice as editor of the journal."

Willem B. Drees is Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Ethics and outgoing Dean of the Faculty of Religious Studies of Leiden University.  In 2001 he was the Executive Director of ALLEA, All European Academies, a federation of national academies of sciences in thirty-eight European countries.  From 1995-2001 he was extraordinary professor for philosophy of nature and technology at Twente University, Enschede, the Netherlands.
Drees earned his M. Sc. in theoretical physics at Utrecht University, an M.A. in philosophy of religion from Groningen University, a Ph.D. in theology from Groningen University and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Vrije University, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His seven books include Beyond the Big Bang:  Quantum Cosmologies and God (Open Court, 1990), Religion, Science and Naturalism (Cambridge University Press, 1996), and Creation:  From Nothing until Now (Routledge, 2002).  He is the editor or co-editor of twenty books, has published more than fifty journal articles and essays in books, numerous book reviews and articles for the wider public, and has lectured widely in Europe and the United States.
Drees has served for the past six years as President of the European Society for the Study of  Science and Theology (ESSSAT). He is Vice President for Interdisciplinary Affairs of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS) and an elected member of the International Society for Science and Religion.

Zygon was founded in 1966 as a joint venture of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS) and the Center for Advanced Study in Religion and Science (CASIRAS).  These two organizations appoint members to the Joint Publication Board of Zygon. Wiley-Blackwell is the publishing agent.

For the past several years Zygon has published 1000 pages of peer reviewed articles annually. The journal is available in 3,000 academic libraries all over the world. More than 80,000 articles were downloaded in the past year.

The first issue to be published under Drees’ tenure will be the September 2009 issue.  In the interim Drees will collaborate with retiring Editor Philip Hefner to insure a smooth transition in the processing and publishing of manuscripts.  The editorial office will continue to be located at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago for the foreseeable future.

For more information, contact Don Browning, Co-chair of the Joint Publication Board of Zygon, 773-955-9252 and visit the website www.zygonjournal.org.
15/8/2008