I'm interested in how religious groups change and make change in the world. My research focuses on the evolving landscape of religious communities across the US, building capacity among faith and government organizations and leaders across the globe, and enabling greater impact through effective strategy, partnership, and learning/evaluation.
In July 2023, I joined the Center for the Study of Religion and Culture at the University of Notre Dame as a researcher focusing on a multi-institutional collaboration to map and study congregational life in Chicago's neighborhoods.
I served as the inaugural executive director of the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Chicago's Divinity School (MartyCenter.org). The Marty Center supports scholarship on religions, translates research to wide and diverse audiences, and works in partnership with communities, governments, and organizations of all types on issues uncovered in our research.
Previously I served as the executive director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California (usc.edu/crcc), which was named a Pew Center of Excellence in 2002. Over my 17 years at CRCC I helped shape the center into a creative, entrepreneurial environment where scholars, practitioners, and thought leaders interact to produce research and programs that bring new insight into the roles of religion in the public square. CRCC served as the measurement, evaluation, and learning partner for the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation's $120 million program supporting the work of Catholic Sisters. CRCC's research agenda included a $1 million initiative on church transformation funded by the Lilly Endowment and a $3 million research and journalist collaboration exploring engaged spirituality.
I work in collaboration with journalists to produce materials aimed at increasing journalist knowledge about religions. In March 2021, I led the creation of a series of public sermons from Los Angeles' religious leaders reflecting on the one year anniversary of the lockdown which aired on KPCC, and again in March 2022 in Chicago with WBEZ exploring these issues on the second anniversary of the lockdown. In advance of the 2018 election, I collaborated on a report which created a typology to explain the nuances of American evangelicalism.
Previously, I built tools that enabled religious groups as they prepare for and respond to disasters, building professional development courses geared toward enhancing government agencies' abilities to partner with religious groups, and convening public/private roundtables around these issues. Along with partners at USC CREATE (create.usc.edu) and the National Disaster Interfaiths Network (n-din.org), we designed a comprehensive package of materials including a publicly available course on religious literacy and competency in disasters and 16 tipsheets- all material available on FEMA iPads and the Emergency Management Institute's website (IS-505). This work builds on religious literacy and competency training that Peter Gudaitis at NDIN and I developed to train emergency management personnel across California.
Additionally, I served as the faith sector liaison for the LA Emergency Preparedness Foundation and currently on their board of directors. LAEPF coordinates private sector disaster response in partnership with numerous government agencies. I am on the advisory board for Listos California, a program to increase disaster preparedness in communities across the state. I regularly teach religious literacy and competency material in the USC Safe Communities Institute public safety officials leadership certificate program. Together with NDIN and New York Disaster Interfaiths Service, CRCC, and the Martin Marty Center were a part of a collaboration on the groundbreaking Disasters and Religions app to make all these materials available on smartphones and tablets.
I was also a founding member of the Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement, an initiative at CRCC that works to build the capacity of community development corporations connected to congregations in low to moderate income neighborhoods to transform their neighborhoods. We engaged in a pilot program to provide consulting and organizational development services to faith-based community development corporations in South LA as a means of transforming the neighborhoods they serve. This type of work continues as part of the Martin Marty Center's community engagement across the Chicagoland area.
Another cornerstone of my work has been to create and lead programs that provide leadership development, conflict communication, and network building. That interest lead to co-founding the American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute (usc.edu/amcli) in 2006. Since our first year of programming we have had five classes of our national fellowship, a unique nine-month program that enhances the ability of emerging Muslim leaders to engage in the issues impacting their lives and the lives of their communities. We adapted the curriculum and have scaled the program to building and networking leaders at the regional level. We have held ten regional programs across the United States. AMCLI now has a robust alumni network of nearly 350 American Muslim leaders working on issues from heath policy to immigration reform, hunger to national security. The El-Hibri Foundation awarded me the inaugural Fearless Ally award at their 2016 Peace Awards ceremony in recognition of this work to foster greater inclusion of Muslims in American society.
