Contributions: Gary J. Adler Jr.
Gary J. Adler, Jr. is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Pennsylvania State University.
Contributions: Nancy Ammerman
Nancy T. Ammerman is professor emerita of sociology of religion in the Sociology Department of the College of Arts and Sciences and in the School of Theology at Boston University. She is a leading voice in congregational studies and has served as president of the Society of the Scientific Study of Religion and the Association of the Sociology of Religion. Her books include Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes: Finding Religion in Everyday Life (Oxford University Press, 2013), Everyday Religion: Observing Modern Religious Lives (Oxford University Press, 2006), Pillars of Faith: American Congregations and their Partners (University of California Press, 2005), and Bible Believers: Fundamentalists in the Modern World (Rutgers University Press, 1987).
Contributions: Mary Jo Bane
Mary Jo Bane is the Thornton Bradshaw Professor of Public Policy and Management Emerita at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her research interests center on poverty and inequality and how Catholic teaching and Catholic parish life address these issues. She is the author of numerous books and articles on poverty, education, families, and welfare and once served as assistant secretary for Families and Children in the federal Department of Health and Human Services.
Contributions: Tricia C. Bruce
Tricia C. Bruce is Associate Professor of Sociology at Maryville College and the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Contributions: John A. Coleman
John A. Coleman, S.J., has been an associate pastor at Saint Ignatius Parish in San Francisco since 2009. Previously, he was the Charles Casassa Professor of Social Values at Loyola Marymount University (1997–2009); Professor of Religion and Society at the Jesuit School of Theology and the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley (1974–1997); and the Thomas More Chair, The University of Western Australia (2005 and 2007). Coleman has edited, coauthored, or authored eighteen books, including The Evolution of Dutch Catholicism, 1958-1974 (University of California Press, 1978); An American Strategic Theology (Paulist Press, 1982); One Hundred Years of Catholic Social Teaching (Orbis, 1991); and Christian Political Ethics (Princeton University Press, 2007). He has also contributed over seventy chapters to collected volumes such as Civil Society and Government (Princeton University Press, 2002); Religion Returns to the Public Square: Faith and Policy in America (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003); The True Wealth of Nations (Oxford University Press, 2010); Modern Catholic Social Teaching (Georgetown University Press, 2018); and American Parishes: Remaking Local Catholicism (Fordham University Press, 2019).
Contributions: Kathleen Garces-Foley
Kathleen Garces-Foley is professor of religious studies at Marymount University. Her research interests include multiracial churches, young adults and religion, and contemporary death practices. She is the coauthor of The Twentysomething Soul: Understanding the Religious and Secular Lives of American Young Adults (Oxford University Press, 2019), author of Crossing the Ethnic Divide: The Multiethnic Church on a Mission (Oxford University Press, 2007), and editor of Death and Religion in a Changing World (Routledge, 2006).
Contributions: Mark M. Gray
Mark M. Gray is research associate professor and senior research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University. He has published on a wide number of topics related to Catholic parishes, religious switching, Catholic schools, and politics in two books and journals such as the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion and Review of Religious Research. He has designed, led, or participated in CARA research projects including the National Survey of Catholic Parishes, Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership, and CARA Catholic Polls.
Contributions: Brett Hoover
Brett C. Hoover is associate professor of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He teaches pastoral theology, congregational studies, and American Catholicism at the graduate and undergraduate levels. A former Congregational Studies fellow, his research has focused on ethnographic accounts of the relationship between different cultural groups in culturally diverse Catholic parishes in the United States. He is the author of The Shared Parish: Latinos, Anglos, and the Future of U.S. Catholicism (New York University Press, 2014).
Contributions: Courtney Irby
Courtney Ann Irby is assistant professor of sociology at Illinois Wesleyan University, having completed her PhD at Loyola University Chicago in the Department of Sociology. Her research considers the changing norms and meaning associated with how people form intimate relationships, including constructions of gender and sexuality. Her dissertation examined how religious groups mediate cultural changes in marriage by comparing Catholic and evangelical Protestant marriage preparation programs. Her articles have appeared in Gender & Society, Critical Research on Religion, Sociology of Religion, and Sociology Compass.
Contributions: Tia Noelle Pratt
Tia Noelle Pratt is a sociologist of religion specializing in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. Specifically, she focuses on systemic racism in the US Catholic Church, African American Catholic identity, and millennial-generation Catholics. She is currently a scholar-in-residence at the Aquinas Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and President of TNPratt & Associates, LLC.
Contributions: Brian Starks
Brian Starks is Associate Professor of Sociology at Kennesaw State University.
