Emerging Scholars Blog

InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network

ESN Announce

2023 Christian Scholars Foundation Legacy Grant Announcement

Dr. George D. Montañez

Global Scholars, in partnership with InterVarsity’s Emerging Scholars Network, is delighted to announce that we have awarded the 2023 Christian Scholars Foundation Legacy Grant to Dr. George D. Montañez. Dr. Montañez, a faculty member in computer science at Harvey Mudd College, is producing an impressive set of new research in machine learning, and training the next generation of machine learning scholars and professionals. Titled “Understanding Bias in Artificial Learning,” his project will advance knowledge in the crucial area of reducing harmful impacts of bias in machine learning and artificial intelligence systems. The project continues a strong track record of work on artificial intelligence and machine learning fields, with an emphasis on mentoring and including undergraduate scholars in the process of producing new knowledge. The Christian Scholars Foundation Legacy Grant contributes funding to support research during a sabbatical period, which will contribute to a larger project. 

One of the key questions for the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning is whether people can use the tools of the field in a way that decreases harms from bias, rather than increasing them. Dr. Montañez is contributing knowledge to help solve that problem and others in these growing fields. Through the model he has developed for his Amistad lab, which engages undergraduate researchers in the publishing of new scientific knowledge, Dr. Montañez contributes to the field in these ways, among others: 

1. Publishes new research that answers necessary technical questions about bias in machine learning and other key problems 

2. Engages undergraduate students in research work and equips them for research careers 

3. Mentors a diverse group of students in a way that builds the field’s capacity to understand both technical knowledge and ethical impacts in machine learning.

Dr. Montañez has won a number of awards, including a Best Paper Award at ICAART 2020, a Claremont Colleges 2020 Diversity Mentor Award, and a Harvey Mudd 2021 Outstanding Faculty Member Award, which is “awarded to a faculty member who has gone above and beyond their job role to serve as a mentor for students and/or student organizations and embody Mudd values, such as collaboration and care for the campus community.” 

The Christian Scholars Foundation Legacy Grant committee is delighted to support this project. Please stay tuned for further updates on Dr. Montañez’s work. You can read his bio below. 

Bio for George D. Montañez

After earning his PhD in machine learning from Carnegie Mellon University, George Montañez became a data scientist with Microsoft (AI+R), and is currently an assistant professor of Computer Science at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA. He holds an M.S. in computer science from Baylor University and a B.S. in computer science from the University of California Riverside. A former NSF Graduate Research Fellow and Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, he previously served as an intern at Microsoft Research and Yahoo! Labs during graduate school. His research lies at the intersection of machine learning, algorithmic search and information theory. His work has garnered five conference awards, including Best Paper at CIKM 2014 and ICAART 2020. He is passionate about mentoring and teaching, and has worked with nearly 90 undergraduate student researchers, being awarded a Diversity Mentoring Award by the Claremont Colleges Consortium and the Iris and Howard Critchell Assistant Professorship from 2019-2022 in recognition of his mentoring efforts inside and outside the classroom.

Job Announcement: Faculty Positions at New College Franklin

New College Franklin. Photo used with permission of New College Franklin

New College Franklin has two openings for faculty:

Faculty Employment Application

School Profile:

Under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, New College Franklin disciples students through the Liberal Arts for wisdom, virtue, and service. New College Franklin is a four-year Christian Liberal Arts college dedicated to excellent academics and a community of discipleship. For centuries, the liberal arts, the freeing disciplines, have served as the curriculum for this holistic education. The student who encounters the Trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric), Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy), philosophy, literature, history, theology, and the arts will emerge as a clearer thinker, grounded in history and the Christian faith, with a deeper knowledge of God, ready to commit themselves with wisdom in love to God and to neighbor.

With this vision, all courses at New College Franklin examine human culture, emphasizing the basic classical scholastic approach of moral philosophy. Our students are entrenched in the moral drama of history by experiencing the great literary classics of theology, philosophy, poetics, mathematics, and science, including the resulting technological developments. We approach all disciplines with an emphasis on the Christian life. Out of this integrated understanding of God’s world every other subject and discipline is formed.

Our pedagogy begins with the relationship between students and professors. We do not position our professors before students as the source of knowledge but as experienced guides to knowledge. Professors and students learn together, side by side, and the key distinction between these two learners is that professors are farther along the path to knowledge and wisdom. Their lectures, questions, and guidance reflect their experience, but the professor’s experience is not the source of knowledge. 

