The Global Religion Research Initiative is pleased to announce its Round 1 award recipients!
The initiative, directed by Christian Smith, aims to advance the empirical study of global religion in mainstream academia by granting funds to promising researchers in the social sciences. The initiative launched late summer of 2016 in the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame.
Smith, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology and Director of Center for the Study of Religion and Society, was awarded $4.9 million from the Templeton Religion Trust of Nassau, Bahamas to address the relative neglect of religion as a subject of study in the social sciences, and to encourage the study of religions outside the North Atlantic region.
The initiative offers six distinct research and writing grants and fellowships programs: (1) Book-Writing Leave Fellowships, (2) Project Launch Grants, (3) Dissertation Fellowships, (4) International Collaboration Grants, (5) Curriculum Development Grants, and (6) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships. The GRRI will fund over 150 research proposals by distributing $3.1 million to scholars of global religion through three rounds of applicants to these programs over the next three years.
In this first round of competition, the GRRI received over 150 research proposals from scholars at 100 colleges and universities around the world. The submissions were reviewed by leading social science scholars and 48 of the proposals were awarded funding this 2017 round.
Five Notre Dame students and graduates received awards in the first round of funding. M. Tahir Kilavuz, a doctoral candidate in Political Science, has been awarded a GRRI Project Launch grant, which will support research that investigates how responsive the electorates in Muslim-majority countries are to both ideological and pragmatic policies.
Robert Brathwaite, who completed his PhD in Political Science from Notre Dame in 2012, will also receive a Project Launch grant to support the creation of a dataset that will allow for improved measurement of religious violence using natural language processing and automated text analysis of media reports. Brathwaite is currently an Assistant Professor in the Political Science at Michigan State University.
Megan Rogers, a Fulbright fellow and doctoral candidate in Sociology at Notre Dame, has been awarded a two-year postdoctoral fellowship. Her dissertation examines how religious and non-religious identities work to help middle-class professionals in China make sense of their place in their country and in the global society.
Shanna Corner, a doctoral candidate in Sociology, will be supported in 2017 – 2018 with a dissertation year fellowship. Corner’s project examines how UN and state-level officials who report on and review country implementation of women’s rights standards conceptualize religion and its relationship to women’s rights in varying ways.
Marcie Goeke-Morey, who received her PhD in 1999 from the Department of Psychology, has been selected to receive a Curriculum Development grant to support her revision of three developmental psychology courses. Goeke-Morey is currently an Associate Professor of Psychology at the Catholic University of America.
The GRRI will accept two more rounds of funding proposals. The second round of proposals will be due in October 2017 and awarded in 2018. Visit grri.nd.edu to learn more about the programs offered and how to apply.
For more about the recipients and their research, click here.
Round 1 Award Recipients
BOOK-WRITING LEAVE FELLOWSHIPS
Each fellowship provides funds toward the full reduction of teaching and committee responsibilities for one academic year in order to advance the study of global religion by facilitating the completion of a significant, new scholarly book on religions in different parts of the world.
Jóhanna Kristin Birnir, Political Science at University of Maryland
Antoinette E. DeNapoli, Religious Studies at University of Wyoming
Christopher Hale, Political Science at University of Alabama
POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS
The post-doctoral fellowships are intended to support the early development of scholars who show promise of distinguished research careers in the social scientific study of contemporary global religions
Hyun Jeong Ha, Sociology at the University of Texas
Megan Rogers, Sociology at the University of Notre Dame
PROJECT LAUNCH GRANTS
These grants intend to encourage and facilitate new, empirical research by providing start-up funding for scholars to explore and launch new research projects on global religions. Ten projects were chosen for funding this year.
Robert Thaun Brathwaite, Political Science at Michigan State University
Sabri Ciftci, Political Science at Kansas State University
Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, Political Science at University of Maryland
K. Amber Curtis, Political Science at Clemson University
Laura Olson, Political Science at Clemson University
Jessie Fredlund, Anthropology at The Graduate Center at CUNY
Evelyn Gertz, Sociology at The Ohio State University
M. Tahir Kilavuz, Political Science at University of Notre Dame
Andrew Miller, Political Science at MIT
Xinyan Peng, Anthropology at University of Virginia
Annika Schmeding, Anthropology at Boston University
DISSERTATION FELLOWSHIPS
These fellowships are intended to promote among promising, young scholars the social scientific study of contemporary religions around the globe.
