Graduate Students

Name/Contact Info	Prior Degrees	Area of Focus	Research Interests
Ellis S. Azcona azcona@unc.edu	B.S., Indiana University B.A., Indiana University	Religion and Culture	Deaf theology; embodiment; liberation theologies; cognitive linguistics of ASL; community formation and identity; disability, vulnerability, and relationality; Deaf studies
Jacob Barrett jacbar@unc.edu	B.A., Nebraska Wesleyan University M.A., University of Alabama	Religion and Culture	Religious Freedom in the United States, Theories of Governance, Politics of Identity Formation, Social Theory, Digital Humanities and Computational Analysis, Teaching and Pedagogy
Ryne Beddard ryne731@live.unc.edu	B.A., University of Mount Olive M.A., University of Denver	Religion and Culture	Religion, Race, and Environment in the antebellum Great Dismal Swamp and Tidewater region; Religion and Race in the U.S. South; Critical Theory and Ethics
Arpan Bhandari abhandar@live.unc.edu	B.A., UNC-Chapel Hill M.A., Duke University	Islamic Studies	South Asian Sufism, Sufi texts, Sufi Music and Poetry, Intersections of Islam, Historical interactions of Islam
Emily Branton ebranton@live.unc.edu	B.A., Smith College M.A., University of Chicago	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	Hebrew Bible; ancient Near Eastern iconography and literature; metaphor theory; translation
Claire Campbell	B.A., University of Arkansas M.A.R., Yale Divinity School	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	Ancient Judaism; Roman archaeology in the Eastern Mediterranean; ancient synagogues; religion and retail in antiquity.
Vinna Chowriamah Chintaram vchintaram@unc.edu	B.A., Brigham Young University-Idaho M.A., Utah State University	Religion and Culture	Ethnography of global Christianities; Decolonization and Religion; Religion in Indian Diaspora
Seonghyun Choi schoi81@live.unc.edu	B.A., Seoul Theological University M.T.S., Vanderbilt Divinity School M.A.R., Yale Divinity School	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	Hebrew Bible; Late Second Temple Judaism; Dead Sea Scrolls; History of Biblical Interpretation; Disability Studies
Brian A. Coussens coussens@email.unc.edu	B.A., Georgia Southern University M.A., Wheaton College M.A., UNC-Chapel Hill	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	Second Temple Judaism; Archaeology of the Second Temple Period; Herodian Architecture; Architecture/Place in Agency and Memory
Israel Dominguez israeld@live.unc.edu	B.A., University of Texas at Austin M.A., University of Colorado Boulder	Religion in the Americas	U.S.-Mexico borderlands; Decolonization and religion; Non-institutional religious healing; “Folk” traditions; Critical race theory; Queer theory; Intersections of gender, race, and colonization
Bo Eberle boeberle@live.unc.edu	B.A., The Ohio State University M.Div., Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York	Religion and Culture	Materialisms and Religion; Philosophy of Science and Religion; Post-secular Religious Theory and Analysis; Critical Theory and Political Economy
Chloe Griffin cngriffi@unc.edu	B.A. UNC-Chapel Hill, M.Div. Wake Forest University School of Divinity	Religion and Culture	Contemporary Christian diasporas; the intersections of political and religious identity in the United States; Muslim/Christian interfaith dialogue; Black feminist and womanist lenses of qualitative research
Jerry Grimes jgrimes@unc.edu	B.A., Saint Augustine’s University M.Div., Virginia Union University M.A., Fuller Seminary Th.M., Union Presbyterian Seminary D.Min., Liberty University	Religion in the Americas	Religious History; Gender Studies; Socioreligious Dynamics in Postbellum North Carolina circa 1865; Nineteenth century missiology
Mary Hamner mhamner@email.unc.edu	B.A., College of William & Mary, 2006 B.A., North Carolina State University, 2011 M.A., UNC-Charlotte, 2014 M.A., UNC-Charlotte, 2021	Religion and Culture	Religion and social media; contemporary witchcraft; ethnography of American evangelicalism; children and religion; Pagan studies
Shamim Hossain shamim@unc.edu	B.A., CUNY Baccalaureate Program M.A., Columbia University	Islamic Studies	Rebellion in Islam, Decoloniality, Islam in South Asia, Abolitionism, Liberation Theology
Victor H. Knight IV victor.knight@unc.edu	B.A., Campbell University M.A.R., Yale Divinity School	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	Hebrew Bible, Ancient Israelite Religion; Deities in the Ancient Near East; Ancient Near Eastern Religion, Cosmology, and Mythology; Ancient Near Eastern Literature and Iconography; NorthWest Semitic Epigraphy, Linguistics, and Philology; Ugaritology; Hurritology; Metacriticism; Cognitive and Historical (NW Semitic) Linguistics.