New College Franklin Teaching Fellow Profile:

A New College Franklin teaching fellow is a Protestant Christian committed to the worship of God, personal virtue, and the life of the mind. We are seeking someone who is inquisitive and eager to learn, and one who is broadly read in the Western liberal arts tradition and the Great Ideas of literature, philosophy, theology, and history. This candidate will excel in asking penetrating questions of a text, listening to students, leading and encouraging extended discussion around texts and ideas, and helping students synthesize relevant information and aspects of the conversation. A New College Franklin professor’s primary calling should be to the classroom, leading students to develop intellectual and spiritual maturity. An interest in publishing, research, or academic development is encouraged but secondary to the intellectual and Christian life lived in a learning community which holds first place.
This candidate must be able to sign in good conscience our Statement of Faith and Faculty Code of Ethics be found on our application.

Open Positions

New College Franklin is currently seeking qualified applicants for the position of Teaching Fellow. Please see below for a general school profile, a profile of a Teaching Fellow, and review the descriptions of the particular openings.

Professor of Quadrivium: New College Franklin is seeking a Professor of Quadrivium.

An ideal candidate for this particular position will fit the Teaching Fellow profile above. Please review that profile carefully. In addition, a candidate for this position must have a deep familiarity with the history of science, natural philosophy, and mathematics, expertise in the hard sciences, and, preferably, background in philosophy of science and philosophy more generally. The candidate should have familiarity with the classical quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy) and its connection to theology, philosophy, and ethics; and also an interest in the broader Western great books tradition. They should be interested in leading students through a process of discovery through conversation, experimentation, practice, and analysis. They should also delight in interdisciplinary learning as a means of exploring the unity of truth. They will be expected to be able to teach outside of their discipline occasionally and to collaborate with the administration and faculty in developing and assessing our integrated course of study.

A minimum of a Master’s degree in a related field is required, but a Ph.D. is preferable. Previous teaching experience is required.

The candidate should have familiarity with significant authors and events in the history of western science and mathematics, including many of the following:

  • Plato
  • Aristotle
  • Euclid
  • Archimedes
  • Ptolemy
  • Nicomachus
  • Iamblichus
  • Hugh of St. Victor
  • Cassiodorus
  • Boethius
  • Copernicus
  • Kepler
  • Galileo
  • Descartes
  • Newton
  • Mendeleev
  • Lobachevsky
  • Einstein
  • Heisenberg
  • Bohr
  • Khun
  • Polanyi

Professor of Trivium: New College Franklin is seeking a Professor of Trivium.

An ideal candidate for this position will fit the Teaching Fellow profile above. Please review that profile carefully. In addition, a candidate for this position will be skilled in teaching the art of writing and rhetoric. They will also possess a deep familiarity with the Trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric), the classical liberal arts tradition and the history of western philosophy and literature. The arts form a core aspect of learning at New College Franklin and serve to integrate students into the great tradition as participants rather than just spectators. As such, we are seeking instructors who are enthusiastic about their work and who ensure that students receive timely, concrete feedback. The candidate should have a broad background in the great books of the Western tradition and be capable of teaching in other subject areas, including logic and moral philosophy, while specializing in composition and rhetoric.

A minimum of a Master’s degree in a related field is required, but a Ph.D. is preferable. Previous teaching experience is required. 

Faculty Employment Application

Fall 2023 through Winter 2024 ESN Conversations

We are thrilled with the ESN Conversations we have lined up for this fall and winter. Our topics range from the philosophy of personalism, to dispensationalism, to re-envisioning the church and rethinking the police. That’s just our fall schedule. For December, we focus on a new book on Christmas; as the new year begins we will focus on living a non-anxious life; and then in February we’ll have a conversation about re-constructing faith. We wanted to let you know so you could plan your schedule or even gather a group of friends over lunch to watch together. So here’s the line-up complete with links to sign up for those you know you want to be a part of.

ESN Conversation: More Than Things with Paul Louis Metzger

September 14, 2023 at 3 pm ET

We live in a culture of commodification. People are too often defined by what they do or own; they’re treated as means to an end or cogs in a machine. In a world dominated by things, Paul Louis Metzger argues, we must work hard to account for one another’s personhood.

Paul Louis Metzger (PhD, King’s College London) is professor of Christian theology and theology of culture at Multnomah University and Seminary and director of The Institute for Cultural Engagement: New Wine, New Wineskins.

Register for this Conversation

ESN Conversation: The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism with Daniel G. Hummel

October 5, 2023 at 1 pm ET

In The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism, Daniel G. Hummel illuminates how dispensationalism, despite often being dismissed as a fringe end-times theory, shaped Anglo-American evangelicalism and the larger American cultural imagination.

