COSAC 2026 · 6–8 November · Melbourne and online
Speakers
Four keynote speakers from Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, and the moderator of the Friday public lecture.
Australia
Peter Harrison
Peter Harrison is a Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Notre Dame, Australia, and Emeritus Professor of History and Philosophy at the University of Queensland. Before joining Notre Dame he was Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Queensland. From 2014 to 2019 he was an Australian Laureate Fellow, and prior to this, the Idreos Professor of Science and Religion and Director of the Ian Ramsey Centre at the University of Oxford.
Keynote
Seeking Understanding Through Faith—and Science?
Saturday, 1:15 p.m. Also speaking at the Friday public lecture.
Aotearoa New Zealand
Nicola Hoggard Creegan
Director of New Zealand Christians in Science, based at Maclaurin Chapel, University of Auckland, Nicola Hoggard Creegan works at the interface of evolutionary theory and systematic theology. Her book Animal Suffering and the Problem of Evil asks what God’s presence in a suffering natural world means for Christian faith. She trained first in mathematics and biology, and chairs A Rocha Aotearoa New Zealand.
Keynote
Entangled Worlds: Science, Theology and the Disruption of Mātauranga Māori in Aotearoa
Saturday, 9:15 a.m.
United Kingdom
Nick Spencer
Senior fellow at Theos, a UK religion and society think tank, Nick Spencer writes and speaks on the relationship between faith, science, and public life. His Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion is a landmark challenge to the tired “conflict narrative,” a richly researched account of how intertwined these two ways of knowing have always been.
Keynote
Entangled Humans: What Science Can (and Cannot) Tell Us About Ourselves
Sunday, 10:30 a.m. Also speaking at the Friday public lecture.
Australia
Paul Tyson
Paul Tyson is a philosophical theologian whose work rethinks the metaphysical assumptions underlying modern science. In A Christian Theology of Science, he draws on Christian Platonism and the sociology of knowledge to ask how faith and science might move beyond dialogue towards genuine mutual transformation.
Keynote
No Conflict? Thomas Huxley’s Scientific Naturalism and the De-Christianisation of the West
Sunday, 1:30 p.m.
Moderator, Friday Public Lecture
Australia
James Carleton
James Carleton presents God Forbid, a weekly program on ABC Radio National. He spent a decade as a reporter and alternate presenter on RN Breakfast, and has reported for 7.30, produced Media Watch, and written for The Sydney Morning Herald.
Moderating
A conversation with Peter Harrison and Nick Spencer
Friday, from 7 p.m., Werner Brodbeck Hall
Watch
Hear the Speakers in Conversation
Before the conference, the four keynote speakers joined two free online sessions, the COSAC Conversations, co-hosted with New Zealand Christians in Science.