Profiles of Newly Elected Officers & Council Members

President-Elect

Jerry Z. Park (PhD, University of Notre Dame, 2004) is an associate professor at Baylor University, where he specializes in sociology of religion and race. Since 1996, he has been an active member of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, contributing in various capacities. Notably, he served as a member of the association’s council from 2010 to 2013 and fulfilled the roles of program chair for the association’s annual meeting in 2018, as well as presider/convener of sessions at the annual meeting since 2005. Additionally, he undertook the role of associate editor for the association’s academic journal Sociology of Religion from 2010 to 2013, conducted regular paper submission reviews since the early 2000s, and engaged in book reviews since 2008. Park’s organizational contributions extend to the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the Religious Research Association, and the Religion and Asian American sections of the American Sociological Association. His research interests encompass a wide range of topics involving measurement and concept development across social contexts, including higher education, work environments, congregations, and ethnic communities. Park’s academic publications focus primarily on the intersection of religion with racial and ethnic attitudes, behavior, and identity, particularly among Asian, Black, and Latinx Americans. His scholarly endeavors have been supported by grants from prestigious organizations such as the National Science Foundation, the Templeton Foundation, and the Fichter grant from the Association for the Sociology of Religion, awarded in 2004.

Vision: As ASR president I hope to continue the legacy of leadership that preceded this nomination through proactive collaboration with executive council and the broader network of the association. The work produced from these discussions will focus on: 1) retaining and growing membership; and 2) furthering sustainable strategies for drawing more scholars outside of the United States, and beyond North America. In so doing, ASR will continue to expand the paradigms informing the sociological study of religion beyond White western Protestant assumptions through a robust gathering of scholars from around the world. This in turn will not only enhance ASR’s reputation as a leading scholarly community in the academy but also inspire the next generation of scholars.

New Council Members

Jonathan S. Coley is Associate Professor of Sociology at Oklahoma State University and incoming Editor-in-Chief of The Sociological Quarterly. His research projects examine LGBTQ student activism at Christian colleges and universities, religious and secular student groups at U.S. colleges and universities, local-level religion-state relations in the United States, and LGBTQ faith leaders in the United States. His first book, Gay on God’s Campus, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2018, and he is currently working on an edited volume entitled LGBTQ Religious Activism (with Golshan Golriz). His research has also been published in journals such as American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Sociological Forum, Contexts, Sociology of Religion, and Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. His research has been recognized through awards from the American Sociological Association, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, and his research has been funded through grants from the National Science Foundation, the Louisville Institute, the Public Religion Research Institute, and the Association for the Sociology of Religion. Finally, he serves as an editorial board member for Sociology of Religion.

Nicolette Manglos-Weber is currently an Associate Professor of Religion and Society at Boston University School of Theology. Since coming into the profession, I have been committed to serving the Association for the Sociology of Religion by broadening conversations with related disciplines and international scholarship. First, my publications consistently bring the sociology of religion in conversation with cultural sociology, political sociology, social ethics, and psychology. I am also appointed in an interdisciplinary program, training future leaders in religious and para-religious spaces. Second, my research is global and transnational, bringing new cases and unique empirical data to bear on the conversations in our field. For example, I am currently completing a book project on Christian and Muslim congregational life, community-based care efforts, and interfaith cooperation in Uganda. If elected to the ASR council, I would continue to advocate for greater interdisciplinary and transnational engagement within the sociology of religion.

Dr. Brandon Vaidyanathan is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Director of the Institutional Flourishing Lab at The Catholic University of America. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Business Administration from St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia and HEC Montreal respectively, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame. Brandon’s research examines the cultural dimensions of religious, commercial, and scientific institutions, and has been widely published in peer-reviewed journals. He is author of Mercenaries and Missionaries: Capitalism and Catholicism in the Global South (Cornell University Press, 2019) and co-author of Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the World Really Think About Religion (Oxford University Press, 2019). His ongoing research examines aesthetics and spirituality among scientists and the relationship between religion and innovation.