Research Interests and Current Projects

My early work (published in the Journal of College and Character and the Journal of the American Academy of Religion) explores best practices that allow organizations and their leaders to diffuse identity-based conflicts, facilitate authentic intergroup engagement, and navigate constituent needs vis-à-vis institutional policies and legal mandates concerning religious expression.

In my latest collaborative work with Kristopher Velasco and Pamela Paxton, I bring this focus on organizational dynamics into concert with my interests in gender and sexuality. This research on how leaders of LGBTQ+ nonprofit organizations navigate intergenerational conflict during periods of social movement transition is forthcoming in the American Sociological Review.

Institutions, organizational leaders, religion, sexuality, moments of tension: these threads, present in each of my early-career projects, converge in my current research program.

Through an original employment audit, I find that Protestant churches reward rather than reject pastoral candidates with sexual misconduct histories. This field experiment is one of three interconnected studies that examine sexual misconduct, gendered inequality, and religious leadership. A nationally representative survey experiment tests public reactions to different forms of clergy malfeasance, and an in-depth interview study centers the epistemic privilege of those who have experienced sexual violence at the hands of their religious leaders.

My future work will extend this body of work. Using funds awarded through the ASA DDRIG, 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. Complementing my core research agenda is a collaborative, multi-experiment project examining race, educational attainment, and the reentry barriers faced by returning citizens. I am excited to partner with others in my future work and enjoy any chance I get to collaborate with students and colleagues.