Chris Southgate is a trained research biochemist and a Senior Lecturer of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter, where he also works as a Research Fellow in Theology.

His main fields of study are the science-religion debate, ecotheology and environmental ethics. Southgate’s research and teaching won him a Templeton Award, and he has since served as a Coordinating Editor of the Science and Religion Textbook Project for the Templeton Foundation. He is the principal author and coordinating editor of God, Humanity and the Cosmos, a much-praised textbook on the science-religion debate, in addition to several anthologies of poems.

Southgate is also Acting Principal and Dean of Studies of the South-West Ministry Training Course, an ecumenical scheme to train clergy in Southwest England.

Southgate earned his PhD in Biochemistry from Cambridge University. His other academic achievements include a BA Hons. in Natural Sciences, a certificate of Theology, and a General Ministry Certificate of the Church of England. Southgate was also the keynote speaker at the International Congress on Science and Religion in Tehran.

Southgate is currently Principal Investigator on the project ‘Information and the Origin of Life’, collaborating with the Dept’s Honorary University Fellow Dr Andrew Robinson.