The Andreas Idreos Professorship of Science and Religion within the Faculty of Theology at Oxford is held by Professor John Hedley Brooke, formerly Professor of the History of Science at Lancaster University The position is an interdisciplinary chair devoted to research and teaching in questions raised for theology by the natural, human and social sciences. Idreos studied medicine at the University of Athens and spent the majority of his career working for the World Health Organization . He became increasingly aware that science and religion could both foster understanding between cultures and provide a basis for unity and the alleviation of suffering. In 1990 he founded the Idreos lectures in Science and Religion at Oxford, and, before his death, completed the endowment for the new chair, which is associated with Harris Manchester College.

Professor Brooke has taught many courses ranging from the history of the physical and life sciences to the philosophy of religion at the universities of Cambridge, Sussex, and Lancaster. He has been President of the British Society for the History of Science and of the Historical Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science . His research interests include the use of historical analysis to construct critical perspectives for the discussion of sciences as they bear on religious beliefs and religious beliefs as they bear on the sciences.

His several books include Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 1991); Thinking about Matter: Studies in the History of Chemical Philosophy (Ashgate, 1995); Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science and Religion (T. & T. Clark, 1998); Science in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions (ed. with Margaret Osler and Jitse van der Meer ) (University of Chicago Press, 2001).

He has lectured at many universities in America, Europe, Australia and the Far East. He has also lectured at Templeton workshops in Adelaide, Berkeley, Manchester, and Toronto. In 1998 he joined the Templeton Oxford Seminars Steering Committee, and gave several lectures at the 1999 seminars and led workshops at Wycliffe Hall . During November 2000 he gave the Alister Hardy Memorial Lecture in the University of Oxford, and in November 2001 gave the Distinguished Lecture of the American History of Science Society at its meeting in Denver.

Professor Brooke holds a number of research directorships. He is coordinator of the European Science Foundation Network on Science and Human Values. Since 2002 he has been a foundation member of the Steering and Executive Committees of the International Society for Science and Religion, and in 2003 he was elected Vice-President of the Science and Religion Forum. In the same year he was elected to the Senior Historians Conference in Windsor. He is co-director (with Martin Rogers) of the Templeton Science and Religion in Schools Project, and in 2004 was appointed co-director of the Oxford Centre for the Science of Mind (OXCSOM).

In Oxford Professor Brooke is Director of the Master of Studies Programme in Science and Religion , and a Fellow of Harris Manchester College, Oxford.