Speakers

The European Conference on Ethics, Religion & Philosophy (ECERP) is a multidisciplinary conference held concurrently with The European Conference on Psychology & the Behavioral Sciences (ECP). Keynote, Featured and Spotlight Speakers will provide a variety of perspectives from different academic and professional backgrounds. Registration for either conference will allow participants to attend sessions in both.

This page provides information about presenters. For details of presentations and other programming, please visit the Programme page.


  • Amy Szarkowski
    Amy Szarkowski
    Harvard Medical School, USA
  • Stephen E. Gregg
    Stephen E. Gregg
    University of Wolverhampton, UK
  • Bas Verplanken
    Bas Verplanken
    University of Bath, UK

Previous Speakers

View details of speakers at past ECERP conferences via the links below.

Amy Szarkowski
Harvard Medical School, USA

Biography

Amy Szarkowski, PhD, is a psychologist who specializes in working with children with disabilities and their families. She provides direct services to children and guidance to staff members as the Clinical Director at Children’s Center for Communication/Beverly School for the Deaf. Dr Szarkowski is involved in training medical professionals and fostering disability advocacy through her role as Core Faculty for the Leadership and Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities (LEND) program, through the Department of Developmental Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. Academically, Dr Szarkowski holds appointments as an adjunct Associate Professor at Gallaudet University and as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr Szarkowski is honored to serve on the International Academic Advisory Board for IAFOR.

Keynote Presentation (2019) | Difficult Conversations: Respecting Values & Changing Behaviors
Stephen E. Gregg
University of Wolverhampton, UK

Biography

Dr Stephen E. Gregg is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, and the Hon. Secretary of the British Association for the Study of Religions. His research interests are focused on Religious Identity, Contemporary Religion, Minority Religions, and Religion and Comedy/Performance. His recent books include Swami Vivekananda and Non-Hindu Traditions (Routledge, 2019), The Insider/Outsider Debate: New Approaches in the Study of Religion (Equinox, 2019), The Bloomsbury Handbook to Studying Christians (Bloomsbury, 2019), Engaging with Living Religion (Routledge, 2015) and Jesus Beyond Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2010).

Stephen received his BA and PhD from the University of Wales, where he was subsequently appointed Lecturer in Religious Studies. He was then appointed as Fellow in the Study of Religion at Liverpool Hope University and is now Senior Lecturer at Wolverhampton, the multicultural heart of the UK. He has delivered invited papers at universities in India, Turkey, Australia, the USA, and across the UK and Europe. In 2013 Stephen was the lead coordinator for the European Association for the Study of Religions and the International Association for the History of Religions Conference in Liverpool, UK.

Keynote Presentation (2019) | Valuing Religion

Previous ECERP Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2017) | When the Pope is not a Catholic: Complicating Religious Identity in the Twenty-First Century
Bas Verplanken
University of Bath, UK

Biography

Professor Bas Verplanken graduated and obtained his PhD at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, where he worked as a Research Fellow and Lecturer from 1980-1990. From 1990-1998 he was a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer at the University of Nijmegen. From 1998 to 2006 he was a professor at the University of Tromsø, Norway. In 2006 he joined the University of Bath, where he was Head of Department of Psychology from 2010-2016. His research interests are in attitude-behaviour relations and change, applied in the domains of environmental, health, and consumer psychology. He has developed a special interest in habits. He published on a variety of topics, including risk perception, environmental concern, unhealthy eating, travel mode choice, values, self-esteem, body image, worrying, mindfulness, impulsive buying, behaviour change, and sustainable lifestyles. He served as an Associate Editor of the British Journal of Social Psychology and Psychology and Health.

Keynote Presentation (2019) | Practise What You Preach? Views on Values from Social Psychology