Graduate Student Placement
The Department of Religion is proud to share its exceptional placement record, with graduates securing jobs both inside and outside academia.
2022
Elizabeth Dolfi, PhD
Early Career Fellow
Columbia University
Dissertation: Trafficking in Restoration: Building God's Kingdom in the Evangelical Anti-Trafficking Movement
Michael Hammett, Doctoral Candidate
Religious Studies Teacher
School of Holy Child, Rye, NY
Yanchen Liu, PhD
Lecturer
Chinese University in Hong Kong
Dissertation: Investigating the Margins: Bernard of Parma's Glossa ordinaria on Religious Marginality in the High Middle Ages
Ebadur Rahman, PhD
Coordinator of Muslim Life and Religious Life Associate
Columbia University
Dissertation: The Stories of Joseph and the Cave: Reading Modern Qur'anic Commentaries in the United States
Nick Tackes, PhD
Visiting Assistant Professor
Hamilton College
Dissertation: Everyday Eschatology: Centering and Healing in Two Hindu Sects
2021
Hillel Horacio Athias-Robles, PhD
Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
Fairfield University
Dissertation: Occupying Space: The Public Life of Africana Religions in New York
Quinn Alexander Clark, PhD
Lecturer
Department of Religion; Director, MA Program, South Asia Institute
Dissertation: “Dīn and Duniyā: Debating Sufism, Shrines, and Money in the Lucknow Area”
Andrew Jungclaus, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Scholar
Columbia University
Dissertation: True Philanthropy: A Religious History of the Secular Non-Profit Family Foundation
Verena Meyer, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society
Dissertation: Memory and Difference: Coherence and Paradox in Javanese Muslims' Stories of the Past
Alessandro Poletto, PhD
Lecturer in East Asian Religions
Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Washington University in St. Louis
Dissertation: The culture of healing in early medieval Japan: a microhistorical study in premodern epistemology
Guy St. Amant, PhD
Link-Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows
Lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and Religion
Princeton University
Dissertation: The Early Historical Semantics of Śruti
Dessislava Vendova, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow in East Asian Art and Religion
Graduate Theological Union
Dissertation: The Great Life Story of the Body of Buddha: Re-examination and Re-assessment of the Images and Narratives of the Life of Buddha Shakyamuni
2020
Mark Balmforth, PhD
Faculty of Arts & Science Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Toronto
Dissertation: Schooling the Master: Caste Supremacy and American Education in British Ceylon, 1795–1855
Alessandro Poletto, PhD
Lecturer in East Asian Religions
Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Washington University in St. Louis
Dissertation: The culture of healing in early medieval Japan: a microhistorical study in premodern epistemology
Jay Ramesh, PhD
Lecturer
Columbia University
Dissertation: Abodes of Siva: Monuments and Memory in Medieval and Early Modern South Indian Puranas
2019
Rex Delno Barnes III, PhD
Teaching Faculty
St. Mark's School, Southborough, MA
Dissertation: Haunting Matters: Demonic Infestation in Northern Europe, 1400-1600
Andrew Macomber, PhD
Assistant Professor of East Asian Religions
Departments of Religion and East Asian Studies, Oberlin College
Dissertation Title: Esoteric Moxibustion for Demonic Disease: Efficacy and Ritual Healing in Medieval Japanese Buddhism
Elizabeth Tinsley, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of East Asian Studies, University of California, Irvine
Dissertation Title: Dharma Possession: Daishi Myōjin and the Roles of Gods and Past Masters in the Preservation of Teachings at Premodern Kōyasan
2018
Krista Dalton, PhD
Assistant Professor of Judaic Traditions
Religion Department, Kenyon College
Dissertation: Rabbis and Donors: On the Logics of Giving in the Ancient Mediterranean
Cara Rock-Singer, PhD
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
University of Wisconsin
Dissertation Title: Prophetesses of the Body: American Jewish Feminism and the Politics of Embodied Knowledge
Shana Sippy, PhD
Research Associate in Religion
Centre College
Dissertation Title: Diasporic Desires: Making Hindus and the Cultivation of Longing
Zachary Ugolnik, PhD
Program Director at Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
Stanford University
Dissertation: The Mirror of Glory: Sense and Subjectivity in Near Eastern Mysticism
2017
Hasan Azad, PhD
Graduate Student
Master of Divinity Program, Union Theological Seminary
