David W. Kim is a researcher associated with the Australian National University’s Institute for Space. His research focuses on safety and risk management for astronauts in deep space travel, specifically on psychological well-being during Mars missions.

Roger D. Launius is former chief historian of NASA and most recently associate director for collections and curatorial affairs at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum. He now runs his own private historical consultancy and has written on religion and space.

Philip Butler is a professor at Iliff School of Theology in Denver. Butler’s work focuses on the intersections of neuroscience, technology, spirituality and Blackness. He engages in critical and constructive analysis on Black posthumanism, artificial intelligence and pluriversal future realities.

The Vatican Observatory (Specola Vaticana) is an astronomical research and educational institution supported by the Vatican. Originally based in Rome, the Observatory is now headquartered in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, and at the Mount Graham International Observatory in the Pinaleño Mountains in southeast Arizona. Journalists can contact via the email here or direct questions to individual […]

Jaimie Gunderson is a religious studies professor at the University of Pittsburgh, whose research interests include Christian origins, Christianity in late antiquity, New Testament, Greco-Roman religions, material religion, affect theory and UFOs.

Mary-Jane Rubenstein writes about the mythological assumptions beneath contemporary science and philosophy. She teaches religion and science studies at Wesleyan University and is the author of Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race.

This edition of ReligionLink is dedicated to stories that could possibly top the lists in 2025, providing background, resources and expert sources for you to turn to in the year ahead.

Kaitlyn Ugoretz is an anthropologist of religion and the associate editor of publications at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, including the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. Ugoretz specializes in contemporary Japanese religion, globalization, technology and media. Her digital ethnographic research focuses on the globalization of Shinto and the development of transnational online Shinto communities.

This Source Guide provides best practices for reporting on religion and AI, with a focus on background, related stories, sources and relevant resources for reporting on how it is already impacting the everyday realities of our spiritual lives.