I am an assistant professor of sociology at University of Massachusetts Boston. I do research on a variety of topics that all address one core question: what brings diverse groups of people together, and what breaks them apart?
My research on religion and spirituality in public life has appeared in American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Sociological Theory, Social Currents, The Sociological Quarterly, Secularism and Nonreligion, and The Annual Review in the Sociology of Religion.
I earned a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota, where I worked as an Edelstein Fellow with the American Mosaic Project and an Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellow with the Center for the Study of Political Psychology. I also hold an M.A. in Sociology from UMN and a B.A. in Political Theory and Social Policy from Michigan State University’s James Madison College.