Daniel G. Hummel is a historian of US religion and the author of Covenant Brothers: Evangelicals, Jews, and U.S.-Israeli Relations. He works at Upper House, a Christian study center located on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Register for this Conversation

ESN Conversation: What Jesus Intended with Bishop Todd D. Hunter

October 25, 2023 at 1 pm ET

After four decades of ministry, Anglican bishop Todd Hunter is no stranger to betrayal and pain in the church. Still, he has hope. He believes more than ever that Jesus is who the world needs and that Jesus has plans for his followers.

Bishop Todd D. Hunter (DMin, George Fox University) leads Churches for the Sake of Others (C4SO), a diocese of the Anglican Church in North America, and was the founding pastor of Holy Trinity Anglican Church.

Register for this Conversation

ESN Conversation: Rethinking the Police with Daniel Reinhardt

November 16, 2023 at 1 pm ET

In Rethinking the Police, Reinhardt lays out a history of policing in the United States, showing how it developed a culture of dehumanization, systemic racism, and brutality. But Reinhardt doesn’t stop there: he offers a new model of policing based not in dominance and control but in a culture of servant leadership, with concrete suggestions for procedural justice and community policing.

Daniel Reinhardt (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) served as a police officer near Cleveland, Ohio, for twenty-four years. After retiring from the police force, he was assistant professor at the Heart of Texas Foundation College of Ministry at the Memorial Unit, a prison in Rosharon, Texas.

Register for this Conversation

ESN Conversation: “Christmas” with Emily Hunter McGowin

December 12, 2023 at 1 pm ET

At the first Christmas, God exchanged the glories of divinity for the vulnerability of human existence, uniting himself to us in order to unite us to God. In this short volume, priest and theologian Emily Hunter McGowin invites us into the church’s celebration of that great exchange, in all its theological and liturgical splendor.

Emily Hunter McGowin (PhD, University of Dayton) is associate professor of theology at Wheaton College. She is also a priest and canon theologian in the Anglican diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others.

Register for this Conversation

ESN Conversation: A Non-Anxious Life with Alan Fadling

January 16, 2024 at 3 pm ET

Anxiety leads us to succumb to fear and fight peace. Anxious living is a distortion of good motives, blocking the clarity of stillness and rest. Alan Fadling has also felt mastered by worry, but he brings counsel on how to learn a better way and who to look to for it: Jesus, “the ultimate non-anxious presence.” He constructs a posture from which we can rest more deeply, live more fully, and lead better.

Alan Fadling is president and founder of Unhurried Living, Inc. in Mission Viejo, California. He speaks and consults internationally. He is the award-winning author of An Unhurried Leader and An Unhurried Life

Register for this Conversation

ESN Conversation: Land of My Sojourn with Mike Cosper

February 14, 2024 ar 12 pm ET

“In the years since leaving local church ministry, I’ve devoted an enormous amount of time and resources to examining the church’s often troubled witness, its ongoing crisis of leadership, and the epidemic of narcissism, abuse, and cover-up that has continued to emerge year after year.”

Mike Cosper is a writer and podcaster for Christians in a post-Christian world. He’s the director of podcasting for Christianity Today, where he hosts The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill and Cultivated: A Podcast about Faith and Work.

Register for this Conversation

In addition to the chance to interact with these authors, one of the other benefits of participating in conversations is that the authors’ books are available at a special discount through our co-sponsor, InterVarsity Press. Of course, we understand if you are unable to attend the live conversation due to schedule conflicts. Recordings of the conversations are posted shortly after the event on our YouTube channel, to which we hope you will subscribe. There are currently 48 videos available on the channel.

Summer 2023 ESN Conversations

At least for some, the summer is a time with a little extra bandwidth. Time for vacations, catching up on research, reading a good book, or just sitting out on a lounge chair with a cool drink. At the Emerging Scholars Network, we also believe that stimulating conversation around the intersection of our faith and the concerns of our personal, academic, and societal lives can be refreshing and renewing. And one of the things we love best about these conversations is not only that they are live but that you have the chance to engage with the authors we interview. We think we have a fantastic lineup of conversations scheduled between now and September

ESN Conversation: On Getting Out of Bed with Alan Noble

May 17, 2023, 1 pm ET

We aren’t always honest about how difficult normal human life is.

For the majority of people, sorrow, despair, anxiety, and mental illness are everyday experiences. While we have made tremendous advancements in therapy and psychiatry, the burden of living still comes down to mundane choices that we each must make—like the daily choice to get out of bed.

