Olli-Pekka Vainio

Curriculum vitae

Olli-Pekka Vainio is Professor of Dogmatics at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Theology. Vainio’s research is focused on following themes:  contemporary systematic and analytic theology, theological epistemology, theology of the Reformation and political theology.

Vainio is a Member of Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton, where he was a resident scholar in 2008 and 2016-2017. The latter visit was enabled by the NASA-funded research project on the Societal Implications of Astrobiology. He was a visiting faculty member at the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford (2011-2012) and a member in Philosophical Psychology, Morality and Politics Unit (2008-13), which was one of the National Centres of Excellence in Research funded by the Academy of Finland. He is a member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters and a member of the University of St. Andrews SETI Post-Detection Hub and Senior Global Fellow of St. Andrews University (2024). 

His current research project focuses on ideological and religious extremism and worldview/belief formation in contemporaty society.