Dissertation: (Im)Possible Muslims: Hizb Ut-Tahrir, The Islamic State and Modern Muslimness
Daniel Manfred del Nido, PhD
Senior Education Program Associate
Tanenbaum
Dissertation: Just like Nature: Habit and the Art of Life
Laura McTighe, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Religion, Florida State University
Dissertation Title: 'This Day, We Use Our Energy for Revolution': Black Feminist Ethics of Survival, Struggle, and Renewal in the New New Orleans
2016
Sajida Jalalzai, PhD
Assistant Professor
Trinity University
Dissertation: Translating Islamic Authority: Chaplaincy and Muslim Leadership Education in North American Protestant Seminaries
Simran Singh, PhD
Executive Director of the Religion & Society Program, The Aspen Institute
Senior Adviser, Equity and Inclusion, YSC Consulting
Dissertation: The Life of the Puratan Janamsakhi: Tracing the Earliest Memories of Guru Nanak
Michael Wolfe, PhD
Tutor (Tenured Faculty)
St. John's College, Santa Fe
Dissertation: The World Could Not Contain the Pages: A Sufi Reading of the Gospel of John Based on the Writings of Muhyi Al-Din Ibn Al-'Arabi (1165- 1240 Ce)
2015
Joseph Blankholm, PhD
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara
Dissertation: Making the American Secular: An Ethnographic Study of Organized Nonbelievers and Secular Activists in the United States
Joel Bordeaux, PhD
Lecturer in the Institute for Area Studies
South Asian Religions, Leiden University
Dissertation: The Mythic King: Raja Krishnacandra and Early Modern Bengal
Liane Carlson, PhD
Manager, Institutional Funding and Sponsored Research
Barnard College
Dissertation: Contingency and the Limits of History: How Touch Shapes Experience and Meaning
Andrea Castiglioni, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
University of California, Berkeley
Dissertation: Ascesis and Devotion: The Mount Yudono Cult in Early Modern Japan
Christopher Kelley, PhD
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Brooklyn College and New York University
Dissertation: Toward a Buddhist Philosophy and Practice of Human Rights
Matthew Pereira, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Theological Studies, Loyola Marymount University
Dissertation: Reception, Interpretation, and Doctrine in the Sixth Century: John Maxentius and the Scythian Monks
Drew Thomases, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Religious Studies, San Diego State University
Dissertation: Making Pushkar Paradise: Religion, Tourism, and Belonging in a North Indian Pilgrimage Town
Anand Venkatkrishnan, PhD
Assistant Professor
Divinity School, University of Chicago
Dissertation: Mimamsa, Vedanta, and the Bhakti Movement
2014
Ari Bergmann, PhD
Managing Principal
Penso Advisors, LLC
Dissertation: Halevy, Halivni, and the Oral Formation of the Babylonian Talmud
Yonatan Brafman, PhD
Assistant Professor, Religion
Tufts University
Dissertation: Critical Philosophy of Halakha (Jewish Law): The Justification of Halakhic Norms and Authority
Todd French, PhD
Assistant Professor of History of Christianity
Rollins College
Dissertation: Just Deserts: Losing Origen and Gaining Retributive Judgment in the Hagiographical Literature of the Early Byzantine World
Elana Stein, PhD
Director of Leadership Education
Shalom Hartman Institute of North America
Dissertation: Rabbinic Legal Loopholes: Formalism, Equity, and Subjectivity
Hsuan-Li Wang, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
National Taiwan University
Dissertation: Gushan: The Formation of a Chan Lineage During the Seventeenth Century and its Spread to Taiwan
2013
Susan Andrews, PhD
Assistant Professor of East Asian Religions
Mount Allison University
Dissertation: Representing Mount Wutai's Past: A Study of Chinese and Japanese Miracle Tales about the Five Terrace Mountain
Todd Berzon, PhD
Peter M. Small Associate Professor of Religion, Religious Studies
Bowdoin College
Dissertation: Classifying Christians: Ethnography, Discovery, and the Limits of Knowledge in Late Antiquity
Joshua Eisen, PhD
President
Tekademic Translation Services
Dissertation: Stammaitic Activity Versus Stammaitic Chronology: Anonymity's Impact on the Legal Narrative of the Babylonian Talmud
Benjamin Fong, PhD
Assistant Professor of Honors
Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University
Dissertation: The Death Drive Revisited: A Reexamination of Psychoanalytic Drive Theory and Its Implications for Critical Theory
Joseph McClellan, PhD
Assistant Professor
Asian University for Women
Dissertation: Poisoned Ground: The Roots of Eurocentrism: Teleology, Hierarchy, and Anthropocentrism
