With great sadness, the Council and Fellows of DMRCP have heard of the passing of Professor Helen De Cruz, Danforth Chair in the Humanities at Saint Louis University, on Friday, 20 June 2025. Helen was the model of a 21st century public intellectual and public philosopher: widely interested in many things: philosophy, politics, culture, spirituality, faith, art, creative writing, science fiction, music, and many more, Helen did not accept artificial boundaries, conceived of these topics as intimately and naturally connected, and shared insights and thoughts with all of us through books and more directly via blogs, podcasts, and social media, always open for discussion and discourse.

Helen's holistic perspective saw science and philosophy in a new light, opening avenues of thought for all of us as readers, in particular the 2024 book Wonderstruck (Princeton University Press) in which Helen discussed the complicated and dynamic relationship between science and wonder. Many of us have regularly read the substack Wondering Freely where Helen shared reflections on a plethora of topics (just in the last few months from the moral dilemmas of academic travel to the parallels between UK and US politics, and often about faith and theology) and engaged us to think about them. A month ago, Daily Nous published Helen's Manifesto for a future philosophy that we should all read and embrace a philosophy "in which wonder, delight, joy and interdependence are at the heart of humanity".

As one of the inaugural Senior Fellows of DMRCP, Helen has supported the CIPSH chair from its initial phase. We are going to miss Helen greatly.