Shai Cherry began his academic career in Jewish Thought completing a doctorate from Brandeis University on Jewish responses to Darwinism. After 8 years of university teaching (Vanderbilt and UCLA), he was ordained by the Ziegler School. He is the featured lecturer for The Great Courses' Introduction to Judaism and is the author of the first user-friendly book on Torah commentary, Torah through Time. Since 2009, he has written on Jewish ethics and contemporary Jewish issues from San Diego.