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Date
March 19 at 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM EDT
Location
Chesterton House and COLLIS Institute present:
The Beauty of Understanding: How Wonder and Awe Fuel Scientific Inquiry
Panel Discussion with Brandon Vaidyanathan, Prof. Tomás Arias (Cornell, Physics) and Shaun Nichols (Cornell, Philosophy)
March 19th, 2026 | 5:30pm
Clark 700 | Virtual
Provided dinner to follow in Clark 701
“The Beauty of Understanding: How Wonder and Awe Fuel Scientific Inquiry,” a talk by Brandon Vaidyanathan (Sociology, Catholic University of America) followed by a panel discussion with Brandon Vaidyanathan, Tomás Arias (Physics, Cornell University) and Shaun Nichols (Philosophy, Cornell University)
For over two centuries, critics have accused science of disenchanting the world, turning rainbows into wavelengths and mysteries into mechanisms. Yet many prominent contemporary scientists describe science itself as a wellspring of beauty, awe, and wonder. What does beauty mean in the everyday practice of science, and how does the pursuit of understanding shape scientific work, motivation, and well-being? This talk presents findings from the first global empirical study of aesthetics in scientific practice, based on nationally representative surveys of more than 3000 physicists and biologists in the US, UK, Italy, and India, and more than 200 in-depth interviews. Scientists consistently describe three kinds of beauty in their work: the sensory beauty of phenomena, the useful beauty of elegant theories and experiments, and the beauty of understanding–the thrill of discovering the hidden order or inner logic underlying the phenomena that scientists study. These aesthetic experiences are not rare: most scientists report frequent moments of awe, reverence, and newly opened mysteries, which in turn motivate perseverance, deepen learning, and support well-being. Yet the pursuit of beauty unfolds within institutional conditions often marked by burnout, mistreatment, and the pressures of “publish or perish,” which can undermine the very wonder that draws people into science.
Schedule:
5:30 PM – 6:15 PM Talk
6:15-6:45 PM: Panel Discussion with Brandon Vaidyanathan, Prof. Tomás Arias (Cornell, Physics) and Shaun Nichols (Cornell, Philosophy)
6:45 PM – 8:00 PM: Dinner Reception
Join us for this conversation, a collaboration of the COLLIS at Cornell and the Chesterton House.
Brandon Vaidyanathan; Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology, The Catholic University of America
Dr. Brandon Vaidyanathan is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institutional Flourishing Lab at The Catholic University of America. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Business Administration from St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia and HEC Montreal respectively, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame.
He is author of Mercenaries and Missionaries: Capitalism and Catholicism in the Global South (Cornell University Press, 2019), co-author of Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the World Really Think About Religion (Oxford University Press, 2019), and co-editor of Rebuilding Trust: Clergy Morale in the Wake of the Abuse Crisis (CUA Press, 2025). His work has been funded by grants from the John Templeton Foundation, Templeton Religion Trust, the Lilly Endowment, and Burroughs Wellcome Fund.
He is also Founder of Beauty at Work, a media platform which includes a podcast and YouTube channel that aims to expand our understanding of beauty: what it is, how it works, and why it matters for the work we do.
