Welcome to BioLogos, Ciara!

Jim: Tell us a little bit about your background. Where did you grow up? What was your family like?

Ciara: My family is Mexican American, and I’m originally from Southern California, but grew up in the Midwest. I am also a first generation college and graduate student. Growing up, my parents emphasized education heavily, mostly because of the economic hardships they witnessed growing up, in addition to the challenges they faced; they saw education as a way out.

My grandparents on both my maternal and paternal side were only able to complete middle school and high school level education respectively because they needed to provide for their families. Yet they rose above the challenges they faced. My paternal Grandma taught herself how to read, worked for years as a nurse’s aid and did her best to raise a family as a single parent. My maternal Grandpa worked for years with his hands in agriculture and as a janitor to provide for his family. I’m grateful for their legacy.

My family also emphasized faith and prayer; it was always the first response and never the last resort.

Jim: What about your faith background? Give us some of your Christian testimony.

Ciara: I was born into a Christian family and grew up in church, mostly non-denominational churches with charismatic roots. My Dad was a Minister of Music and my Mom a Choir Director. Church was the backdrop of my childhood and upbringing. Because of that, I never really had a conversion experience, and for a while thought that I didn’t quite have a Christian testimony.

However, I did have a period where I had to rediscover my faith. After I finished my Ph.D. I had a bit of a faith crisis. It didn’t have anything to do with faith and science, more of a personal realization that I didn’t really know God for myself. I previously described it as such:

I was beginning to feel like my knowledge of God was like my knowledge of biology before graduate school. Limited. Textbook knowledge. Sterile like the experiments I did in the controlled environment of a pre-planned lab with mostly expected outcomes, where the experiments were designed to work. 

Jim: How did you get interested in science? Why did you decide to pursue that as a major in college, and then a PhD?

Ciara: There isn’t really one moment that I can pinpoint as having been the reason I got interested in science. However, my childhood was characterized by creativity, play, and imagination, which I think drew me to the beauty of science.

As a kid, I found myself writing poetry about nature, reading books about astronomy, and watching tv shows about science. It filled my mind with wonder and awe.

I also had many great teachers over the years that made learning fun and captivated my creative imagination with science. I remember my fifth grade teacher talking about how small atoms were, and literally blowing my mind with his talk about blackholes in space and how we might be living in one already and just how powerful the element plutonium was – “one drop, and BOOM!” I remember him saying to the class.

Before I ever wanted to study biology, I actually wanted to study astronomy. However, freshman year I took an intro biology course and my professor got me hooked.

My professor was an ecologist by training, and so he brought a unique and broad perspective of science that I had never heard before, and it really captivated me.  His teaching style was all about broader application, putting complex processes like photosynthesis in context of questions like why do leaves change color in the fall, or cellular respiration in the context of questions like why is there dark and white meat?

He was also a person of faith, who helped me discover the harmony between faith and science.

At the time, I had a very literal interpretation of the Genesis account of creation, and this was my first encounter with a person of faith who saw no conflict between evolution and their Christian faith. He really ignited my passion for faith and science, helped solidify biology as my major, and put me on the path to pursuing a Ph.D, because before that I thought I could only become a medical doctor.

Jim: What was your PhD work about?

Ciara: I did my Ph.D. in Cell & Molecular Biology at the University of Michigan in Dr. Ann Miller’s lab.  Our lab studied cell division, specifically, cytokinesis, the last step where one cell physically separates into two.  This process is important to understand because when it is not properly regulated, it can lead to miscarriage, birth defects and diseases like cancer.

My thesis focused on characterizing Anillin, a protein with a previously known role in cell division, helping organize and stabilize the contractile ring that helps pinch cells in two. We found that it had another role in dividing and non-dividing cells, to help organize and stabilize cell junctions – the regions where cells touch and link to their neighbors in the context of tissues.

Jim: Did you ever experience a conflict between your faith commitments and the science you were learning in school?

Ciara: Absolutely. I wrote more extensively about this for BioLogos a while back explaining my journey of faith and science, but I’ll briefly touch on it here. You can read the unabridged version here.

My church growing up never condemned science outright, but I did have a very literal understanding of the creation account in Genesis and a misunderstanding of evolution. Freshman year of college was the first time evolution was explained clearly to me and actually made sense.

…As my class began to explore population genetics, it was as though scales had fallen off my eyes – for the first time, I understood the evidence for evolution. It was easy to reject something I didn’t understand, but now that I understood, I could not do so in good conscience.

It helped to have a biology professor of faith who assigned readings and lead discussions on faith and science.  At the time I felt as though my heart and mind were in conflict, but he also introduced me to theistic evolution, which I later realized was a scientifically sound and theologically compatible way to find harmony.

Jim: Why have you decided to pursue a career in science and faith communication, instead of going the typical route for someone with a PhD in science into teaching or research?

Ciara: Faith and science have been a longtime passion of mine that was ignited in college, and grew while I was in graduate school. However, I didn’t quite know how to channel this passion over the years, until I discovered writing. Before then, it was mostly relegated to conversations with friends.

I started to work as a freelance writer and editor on the side, while primarily teaching biology at colleges. Most of my writing was on sharing the harmony of faith and science that I had found with others. I also really enjoyed science outreach, and couldn’t help seeing a need for more engagement with churches.

I followed the typical route of teaching biology for a while, which I enjoyed, but felt like different parts of my identity were being compartmentalized. I would teach biology in the classroom, write about faith and science after hours at home, and volunteer at church. I yearned for more convergence.