Professor Mark Harris holds the position of the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion, which is attached to a Professorial Fellowship at Harris Manchester College. As a physicist working in a theological environment, he thinks of himself as a theologian of science, interested in the complex ways that the natural sciences and religious beliefs relate to each other.
Active in physics for many years, Professor Harris is known (with Steve Bramwell of University College London) as the discoverer of 'spin ice' in 1997, currently a major research area in the physics of magnetism. A little after this original breakthrough, Professor Harris also discovered theology, and began to broaden his interests beyond magnetism into the Science and Religion area. His research interests include the relationship between the physical sciences and theology, and the impact of science on modern views of the Bible, especially in thinking on miracles, divine action, and the environmental crisis. He is currently working on a critical study of the theological reception of quantum mechanics.
Professor Harris is the Director of the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion in the Faculty of Theology and Religion, and he serves as President of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology (ESSSAT).
