Alex Arnold is the Director of Research at the Center for Christianity and Public Life, where he leads its Public Imagination efforts to explain and commend Christianity to the public, and to bring the rich intellectual, practical, and social resources of Christianity to the pursuit of the common good. For nearly 15 years, Alex has worked to bring thinkers and practitioners from a variety of different perspectives together to ponder perennial questions about God, human purpose, and what it is to live well as individuals and together in communities. Before coming to the CCPL, Alex was Director of Research at Heterodox Academy, a nonpartisan nonprofit advocacy organization that seeks to promote open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement in higher education. Research reports he spearheaded at Heterodox Academy have been covered in national media, including the New York Times, the National Review, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Prior to that, Alex was on the philosophy and theology program staff, first as a program officer and finally as a program director, at the John Templeton Foundation, where for more than a decade, he oversaw the design and implementation of a $100M+ portfolio of hundreds of research and public engagement projects to advance our understanding of issues in science and theology, the philosophy and science of character virtues, the psychology of morality, and the nature of consciousness, among other topics. 

Alex graduated with a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of California, Irvine and earned a PhD in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, with a dissertation on foundational concepts in the theory of knowledge and rational belief. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and children.