Heather Ohaneson, PhD
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
William Penn Honors Program, George Fox University
Dissertation: Free To Play: An Analysis in Aesthetic, Ethical, and Religious Movements
Gregory Scott, PhD
Senior Lecturer in Chinese Cultural History
University of Manchester
Dissertation: Conversion by the Book: Buddhist Print Culture in Early Republican China
Frank Shepard, PhD
Associate Faculty
Brooklyn Institute for Social Research
Director of Development
Arch Digitals
Dissertation: The Sickness unto Life: Nietzsche's Diagnosis of the Christian Condition
Michelle Sorensen, PhD
Assistant Professor of Religion
Western Carolina University
Dissertation: Making the Old New Again and Again: Legitimation and Innovation in the Tibetan Buddhist Chod Tradition
Hamsa Stainton, PhD
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
McGill University
Dissertation: Poetry and Prayer: Stotras in the Religious and Literary History of Kashmir
Gheorghita Zugravu, PhD
Priest
St. George Greek Orthodox Cathedral
Dissertation: Kassia the Melodist and the Making of a Byzantine Hymnographer
2012
Patton Burchett, PhD
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
College of William and Mary
Dissertation: Bhakti Religion and Tantric Magic in Mughal India: Kacchvahas, Ramamandis, and Naths, Circa 1500-1750
Ehud Halperin, PhD
Lecturer
Asian Studies, Tel Aviv University
Dissertation: Hadimba Becoming Herself: A Himalayan Goddess in Change
Abigail Kluchin, PhD
Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies
Ursinus College
Dissertation: The Allure of Affect: Rigor, Style, and Unintelligibility in Kristeva and Irigaray
Daniel Vaca, PhD
Robert Gale Noyes Assistant Professor of Humanities
Brown University
Dissertation: Book People: Evangelical Books and the Making of Contemporary Evangelicalism
2011
Mimi Hanaoka, PhD
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies in Islam
University of Richmond
Dissertation: Umma and Identity in Early Islamic Persia
James Hare, PhD
Project Manager
Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung
Dissertation: The Garland of Devotees: Nabhadas' Bhaktamal and Modern Hinduism
Jon Keune, PhD
Assistant Professor
South Asian Religions, Michigan State University
Dissertation: Conversion by the Book: Buddhist Print Culture in Early Republican China
David Kittay, PhD
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Department of Religion, Columbia University
Partner
Kittay & Gershfeld, P.C.
Dissertation: Interpreting the Vajra Rosary: Truth and Method Meets Wisdom and Method
Yung-Fen Ma, PhD
Buddhist Nun and Abbess
Buddhist Center, Philippines
Dissertation: The Revival of Tiantai Buddhism in the Late Ming: On the Thought of Youxi Chuandeng (1544-1628)
Roy Tzohar, PhD
Tenured Faculty
East Asian Studies, Tel Aviv University
Dissertation: Metaphor (Upacara) in Early Yogacara Thought and Its Intellectual Context
2010
Jared Calaway, PhD
Visiting Assistant Professor
Religion Department, Illinois Wesleyan University
Dissertation: Heavenly Sabbath, Heavenly Sanctuary: The Transformation of Priestly Sacred Space and Sacred Time in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and the Epistle to the Hebrews
Rosemary Corbett (Hicks), PhD
Faculty
Bard Prison Initiative
Dissertation: Creating an 'Abrahamic' America and Moderating Islam: Cold War Political Economy and Cosmopolitan Sufi Muslims in New York After 2001
Erika Dyson, PhD
Associate Professor of Religious Studies
Harvey Mudd College
Dissertation: Spiritualism and Crime: Negotiating Prophecy and Police Power at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
2009
Varuni Bhatia, PhD
Core Faculty, History and Humanities
Azim Premji University, Bengaluru
Dissertation: Devotional Traditions and National Culture: Recovering Gaudiya Vaishnavism in Colonial Bengal
John Campbell, PhD
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Dissertation: Vajra Hermeneutics: A Study of Vajrayana Scholasticism in the Pradipoddyotana
Wen-Ling Jane, PhD
Buddhist Nun
Buddhist College of Zhongtai Mountain
Dissertation: Practice and Theory of Emptiness: A Study of Jizang's Commentary on the "Refutation of Emptiness" of the Bailun
Annabella Pitkin, PhD
Assistant Professor of Buddhism/East Asian Religions
Lehigh University
Dissertation: Like Pouring Water into Water: Buddhist Lineages, Modernity, and the Continuity of Memory in the Twentieth-Century History of Tibetan Buddhism
2008
Andrea Pinkney, PhD
Associate Professor of South Asian Religions
McGill University
Dissertation: The Sacred Share: Prasada in South Asia