Michel Chambon, Anthropology at Boston University
Shanna Corner, Sociology at University of Notre Dame
Sarah Kelman, Anthropology at University of California, Santa Cruz
Erica Larson, Anthropology at Boston University
Kerry Ann Carter Persen, Political Science at Stanford University
Guadalupe Tuñón, Political Science at UC Berkeley
Tamara van der Does, Sociology at Indiana University
INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION GRANTS
Each grant provides funds to be used by the research collaborators for transportation, lodging, communications, etc. to foster new collaborative ties between social science scholars in different countries. In this round of competition, 7 research teams were selected for funding.
Conrad Hackett, Senior Demographer and Assistant Director of Research at Pew Research Center; Jibum Kim, Sociology at Sungkyunkwan University (Korea); Nena Sahgal, Associate Director at Pew Research Center; Anna Sun, Sociology at Kenyon College
Thomas Holtgraves, Psychology at Ball State University; María Magdalena Giordana Noyola, Neurobiology at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; Patrick McNamara, Institute for the Biocultural Study of Religion
Danielle Nicole Lussier, Political Science Grinell College; Muhammad Najib Azca, Sociology at Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia); Mohammad Ahnaf, Religious and Cross Cultural Studies at Universitas Gadjah Mada; Hakimul Ikhwan, Sociology at Universitas Gadjah Mada
Anjana Narayan, Sociology at California State Polytechnic University Pomona; Bandana Purkayastha, Sociology and Asian American Studies at University of Connecticut; Durre Sameen Ahmed, Gender and Culture at California State Polytechnic University Pomona; Farhan Navid Yousaf, Sociology at International Islamic University (Pakistan); Neela Bhattacharya Saxena, English at Nassau Community College; Asha Mukherjee, Philosophy and Religion at Visva-Bharati University (India)
Rachel Rinaldo, Sociology at University of Colorado Boulder; Eva Fahrun Nisa, Art History, Classics and Religious Studies at Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand); Nina Nurmila, Gender and Islamic Studies at State Islamic University (Indonesia)
Kimberly Rios, Psychology at Ohio University; Mark Aveyard, Psychology at American University of Sharjah (United Arab Emirates)
Tom Smith, Senior Fellow/Director of NORC at University of Chicago
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT GRANTS
Each grant provides faculty in North American colleges and universities funds for (1) the development of new courses on global religion; or (2) the significant revision of existing courses to add new, substantial components on global religion.
Dilshod Achilov, Political Science at University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
Amy Adamczyk, Sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center, CUNY
Elizabeth Bishop, History at Texas State University
Jonathan Calvillo, Sociology at Boston University School of Theology
Sabri Ciftci, Political Science at Kansas State University
Stacy Keogh George, Sociology at Whitworth University
Marcie Goeke-Morey, Psychology at Catholic University of America
Esen Kirdiş, International Studies at Rhodes College
Jordan LaBouff, Psychology at University of Maine
Wes Markofski, Sociology at Carleton College
Emily McKendry-Smith, Sociology at University of West Georgia
Laura Olson, Political Science at Clemson University
Noor O’Neill Borbieva, Anthropology and Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne
Nadim Rouhana, International Affairs and Conflict at Tufts University
Phil Schwadel, Sociology at University of Nebraska Lincoln
Jo-Ann Tsang, Psychology at Baylor University
Wade C. Rowatt, Psychology at Baylor University
Daryl Van Tongeren, Psychology at Hope College
Eric Wesselmann, Psychology at Illinois State University
Adam Cohen, Psychology at Arizona State University
Edward Webb, Political Science at Dickinson College
Brannon Wheeler, History at United States Naval Academy
Gizem Zencirci, Political Science at Providence College
Originally published by at csrs.nd.edu on February 08, 2017.