HARVARD CATHOLIC FORUM

 

COSMIC ORIGINS AND CHRISTIAN CREATION
by Professor Karin Öberg, Harvard University
 

Co-sponsored by the
Society of Catholic Scientists and Harvard Christian Alumni Society
 
karin-oberg-cosmic-origins-talk-1-min
Thursday, September 25

5:30 PM ET
followed by a reception

 
Harvard Science Center, Hall A
1 Oxford Street, Cambridge & Livestreamed

Free and open to all; walk-ins welcome but registration requested.
 
The past 200 years have produced an explosion of scientific discoveries about human origins, life on earth and the origins of the cosmos we reside in, beginning with the Big Bang. Some of these discoveries are widely held to contradict or disprove ancient Christian understandings of divine creation and providence. Professor Öberg explores the relationship between the theological concept of creation in Genesis and modern scientific theories about the origins of the universe, the origins of life, and the origins of people.
 
 
 
Professor Karin Öberg

karin-oberg-20180213-sq1Born and raised in Sweden, Professor Öberg has taught at Harvard since 2013. Her specialty is astrochemistry and her research aims to uncover how chemical processes affect the outcome of planet formation, especially the habitability of nascent planets. She leads the Öberg Astrochemistry Group at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, which discovered the first complex organic molecule in a protoplanetary disk in 2015. She has published over 200 referreed articles, including in Nature and Science. Professor Öberg has been awarded the Harnack Lectureship by the Max Planck Society (2022), a Simons Investigator Award (2019), and the American Astronomical Society's Newton Lacy Pierce Prize (2016). Her PhD in astronomy is from the University of Leiden.