Recent Ph.D. Graduates

Name/Contact Info	Graduation Date	Prior Degrees	Area of Focus	Research Interests
Miguel M. Vargas	2022	History M.A, University of North Texas – Ancient History, Classical Rhetoric History B.A., University of North Texas – Jewish Studies	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	Second Temple and Hellenistic Judaism, Greek and Roman Religions, Race in Antiquity, Ptolemaic Egypt
Isaiah Ellis	2022	M.A. Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill B.A. Magna cum Laude, Religion, urban studies, Trinity University.	Religion and Culture	Religion in the Americas, Race and empire, Networks and infrastructure, Material and visual culture, U.S. urban and cultural history, Southern studies
Joanna Sierks Smith	2021	BA, Religious Studies, Connecticut College MA, Religious Studies, UNC Chapel Hill	Religion in the Americas	American Religious History; Religion and the Environment; Animals and Animality; Religious Foodways; Religion and Literature
Katherine Merriman	2021	B.A., Vassar College M.T.S., Harvard Divinity School	Islamic Studies	Contemporary Islam; Race & religion; Anthropology of religion; Charitable giving in American Muslim communities at the intersection of race, class and moral subjectivities; Ethical debates on social welfare and justice in Islam
Micah A. Hughes	2021	B.I.S., Georgia State University M.A., Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakif University, Istanbul	Islamic Studies	Late Ottoman Empire; Turkey; Transnational philosophical discourses (Bergsonism, Positivism); Translation; Sufism and mysticism; Religious reform & education in the Middle East; Secularism
Alejandro S. Escalante	2021	B.A., Trinity College M.Div., Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York	Religion in the Americas	Gender and sexuality studies; Caribbean Christianities; African-inspired religious festivals; Critical race theory; Latin-American liberation theologies
Barbara Sostaita	2021	B.A., Salem College M.A.R., Yale Divinity School	Religion in the Americas	Transnational migration; Mexico-U.S. borderlands; Latinx migrant faith practices and communities; Social movements in the Americas
Brook Wilensky-Lanford	2021	B.A., Wesleyan University M.F.A., Columbia University	Religion in the Americas	19th and 20th century new religious movements, religious liberalism, religion and literature, utopias
Samah Choudhury	2020	B.A., University of Michigan A.M., Harvard University	Islamic Studies	Gender and sexuality; Critical race theory; Religion and state structures; Humor; Islam in America; Secularism; Decolonial theory, methods, and pedagogies
Candace Buckner	2020	B.A., Wesleyan University Post-Bac, Georgetown University M.A., University of Minnesota	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	Saint’s lives, martyrology, church fathers; Early Christian art & architecture and its representation in literature; the eye & memory in Early Christian thought
Bradley C. Erickson	2020	B.A., Centre College M.Div., Duke Divinity School	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	Syro-Palestinian Archaeology, Second Temple Judaism, Early Christianity, relationship between material culture and religious text
Candace Mixon	2019	B.A., Vanderbilt University M.A., McGill University	Islamic Studies	Islam in Post-Revolutionary Iran; Material and Visual Culture Studies; Persian, Iranian, and Central Asian History, including Linguistic; Gender and Sexuality in Muslim Communities; Categorizations of Islam, Muslims, the Persianate, and Religion
Helen M. Orr	2019	B.A., Trinity University M.T.S., Harvard University	Religion and Culture	Religion and trauma studies; post-Holocaust theology; phenomenological anthropology; Balkan studies
Matthew B. Lynch	2018	B.A., Marlboro College M.A., University of Chicago	Islamic Studies	Medieval Muslim Mysticism; Critical Issues in Islamic Studies; Persian Literature; Hermeneutics and Aesthetics
Patrick D’Silva	2018	B.A., Macalester College M.T.S., Harvard Divinity School	Islamic Studies	Islam in South Asia; Sufism; Yoga; Mysticism; Post-colonial theory; Translation theory
Shannon Trosper Schorey	2018	B.A., Northern Arizona University M.A., University of Colorado, Boulder	Religion and Culture	Religion and media; philosophy of technology; American religious history; minority religions and the politics of religious pluralism; contemporary critical thought
Andrew Aghapour	2017	B.A., College of Charleston M.Phil., Cambridge University	Religion and Culture	Religion and science in the modern and postmodern west; religion in literature; critical theory
Matthew Dougherty	2017	B.A., Amherst College M.T.S., Harvard Divinity School	Religion in the Americas	Missions and Native American Christianities in North America, American religion in the colonial and early republican periods, whiteness and masculinity in American religion
Stephanie Gaskill	2017	B.A., Bowling Green State University M.A., Bowling Green State University	Religion in the Americas	African American religious history, religion, and prisons
Cynthia Hogan	2017	B.A., Wells College M.A., North Carolina State University M.A., UNC-Chapel Hill	Religion and Culture	theory and methods of religion; material religion; visual culture of religion; museums and religious material culture
Leonard J. Lowe	2017	B.A., Kentucky Christian University M.T.S., Duke University	Religion and Culture	Haitian religious economy; critical ethnography; religion and poverty; surrealism and Négritude
Shaily Shashikant Patel	2017	B.A., Wake Forest University M.A., University of Chicago Divinity School M.T.S., Vanderbilt Divinity School	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	The construction of spiritual and political identity and authority in formative Christianity
Travis Proctor	2017	B.A., Washington University in St. Louis M.A., UNC-Chapel Hill	Ancient Mediterranean Religions	Early Christian apologetics and heresiology (1st-2nd centuries CE); demonologies of the Ancient Mediterranean; the body in early Christian literature; formation and function of authoritative scriptural collections; critical theory and historiography