AMCLI was a model for a U.S. Department of State initiative called Generation Change that took the concept global under the leadership of an AMCLI-I alum. The GC program is now housed within the United States Institute of Peace and until 2021, was operated in partnership with CRCC. GC trains youth leaders across the globe. I have designed and facilitated several training programs with USIP including for Generation Change, for United States Institute of Peace staff in Washington, D.C., for Palestinian NGO leaders in Ramallah, and for a youth and thought leader delegation in an exchange with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2017. I continue to do work as a contractor to support USIP's various peace, leadership, and capacity building efforts around the globe.
I have served on several community and non-profit boards that work at the intersection of religion, pluralism, and the public square including- NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change (mjnewground.org) and LA Voice (lavoicepico.org), Religion Dispatches (religiondispatches.org), The Guibord Center: Religion Inside Out (theguibordcenter.org), and Jewish World Watch (jewishworldwatch.org), where I chaired the Solar Cooker Project that brought solar cookers to Darfuri Refugees living in northern Chadian refugee camps. Currently, I am on the advisory board for Moasic (mosaicfeds.org), a network of current and former federal employees who are Muslim and the Crossroads Project (crossroads.princeton.edu funded by the Luce Foundation) at Princeton University.
In 2014, I became a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations (cfr.org) and in 2019 I joined the CFR Religion Advisory Committee. I have been a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy (pacificcouncil.org) since 2008. In 2016, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appointed me to a two year term as a member of his interfaith collaborative advisory body, and I was reappointed in 2018. I have also been a Truman National Security Project fellow, German Marshall Fund Memorial Marshall Fellow, World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (www.weforum.org/communities/young-global-leaders), and USC Safe Communities Institute fellow (priceschool.usc.edu/programs/sci/homegrown-violent-extremism-studies-program/). In 2019, I was elected to a three year term of the council for the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (sssreligion.org/). In 2021, NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change awarded me their Trailblazer award for my work building bridges of understanding between communities in conflict. Most recently, I received the GLOW Award from CityLight International Assembly in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago.
My educational background includes a BA in Religion and in History from USC, an MA in Judaic Studies from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, studying Hebrew at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, completing an executive program in Counter-Terrorism at USC's National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (USC-CREATE), and completing an executive program in Global Leadership from the Harvard Kennedy School.
In July 2023, I joined the Center for the Study of Religion and Culture at the University of Notre Dame as a researcher focusing on a multi-institutional collaboration to map and study congregational life in Chicago's neighborhoods.
I served as the inaugural executive director of the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Chicago's Divinity School (MartyCenter.org). The Marty Center supports scholarship on religions, translates research to wide and diverse audiences, and works in partnership with communities, governments, and organizations of all types on issues uncovered in our research.
Previously I served as the executive director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California (usc.edu/crcc), which was named a Pew Center of Excellence in 2002. Over my 17 years at CRCC I helped shape the center into a creative, entrepreneurial environment where scholars, practitioners, and thought leaders interact to produce research and programs that bring new insight into the roles of religion in the public square. CRCC served as the measurement, evaluation, and learning partner for the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation's $120 million program supporting the work of Catholic Sisters. CRCC's research agenda included a $1 million initiative on church transformation funded by the Lilly Endowment and a $3 million research and journalist collaboration exploring engaged spirituality.
I work in collaboration with journalists to produce materials aimed at increasing journalist knowledge about religions. In March 2021, I led the creation of a series of public sermons from Los Angeles' religious leaders reflecting on the one year anniversary of the lockdown which aired on KPCC, and again in March 2022 in Chicago with WBEZ exploring these issues on the second anniversary of the lockdown. In advance of the 2018 election, I collaborated on a report which created a typology to explain the nuances of American evangelicalism.
Previously, I built tools that enabled religious groups as they prepare for and respond to disasters, building professional development courses geared toward enhancing government agencies' abilities to partner with religious groups, and convening public/private roundtables around these issues. Along with partners at USC CREATE (create.usc.edu) and the National Disaster Interfaiths Network (n-din.org), we designed a comprehensive package of materials including a publicly available course on religious literacy and competency in disasters and 16 tipsheets- all material available on FEMA iPads and the Emergency Management Institute's website (IS-505). This work builds on religious literacy and competency training that Peter Gudaitis at NDIN and I developed to train emergency management personnel across California.
