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Staff
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Sara Skiles
Associate Director, Center for the Study of Religion and Society
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Graduate Students
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Feyza Akova
Research Interests: Social Theory, Religion, and Culture with a focus on Turkey
Feyza Akova is a third year graduate student in the Department of Sociology. She holds an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Houston, and bachelor's degrees in Sociology and Psychology from the University of Istanbul. Before coming to Notre Dame, she worked as a Research Intern at non-profit organizations in the U.S. Her research interests include social theory, religion, and culture with a focus on Turkey.
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Ethan Fridmanski
Research Interests: Sociology of Religion, Sociology of Technology, Quantitative Methods
Ethan is in his fourth year of graduate studies at Notre Dame. He hails from Danville Illinois, a smaller city in east central Illinois. During his undergraduate studies at Illinois State University he studied History with minors in Sociology and Philosophy. While he studied History he focused on intellectual history during the enlightenment, communication technology, and 19th century American religious history. His research interests at Notre Dame are much the same. Ethan's areas of interest are the sociology of religion and the sociology of technology with methodological interests in statistics and network analysis.
His Master's Thesis (titled: Online Communities: A case study of the nonreligious in the age of the Internet) looks at variation in online political activity among the nonreligious and religious populations of America. After this project he hopes to continue studying communication technology and religion. His dissertation will look at how developments in communication technologies during the 19th and 20th century have affected the American religious population. This project will focus on three main technological developments: the telegraph/telephone, television, and the Internet.
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Abigail Jorgensen
Research Interests: Culture, Gender & Family, Political Sociology, Quantitative & Qualitative Methods
Abigail Jorgensen is a third year doctoral student in sociology at the University of Notre Dame and a Notebaert Fellow. Her current work focuses on the motherhood shift, warfare theory, and child mortality. Prior to joining the Department of Sociology, Abigail earned a Bachelor of Arts in both Political Science and Gender Studies at the University of Notre Dame with a minor in Theology.
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Sarah Johnson
Research Interests: Nonreligion, Religion, Ritual, Culture, Qualitative Methods
Sarah is doing a PhD in Liturgical Studies in the Department of Theology and is also affiliated with the Center for the Study of Religion and Society. The focus of her research is the relationship between nonreligion and Christian ritual in North America. Sarah is a Louisville Institute Doctoral Fellow and holds a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She received an M.A.R. in Liturgical Studies from Yale Divinity School (2010), and an M.T.S. from the University of Waterloo (2008), where she also completed a B.A. in Religious Studies (2007).
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Brianna McCaslin
Research Interests: Gender, Religion, Sex, Culture
Brianna received her B.A. in sociology and English from Marian University and her M.A. in sociology from IUPUI. She joined the sociology department at Notre Dame in 2015. Her research interests include gender, religion, sex and culture, with specific interests in the role these institutional messages play in individual identity and intimate relationships. Her master's thesis examines the religious identity negotiation of married Catholic women who use contraception.
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Bridget Ritz
Research Interests: Theory, Religion Culture, Demography
Bridget Ritz is a third year graduate student in the Department of Sociology and a Graduate Fellow with Notre Dame’s Center for Ethics and Culture. At the CSRS, she works with Christian Smith on the Global Religion Research Initiative. Her research interests are religion, culture, embodiment, and social theory. Bridget received her M.A. in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago (2015) and her B.A. in Politics from Ave Maria University (2013).
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Michael Rotolo
Research Interests: Religion, Culture, Cognition, Morality, Linguistics, Emotion, Theory
Michael Rotolo is a PhD Candidate and University Presidential Fellow in sociology at the University of Notre Dame. Prior to coming to Notre Dame, he received an M.Div. at Princeton Theological Seminary (2016) and a B.A. in Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2013), where he minored in Social and Economic Justice.
More information (including CV) can be found on his website: mrotolo.com
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Peter Ryan
Research Interests: Religion, Social Movements, Theory, Culture
Peter graduated from the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies at the University of Redlands in 2002 with an emphasis in Literature and Creative Writing. He has spent the interim decade working in the nonprofit world, helping to set up volunteer programs in Syria and the Palestinian Territories. His areas of interest include social movements, religion, and qualitative methods.
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Audrey Seah
Research Interests: Ritual, Conflict Resolution, Catholicism, Disability, Culture, Qualitative Methods
Audrey is a Ph.D. candidate in Liturgical Studies and World Religion, World Church in the Department of Theology. She is affiliated with CSR and the Kellogg Institute. Her dissertation examines the formation and expression of narratives around deafness in the worship of Deaf Catholic ecclesial communities in the U.S. and its theological implications. She is also engaged in research on religious rituals of reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda. She received her M.A. in Theology (2012) and Th.M. (2014) from Saint John's School of Theology-Seminary in Collegeville, Minnesota and a B.A. in Music Composition from Fresno State (2003).
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Gregory Wurm
Research Interests: Family, Religion, Theory, and Qualitative Methodologies
Greg is first year graduate student in the Department of Sociology. He graduated from Brigham Young University with a BS in 2016 and an MS in 2018.
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CSRS Alumni
Graduate Alumni Placement
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Shanna Corner ('18)
Dissertation: "Tactics and Transcendence: The Struggle to Create Common Understandings about Religion and Women’s Rights within the United Nations"
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Global Religion Research Initiative, Notre Dame
Email
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Linda Kawentel ('17)
Dissertation: "The Intersection of Religion, Gender, and Family among U.S. Catholics: A Quantitative Analysis of the Relation of Religious Orthodoxy to Attitudes and Practices Concerning the Family"
Senior Reserach Scientist, Wellbeing at Work Program, Mendoza College of Business, Notre Dame
Email
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Megan Rogers ('17)
Dissertation: "Faiths and Fortune: Religion among the Professional Middle Cleass in Urban China"
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Global Religion Research Initiative, Notre Dame
Email
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Pete Barwis ('16)
Dissertation: "Power and Mobilization: The Problem of All-Volunteer Force Enlistment"
Senior Data Scientist, (2016 - Present)
Capture Higher Ed.
Email
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Cole Carnesecca ('16)
Dissertation: "Fate of the Gods: State Formation and the Emergence of Religious Modernity in China and Japan."
Assistant Professor (2016 - Present)
Zhejiang University, China
Email
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Bryant Crubaugh ('16)
Dissertation: "Not all Civic Action is Equal: How Place-Based and Identity-Based Civic Associations Differentially Impact Neighborhoods and Cities"
Assistant Professor of Sociology, (2016 - Present)
Pepperdine University
Bryant's CV
Email
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Amy Jonason ('16)
Dissertation: "Growing the Good Food Revolution: Strategies of Sustainable Community in Two Altruistic Civic Projects"
Assistant Professor, (2016 - Present)
Furman University
Amy's CV
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Bradley Vermurlen ('16)
Dissertation: "Reformed Resurgence: A Field-Theoretic Analysis of Religious Strength (and Weakness) in Advanced Modernity"
Director of Social Research (2016 - Present)
Docent Research Group
Bradley's CV
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Chris Morrissey ('12)
Dissertation: "War, Peace, and Religious Advocacy: the Debate Over the Iraq War."
Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology (2014 - Present)
George Fox University
Chris' CV
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