Guiderdoni was born on 30 September 1958, in France, into a
Christian family, although he was not raised as a Christian. He received his Ph.D. in
astronomy from the
University of Paris in 1986, and held a post-doctoral fellowship at the
French Academy of Sciences for two years before joining the
Paris Institute of Astrophysics as an astrophysicist in 1988, which is funded by the
French National Center for Scientific Research. In 1992, he was named research director at the Paris Institute of Astrophysics. He served as an associate scientist on the
European Space Agency's
Herschel Space Observatory and
Planck (spacecraft), which were launched on 14 May 2009. He has been described as part of a "new generation of authors" involved in the discussion over Islam and science, which includes such figures as
Mehdi Golshani,
Basil Altaie, and
Nidhal Guessoum. He has given numerous lectures on spirituality and the connections between science and religion under the auspices of the Islamic Institute for Advanced Study (the Institut des Hautes Etudes Islamiques). He has actively promoted inter-religious dialogue, particularly among
Abrahamic faiths. ==Works==