Francis Sellers Collins is an American physician-geneticist noted for his discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the Human Genome Project (HGP). He currently serves as Director of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

Prior to being appointed Director, he was the founder and president of the BioLogos Foundation, an organization that promotes discourse on the relationship between science and religion and advocates the perspective that belief in Christianity can be reconciled with acceptance of evolution and science.

Collins also wrote the New York Times bestseller, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, which discusses Collins’ conversion from atheism to Christianity, evaluates the evidence for Christianity, and argues for theistic evolution. In 2009 Pope Benedict XVI appointed Collins to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Collins received a PhD in Physical Chemistry at Yale University in 1974 and then enrolled in medical school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earning there an MD in 1977.