Meet the Judges for the 2022 Templeton Prize

This year’s Templeton Prize laureate will be announced on May 11, 2022. Past winners have come from all major faiths and dozens of countries. The list of 51 Laureates includes Nobel Prize winners, philosophers, scientists, and religious leaders. This year, nine distinguished individuals from around the world came together to select the 2022 Templeton Prize Laureate. 

The judges review a group of diverse Prize candidates, who were put forth by an expert group of anonymous, independent nominators selected from across the fields of science, faith, philosophy, and beyond. (More on the selection process here.) 

Past judges have included President George H.W. Bush, President Gerald Ford, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, as well as eminent representatives from the sciences and various religious traditions around the world. This year, we’re incredibly honored to have nine Templeton Prize judges from diverse backgrounds who are well-positioned to make such a selection, having themselves reshaped the world with their innovative thinking: 

Anousheh Ansari

The CEO of XPrize, a groundbreaking organization that designs and operates “incentive competitions” to solve humanity’s grand challenges, Ansari personally sponsored the $10 million Ansari XPrize to ignite a new era for commercial space flight. She captured international headlines by becoming the first female private space explorer, first astronaut of Iranian descent, and first Muslim space explorer. Ansari also co-founded The Billion Dollar Fund for Women, with a goal of investing $1 billion in women-founded companies by 2020.

Cecilia A. Conrad, Ph.D.

Cecilia A. Conrad, Ph.D. is CEO of Lever for Change and a Managing Director at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Lever for Change is a new nonprofit affiliate of the MacArthur Foundation whose mission is to unlock philanthropic capital and accelerate solutions to the world’s biggest social challenges. In addition to her role at Lever for Change, Dr. Conrad oversees the MacArthur Fellows program and MacArthur’s 100&Change, the Foundation’s competition for a single $100 million grant to help solve a critical problem of our time. 

Dr. France A. Córdova

The Honorable France A. Córdova is the 14th director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), and president emerita of Purdue University. She served as NASA’s chief scientist, and her contributions in multi-spectral research on x-ray and gamma ray sources and space-borne instrumentation have made her an internationally recognized astrophysicist. 

Dr. Angela Duckworth

Dr. Duckworth has advised the White House, the World Bank, NBA and NFL teams, and Fortune 500 CEOs. She’s a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, New York Times bestselling author, and the CEO of Character Lab, a nonprofit that uses psychological science to help children thrive. 

Prasad Kaipa, Ph.D.

As the CEO of the Kaipa Group, Prasad Kaipa is a thought leader in innovation and leadership. He has coached and advised over 100 C-suite executives in global Fortune companies like Boeing, Cisco, Disney, Ford Motors, Johnson & Johnson, Maersk, State Bank of India and Tata Steel, and brought to them his integrated spiritual frameworks with neurological models and traditional management models. 

Tsitsi Masiyiwa

Tsitsi Masiyiwa is an African philanthropist and social entrepreneur. She is Executive Chair and Co-Founder of Higherlife Foundation, whose primary goal is to invest in human capital development to build thriving individuals, communities and sustainable livelihoods. As a result of her work and experience establishing and growing Higherlife Foundation over the last twenty-five years, Tsitsi has become an advisor and thought partner to universities, national leaders, and social entrepreneurs on issues of education, health, leadership development, and youth empowerment. 

Indra Nooyi

Indra Nooyi is the former Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo (2006-2019). In this role, Mrs. Nooyi was the chief architect of Performance with Purpose, PepsiCo’s pledge to do what’s right for the business by being responsive to the needs of the world around us. She holds prestigious affiliations with MIT and West Point, and in 2007 was awarded the Padma Bhushan honor by the Government of India. 

Timothy P. Shriver, Ph.D.

Tim Shriver has served as the Chairman of Special Olympics International since 1996. He currently serves alongside more than six million Special Olympics athletes and their families in over 195 countries around the world. During his time as Chairman, Special Olympics has developed proven programming for all aspects of a Special Olympics athlete’s life: leadership, health, education, and family support.

Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, Ph.D.

Meir Soloveichik is the Rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue in Manhattan, the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. He serves as the Director of the Straus Center of Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. Rabbi Soloveichik was ordained by Yeshiva’s seminary and received his PhD in religion from Princeton University. In 2018, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty honored Rabbi Soloveichik with its Canterbury Medal for his advocacy of, and commitment to, the free exercise of religion.