Lisa Stenmark earned her M.Div. from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, an MA in Systematic Theology from the Graduate Theological Union.  After serving for a year as an interim pastor in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, she went on to Vanderbilt University where she earned her Ph.D. in Religious Studies.

She currently teaches at San Jose State University, in the Comparative Religious Studies Program.  She has been active in the science and religion discourse for over a decade and was the founder and Director of Women in Religion, Ethics and the Sciences (WiRES). She currently serves on steering committee of the American Academy of Religion’s Science, Technology and Religion Group, after serving as Co-Chair. Her scholarly interests include the implications of narrative trajectories for understanding the relationship between science, technology and religion, and rethinking the ways that religion, science and the science and religion discourse can and should engage in the public sphere and is currently working on a book entitled  A Disputational Friendship:  Religion, Science and Democracy.

In her spare time she practices Aikido (in which she has a Black Belt) and other martial arts, trains for triathlons and is an avid Science Fiction fan.