Additionally, I served as the faith sector liaison for the LA Emergency Preparedness Foundation and currently on their board of directors. LAEPF coordinates private sector disaster response in partnership with numerous government agencies. I am on the advisory board for Listos California, a program to increase disaster preparedness in communities across the state. I regularly teach religious literacy and competency material in the USC Safe Communities Institute public safety officials leadership certificate program. Together with NDIN and New York Disaster Interfaiths Service, CRCC, and the Martin Marty Center were a part of a collaboration on the groundbreaking Disasters and Religions app to make all these materials available on smartphones and tablets.
I was also a founding member of the Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement, an initiative at CRCC that works to build the capacity of community development corporations connected to congregations in low to moderate income neighborhoods to transform their neighborhoods. We engaged in a pilot program to provide consulting and organizational development services to faith-based community development corporations in South LA as a means of transforming the neighborhoods they serve. This type of work continues as part of the Martin Marty Center's community engagement across the Chicagoland area.
Another cornerstone of my work has been to create and lead programs that provide leadership development, conflict communication, and network building. That interest lead to co-founding the American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute (usc.edu/amcli) in 2006. Since our first year of programming we have had five classes of our national fellowship, a unique nine-month program that enhances the ability of emerging Muslim leaders to engage in the issues impacting their lives and the lives of their communities. We adapted the curriculum and have scaled the program to building and networking leaders at the regional level. We have held ten regional programs across the United States. AMCLI now has a robust alumni network of nearly 350 American Muslim leaders working on issues from heath policy to immigration reform, hunger to national security. The El-Hibri Foundation awarded me the inaugural Fearless Ally award at their 2016 Peace Awards ceremony in recognition of this work to foster greater inclusion of Muslims in American society.
AMCLI was a model for a U.S. Department of State initiative called Generation Change that took the concept global under the leadership of an AMCLI-I alum. The GC program is now housed within the United States Institute of Peace and until 2021, was operated in partnership with CRCC. GC trains youth leaders across the globe. I have designed and facilitated several training programs with USIP including for Generation Change, for United States Institute of Peace staff in Washington, D.C., for Palestinian NGO leaders in Ramallah, and for a youth and thought leader delegation in an exchange with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2017. I continue to do work as a contractor to support USIP's various peace, leadership, and capacity building efforts around the globe.
I have served on several community and non-profit boards that work at the intersection of religion, pluralism, and the public square including- NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change (mjnewground.org) and LA Voice (lavoicepico.org), Religion Dispatches (religiondispatches.org), The Guibord Center: Religion Inside Out (theguibordcenter.org), and Jewish World Watch (jewishworldwatch.org), where I chaired the Solar Cooker Project that brought solar cookers to Darfuri Refugees living in northern Chadian refugee camps. Currently, I am on the advisory board for Moasic (mosaicfeds.org), a network of current and former federal employees who are Muslim and the Crossroads Project (crossroads.princeton.edu funded by the Luce Foundation) at Princeton University.
In 2014, I became a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations (cfr.org) and in 2019 I joined the CFR Religion Advisory Committee. I have been a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy (pacificcouncil.org) since 2008. In 2016, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appointed me to a two year term as a member of his interfaith collaborative advisory body, and I was reappointed in 2018. I have also been a Truman National Security Project fellow, German Marshall Fund Memorial Marshall Fellow, World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (www.weforum.org/communities/young-global-leaders), and USC Safe Communities Institute fellow (priceschool.usc.edu/programs/sci/homegrown-violent-extremism-studies-program/). In 2019, I was elected to a three year term of the council for the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (sssreligion.org/). In 2021, NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change awarded me their Trailblazer award for my work building bridges of understanding between communities in conflict. Most recently, I received the GLOW Award from CityLight International Assembly in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago.
My educational background includes a BA in Religion and in History from USC, an MA in Judaic Studies from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, studying Hebrew at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, completing an executive program in Counter-Terrorism at USC's National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (USC-CREATE), and completing an executive program in Global Leadership from the Harvard Kennedy School.
