Nate Olson, PhD, serves as Director of the Kegley Institute of Ethics and Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Bakersfield. He has been involved with the Kegley Institute since he came to CSUB in 2015, including serving as Associate Director from 2017 to 2023, Interim Director from 2023 to 2026, and Director since 2026.
He teaches courses in both ethical theory and practical ethics, with a particular emphasis on ethical issues in professional life and the sciences. Dr. Olson believes ethics education works best when conversations cross disciplinary, community, and political boundaries and enjoys fostering such conversations through his work with the Kegley Institute
He has published articles on biomedical ethics, professional ethics, ethics education, and the philosophy of sport. At CSUB, he previously served as chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies and the Institutional Review Board and currently serves as chair of the Committee on Professional Responsibility. He also serves as a member of the Dignity Health Memorial Hospital Ethics Committee.
Dr. Olson received his PhD in philosophy from Georgetown University and has been a post-doctoral teaching fellow in the Thinking Matters program at Stanford University as well as a visiting scholar with the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics.
Contact: nolson@csub.edu, 661-654-2314
Education
A.B., Harvard University
M.T.S., Harvard Divinity School
Ph.D., University of Cambridge
Teaching
Latinx and Latin American Religions
Evangelicalism
Social Justice
Research
Latinx and Latin American History
Evangelicalism/Pentecostalism
Memory Studies
Lived Religion
Publications
Giving Life to the Faith: Lived Religion, Pentecostalism, and Social Activism in Authoritarian
Chile. (Leiden: Brill, 2021).
w/ Pedro Feitoza (eds.), Evangelicalism in Latin America: Historical Documents in
Context. (Forthcoming, Cambridge University Press).
“Indigenization and Believers’ Accounts of Pentecostal Faith in Chile, 1910-1920”
in The Gospel in Latin America. Edited by David Bebbington (Waco, TX: Baylor University
Press, 2022)
“Pentecostal Eschatology, Public Discourse, and Political Engagement in Chile.” Studies
in World Christianity, 30, 3 (2024): 306-326.
“A Prohibited History of Pentecostal Social Engagement: la Misión Iglesia Pentecostal
and Authoritarian Chile,” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies,
40, 3 (2018): 287-305.
“Continuity and Rupture: Pentecostal Practice, Community, and Memory in Pinochet’s
Chile,” Journal of Religion and Society, 19 (2017): 1-22.
Contact: jflorez1@csub.edu