For the majority of people, sorrow, despair, anxiety, and mental illness are everyday experiences. While we have made tremendous advancements in therapy and psychiatry, the burden of living still comes down to mundane choices that we each must make—like the daily choice to get out of bed.

Alan Noble (PhD, Baylor University) is associate professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University, cofounder and editor in chief of Christ and Pop Culture, and an advisor for the AND Campaign. He has written for the Atlantic, Vox, BuzzFeed, The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, and First Things. He is also the author of Disruptive Witness and You Are Not Your Own.

Register for this Conversation

ESN Conversation: Being God’s Image with Carmen Joy Imes

June 20, 2023, 3 pm ET

What does it mean to be human? This timeless question proves critical as we seek to understand our purpose, identity, and significance. Amidst the many voices clamoring to shape our understanding of humanity, the Bible reveals important truths related to our human identity and vocation that are critical to the flourishing of all of creation.

Carmen Joy Imes seeks to recover the theologically rich message of the creation narratives starting in the book of Genesis as they illuminate what it means to be human.

Carmen Joy Imes (PhD, Wheaton) is associate professor of Old Testament at Biola University. A graduate of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, she is the author of Bearing God’s Name: Why Sinai Still Matters, Bearing YHWH’s Name at Sinai and the editor of Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends. 

Register for this Conversation

ESN Conversation: All God’s Children with Terence Lester

July 20, 2023, 12 pm ET

The more you understand someone’s history, the better you can see their humanity. This is true for individuals as well as for society at large. Race relations have suffered because of the erasure of important Black history and cultural context. As we fill in the gaps of our collective knowledge, communities can grow in understanding, empathy, and solidarity. Terence Lester’s story will help fill some of those gaps.

Terence Lester (PhD, Interdisciplinary Studies, Union Institute and University) is a minister, speaker, community activist, author, and founder of Love Beyond Walls, a not-for-profit organization focused on poverty awareness and community mobilization. His books include When We Stand, I See You, Getting Past Stuck, Simple Prayers for Hurting People, and Identity Theft.

Register for this Conversation

ESN Conversation: Nourishing Narratives with Jennifer L. Holberg

August 17, 2023, 12 pm ET

We make sense of our world, pattern our lives, and reflect on what is ultimately significant through language and the words that compose our stories. In Nourishing Narratives, writer and professor Jennifer Holberg engages with words from the likes of Dante, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Flannery O’Connor, and Marilynne Robinson, while also offering some of her own stories to reflect on the importance of story to our lives and our faith.

Jennifer L. Holberg (PhD, University of Washington) is professor and chair of the English department at Calvin University and codirector of the Calvin Center for Faith and Writing, the home of the Festival of Faith and Writing. 

Register for this Conversation

ESN Conversation: More Than Things with Paul Louis Metzger

September 14, 2023, 3 pm ET

We live in a culture of commodification. People are too often defined by what they do or own; they’re treated as means to an end or cogs in a machine. In a world dominated by things, Paul Louis Metzger argues, we must work hard to account for one another’s personhood.

Paul Louis Metzger (PhD, King’s College London) is professor of Christian theology and theology of culture at Multnomah University and Seminary and director of The Institute for Cultural Engagement: New Wine, New Wineskins. He is the author of numerous books, including Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church and Connecting Christ: How to Discuss Jesus in a World of Diverse Paths, and coeditor of A World for All? Global Civil Society in Political Theory and Trinitarian Theology.

Register for this Conversation

One of the other benefits of participating in conversations is that the authors’ books are available at a special discount through our co-sponsor, InterVarsity Press. Of course, we understand if you are unable to attend the live conversation due to schedule conflicts. Recordings of the conversations are posted shortly after the event on our YouTube channel, to which we hope you will subscribe. There are currently 44 videos available on the channel.

Position Available: Research Assistance for Lifespan Development Textbook

help wanted sign on glass
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Pexels.com

Joyce Tang Boyland, an ESN Member, has shared the following short term position posting. If you are looking for some additional work, experience, and income this summer, this may be a good opportunity for you:

Seeking developmental psychology research assistant. An ESN faculty member is under contract to write a lifespan development textbook on a short timeline and has been given $1500 towards research assistance. The funds can all go to one person or be divided between several people with different specialisations. $20/hour, approximately 5 hours per week, 15 weeks, potentially extendable upon mutual agreement

Please apply at the following link: https://forms.gle/emSs4pzfMpGG9wAT8