NCSE is pleased to congratulate Kenneth R. Miller, who will receive the University of Notre Dame's Laetare Medal for 2014. According to a March 30, 2014, press release from the university, the award, established in 1883, is "the oldest and most prestigious honor given to American Catholics." "Kenneth Miller has given eloquent and incisive witness both to scientific acumen and religious belief," explained Notre Dame's president John I. Jenkins. "As an accomplished biologist and an articulate believer, he pursues two distinct but harmonious vocations and illustrates how science and faith can mutually flourish."
A member of NCSE's Advisory Council, Miller is Professor of Biology of Brown University. He is the coauthor, with Joseph S. Levine, of four popular high school and college textbooks, and author of Finding Darwin's God (1999) and Only a Theory (2008). Among his awards are the Public Service Award from the American Society for Cell Biology, the AAAS's Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology, the Stephen Jay Gould Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution. He testified for the plaintiffs in Kitzmiller v. Dover, the 2005 case establishing the unconstitutionality of teaching "intelligent design" in the public schools.