Scholars, scientists and faith leaders around the world are working to reduce tensions between religion and science.

Adam Pryor is an assistant professor of religion at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kan. His research interests include the origins of life, astrobiology and embodiment.

It is a question that has gained greater traction as we have ventured farther into our solar system and beyond.

Sara Imari Walker is an associate professor at the School of Earth and Space Exploration and deputy director of Beyond: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz. She is also the leader Emergence, an ASU research group focused on the origins of life here and elsewhere in the universe.

The Rev. David J. Collins is a Catholic priest, a Jesuit and an associate professor of history at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., with an interest in science, religion and space. He sometimes teaches a course on outer space, science and religion.

James Matthew Ashley is an associate professor of the history of Christianity and systematic theology at the John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values at the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Ind. One of his areas of study is science and theology.

Wiliam Storrar is the director of the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, N.J., an ecumenical institute for interdisciplinary research in religion. The center designates several topics to study for a year or more and has, to date, focused on religion and violence, law and religious freedom, evolution and moral identity, among others.

Michael Schulson is a freelance writer who oversees Religion Dispatches‘ science and religion portal, “The Cubit.” He also writes at Undark. He lives in Durham, N.C.

Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman is the founding director of Sinai and Synapses, an organization that brings together Judaism and science, mostly through the introduction of scientists into synagogue programming. He is also a scholar of biblical and Judaic studies. Mitelman can be contacted through the Sinai and Synapses website.