Carter Kurtz carkur@live.unc.edu	B.A., UNC-Chapel Hill M.A., Duke University	Religion in the Americas	Religion, race, and gender in the Civil War; Southern women and institutions of white supremacy; 19th century death and funerary culture in the United States and Great Britain
Jonathan Larach jlarach@unc.edu	A.A., Santa Monica College B.A., University of California Santa Barbara M.T.S., Harvard Divinity School	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	New Testament; Historical Jesus; Second Temple Judaism; New Testament usage of the Hebrew Bible; Martyrdom Literature; Various understandings of Jesus in early Christian literature; Textual Criticism
Sierra Lawson sielaw@live.unc.edu	B.A., The University of Alabama M.A., The University of Alabama	Religion and Culture	History of Iberian Peninsula, Colonial Latin America, Social Theory, Marian Apparitions, Digital Humanities, Identity Formation
Bryce McCormick brycemccormick@unc.edu	Bachelor of Music, Virginia Commonwealth University M.T.S., Duke Divinity School	Religion in the Americas	History of religion, race, and music in the US South with specific interest in early American New Orleans; Mardi Gras masking traditions; Afro-Caribbean religious traditions
John Miller johnlmil@email.unc.edu	B.A., UNC-Chapel Hill J.D., UNC School of Law	Islamic Studies	Qur’anic Hermeneutics; Liberal Islamic Thought; Rationalism in Islam; Classical and Contemporary Shi`i Thought; Philosophy of Law
Alejandro Hermes Moreiras Villarós ahmoreir@live.unc.edu	B.A., Hampshire College Five College Certificate in M.E. Studies M.A., Hebrew University of Jerusalem M.T.S., McGill University	Religion and Culture	Marrano and Morisco culture and history, Spain, Israel, Middle East politics and international affairs, ethnography, anthropology, critical theory, origins and new beginnings, politics of religion, history of religion, ghosts, Abrahamic religions, frontiers
Christopher Morey moreyc@email.unc.edu	B.A., Brigham Young University M.T.S., Harvard Divinity School	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	New Testament; Historical Jesus; Second Temple Judaism; Jewish Interpretation of Scripture
Ciara Mulcahy ciarajm@unc.edu	B.A. Kenyon College	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	Apocryphal Acts; Christianity in late antiquity; gender and sexuality; Greek and Coptic philology and translation; martyrdom; collective memory
Aiden Nuttall anuttall@unc.edu	B.A. Whitman College M.A. University of Alabama	Religion and Culture	Quantification, Religion and Science, Method and Theory, Identity Formation, History and Philosophy of Science, American Religious History
Annie Rose O’Brien annieo@live.unc.edu	B.A., Wake Forest University M.A., Wake Forest University Religion in the Americas, WGST Certificate	Religion in the Americas	Religio-racial violence and lynching in the Southern US; public monuments, collective memory, and historical narratives; critical race theory; religion, race, and ecology in the Necrocene; Anthropocenic pedagogy; gender & sexuality; disability & crip theory; new materialisms and religion
Latifat Odetunde Odetunde@unc.edu	B.A., Boston College	Islamic Studies	Black Muslim community, healing through faith, intersections of race, faith, gender, culture, triple consciousness, Black Muslim women, resistance
Mackenzie Oglesby mco268@unc.edu	B.A., Virginia Tech University M.A., Virginia Tech University	Religion in the Americas	Religions/Mythology of the American South, Southern Culture, Christianity, Medieval Christianity, Martyrdom, Lost Cause Ideology, Meaning-Making, and Iconography.
Ryan Replogle ryanrep@unc.edu	B.A., Harding University M.Phil., Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	Hebrew Bible; Literary and Ideological Criticism; Supplementation; Mesopotamian Incantation Literature; Cognitive Science of Religion; Personal Religion in the Ancient Near East; Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation
Ayse Keskin Saglam Ayseks@ad.unc.edu	B.A., Leibniz University of Hannover M.A., City College of New York M.Div., Union Theological Seminary	Islamic Studies	Muslim women in the diaspora, feminism, gender, social media, patriarchy, lived religious experience, Islam in the USA and Germany
Nathan Schradle schradle@live.unc.edu	B.A., Occidental College M.A., New York University	Religion and Culture	Religion and Media, Religion and Technology/New Media, Critical Theory and Religion
Ben Sheppard bdshepp@live.unc.edu	A.B., University of Georgia M.A., University of Chicago	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	Christian organization and structures of authority in 1st & 2nd centuries; the Pauline network and its development; space and territoriality in Ignatius of Antioch; consequences of mobility in early Christian communities; production of culture; study of religion as social practice
Zara Surratt zaras@live.unc.edu	B.A. College of the Holy Cross M.A.R. Yale Divinity School	Religion in the Americas	American West; Religion during Greater Reconstruction; Native American Religious Traditions; Residential Boarding Schools; Catholic Missions; race, disability, and religion; religion and children.
Ariadne Tsoulouhas atsoulouhas@unc.edu	B.A., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign M.A.R., Yale Divinity School	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	Second Temple Judaism; Hebrew Bible; wisdom literature; affect theory; pedagogies of emotions and the self; necropolitics; hauntology; Greco-Roman religion
Thomas Waldrupe waldrupe@email.unc.edu	B.A., Carson Newman University M.S., University of Tennessee Postgraduate Diploma, Oxford University M.A., Duke University	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	Permeabilities among Early Christian asceticism, Greek philosophical traditions, and South Asian ascetic traditions; Virtuality and fictive or secondary religions
Julia Mason Wedgle julia.m.wedgle@unc.edu	B.A., Tufts University M.T.S., Harvard Divinity School	Religion in the Americas	Religion and Politics; Peace, Conflict and Religion; Palestine/Israel; Yiddish; Religion and Activism; Anti-Zionism; Zionism; Jewish anti-Zionism; Christian Zionism; Jewish Labor Movement; General Jewish Labor Bund; Jewish Socialism; American Judaism; Religion and U.S. policy in the Middle East; Peace Studies; Jewish Studies