About me
I am an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where I also direct the interdisciplinary Peace and Justice Minor.
As a cultural sociologist and scholar of race, religion, and politics, my research interests are informed by interdisciplinary and transnational approaches to these topics—including influences from sociology, religious studies, anthropology, political science, history, and ethnic and racial studies. I received my PhD in Sociology from Yale University in 2020.
My book , Black Visions of the Holy Land: African American Christian Engagement with Israel and Palestine (Columbia University Press, 2024), is a comparative analysis of transnational solidarities linking African American Christians with Israel and Palestine. It compares the cultural, identity-driven politics of African American Christian Zionists and Palestinian solidarity activists in their efforts to frame Black church identity in global terms. Based on six years of fieldwork in the United States, Israel, and Palestine, I examine motivations for involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict across contrasting Black church traditions of political engagement.
I am also working on a new project called, American Evangelicals, Islam & the Competition for Religious Authority. The project analyzes contemporary and historical American evangelical Christian struggles over the authority to define Islam and Muslims, with attention to the role of evangelical leaders and institutions within the pluralistic American public sphere.
Broadly, my research and teaching focus on: race, religion, politics, transnational social movements, social theory, cultural sociology, qualitative research methods, American evangelicalism, and religious pluralism.
I am originally from Ontario, Canada where I earned a BA in Religious Studies (Philosophy Minor) from the University of Waterloo. My undergraduate research focused on Canadian debates over so-called Islamic shari’a courts in the province of Ontario and the changing public role of religion with respect to Canada’s multiculturalism policies. I continued studying religion at Harvard Divinity School, where I earned an MTS degree in Religion, Ethics & Politics. As a master's student, I focused on religion and politics within American evangelicalism, Muslim communities in the United States, and Arabic and Islamic Studies. At Harvard, I also worked as a Research Associate for The Pluralism Project, where I co-authored a case study on Muslims in Boston and the political and interfaith issues surrounding the building of a new mosque and cultural center in Roxbury, MA.