Research Interests and Current Projects

My early work explores how institutional values intersect with interreligious engagement in higher education (published in Journal of College and Character) as well as how institutional leaders manage tensions around pluralism (published in Journal of the American Academy of Religion). In my latest collaborative work with Kristopher Velasco and Pamela Paxton, I bring this focus on organizational leaders into concert with my interests in gender and sexuality. This research on how nonprofit leaders navigate tensions in the LGBTQ+ movement has received a revise and resubmit at American Sociological Review.

Institutions, organizational leaders, religion, sexuality, moments of tension: these threads all converge in my current work. Through an original employment audit, I find that Protestant churches reward rather than reject pastoral candidates with sexual misconduct histories (manuscript currently under review). This field experiment is one of three interconnected studies that examine sexual misconduct and religious leadership. A nationally representative survey experiment tests public reactions to different forms of clergy malfeasance, and an in-depth interview study examines the consequences of having experienced sexual harm at the hands of one’s religious leader.

My future work will extend this research agenda. I have developed and piloted a survey experiment that will further interrogate the results of my correspondence study and illuminate the mechanisms driving the main findings. Additional qualitative exploration is also in development. I am collaborating with Sam Kosai on a multi-experiment project to examine education, race, and inequality amongst returning citizens. I am excited to partner with others in future work and enjoy any chance I get to collaborate with colleagues and students.