LINES 2024 Participant Bios
Emerging Scholars
Gary Adler
Associate Professor
Sociology
Penn State University
Gary’s research examines how culture works at the intersection of religion and politics. He co-directs the American Local Leaders Study about ways that local government officials engage with religion and navigate religion-state law in practice. He is the author of Empathy Beyond U.S. Borders, a study of transnational awareness raising.
Adina Bankier-Karp
Research affiliate
Social Science
Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation, Monash University
Adina Bankier-Karp is a research affiliate at the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation, Monash University, and associate editor, Contemporary Jewry. She earned her PhD in Jewish education at Monash University, Australia, where she examined the socialization of young Australian Jews. She has published on identity formation, demography, immigration, and well-being.
Jamie Goodwin
Assistant Professor
Development and Philanthropic Studies
Wheaton College
Jamie Goodwin is a scholar of faith-based development and philanthropy. She teaches and researches in the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College. Jamie’s research interests include giving and volunteering between immigrants, cross-cultural partnerships, and monitoring, evaluation and learning.
Shaunesse’ Jacobs Plaisimond
Assistant Professor of Religion and Health
Religion
University of South Florida
Shaunesse’ earned a PhD from Boston University and is an Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida. Interested in ways that personhood can inform healthcare decision-making, her vocation takes an intersectional and interdisciplinary (bioethics, theology, and health policy) approach to address the multifaceted dimensions of health.
Sheryl Johnson
Visiting Lecturer in Ethics
Social Ethics
Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary
Rev. Dr. Sheryl Johnson (she/her) is a Euro-Canadian scholar of Christian social ethics. She is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada/Christ and she serves on the faculty at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary where she teaches ethics, social transformation, theological hermeneutics, church leadership, and pastoral care. Her first book, Serving Money Serving God, was published in 2023.
Amy Lawton
Research Manager
Sociology
Chaplaincy Innovation Lab, Brandeis University
Amy Lawton is a sociologist of religion with a PhD from the University of Connecticut. Amy is also particularly interested in strong towns and affordable housing.
Andrew Lynn
Research Fellow
Sociology
University of Virginia
Andrew Lynn is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. He graduated with a PhD in Sociology from UVA. His book, Saving the Protestant Ethic: Creative Class Evangelicals and the Crisis of Work, appeared on Oxford University Press in 2023. He now researches and writes at the intersection of religion, ethics, and economics.
Jonathan Oxley
Assistant Professor
Public Management and Policy
Georgia State University
Jonathan Oxley is an Assistant Professor in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Florida State University. Dr. Oxley’s research primarily performs quantitative analysis on nonprofit organization operations and donor behavior using applied econometrics and experiments. His research interests include nonprofit organization operation decisions surrounding entry, exit, revenue strategies, operational efficiency, and organizational affiliations, along with how each of these operation decisions impacts donor behavior.
Megan Pontes
Assistant Teaching Professor
Nonprofit Leadership & Management
Arizona State University
Megan Pontes, PhD teaches nonprofit leadership and management at Arizona State University. She has 13 years of experience in the financial sector and experience in the nonprofit sector as a board member, volunteer, and overseeing operations at a church. Her research interests include nonprofit advocacy, leadership, philanthropy, and governance.
William Schultz
Assistant Professor
Religious Studies
University of Chicago Divinity School
William Schultz is a historian of American religion with a focus on the intersection of religion, politics, and capitalism in the modern United States. He is currently researching a project on religion and financial fraud.
Gabel Taggart
Associate Professor
Public Administration and Nonprofit Studies
University of Wyoming
Gabel Taggart is an associate professor and the upcoming director for the Master of Public Administration program at the University of Wyoming. He serves as the board chair for the Wyoming Nonprofit Network, the state’s official association of nonprofit organizations.
Senior Scholars
Heather Curtis
Warren S. Woodbridge Professor in Comparative Religions
Tufts University School of Arts and Sciences, Religion
Heather D. Curtis is Warren S. Woodbridge Professor of Religion and Director of the Center for the Humanities at Tufts University, where she also holds an appointment in the Department of History. Her research explores how religion has shaped responses to racial injustice, humanitarian disasters, economic crises, and bodily illness.
Joseph L. Tucker Edmonds
Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Africana Studies
Indiana University’s School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI
Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture Philanthropy
Joseph L. Tucker Edmonds is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Religious Studies at Indiana University’s School of Liberal Arts (IUI) and the Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture (CSRAAC). He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from Brown University, his Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and his PhD in Religious Studies from Duke University. His research interests are Black theologies, alternative Christianities in the Black Atlantic, and the role of scripture in African and African American religious traditions. His book, The Other Black Church: Alternative Christian Movements and the Struggle for Black Freedom, was published in December 2020.
Tyrone Freeman
The Glenn Family Chair in Philanthropy, Associate Professor of Philanthropic Studies, Adjunct Associate Professor of Africana Studies
Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
Tyrone McKinley Freeman is an award-winning scholar and teacher who serves as the Glenn Family Chair in Philanthropy and Associate Professor of Philanthropic Studies at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. He holds an adjunct appointment as Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Indiana University Indianapolis and is a Research Associate at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington D.C. Previously, he was a professional fundraiser for social services, community development, and higher education organizations. He was also Associate Director of The Fund Raising School where he trained nonprofit leaders in the United States, Africa, Asia, and Europe.
In 2022, Dr. Freeman received the Dan David Prize which is the “world’s largest history prize” for his ground-breaking research on African American philanthropy. In 2023, he was awarded the prestigious Indiana University Presidential Arts and Humanities Fellowship in further recognition of his contributions to the study of philanthropy using history and the humanities.
His research focuses on the history of African American philanthropy, philanthropy in communities of color, the history of American philanthropy, and philanthropy and fundraising in higher education. His latest book is entitled, Madam C.J. Walker’s Gospel of Giving: Black Women’s Philanthropy during Jim Crow (University of Illinois Press, 2020). It examines African American women’s history of charitable giving, activism, education, and social service provision through the life and example of Madam C.J. Walker, the early twentieth century Black philanthropist and entrepreneur. The book received the 2021 Association of Fundraising Professionals Global Skystone Partners Research Prize in Fundraising and Philanthropy, and the 2021 Terry McAdam Book Award from the Alliance for Nonprofit Management.
Dr. Freeman’s work and contributions to the field of philanthropic studies have been recognized in several ways. His research has earned two awards from the Association of Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action including the 2020 Best Conference Paper Award, and the 2016 Gabriel Rudney Memorial Award for Outstanding Dissertation in Nonprofit and Voluntary Action. His teaching has earned two Indiana University Board of Trustees’ Teaching Awards and the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy’s Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award. In 2020, Indiana University inducted him into its prestigious Faculty Academy for Excellence in Teaching. Dr. Freeman previously served as Director of Undergraduate Programs at LFSOP where he ran the B.A. in Philanthropic Studies degree program and led the creation and assessment of curricula; created the first online graduate course; developed e-Portfolio pedagogies; and implemented High-Impact Practices (HIPs) in undergraduate education in collaboration with colleagues.
His work has appeared or been cited in The New York Times, The Washington Post, O: The Oprah Magazine, USA Today, TIME, Harvard Business Review, Stanford Social Innovation Review, NewsOne, Blavity, The Conversation, Black Perspectives, Philanthropy Women, Chronicle of Philanthropy, CASE Currents, and Advancing Philanthropy. He is co-author of Race, Gender and Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations (Palgrave MacMillan, 2011).
A proud HBCU grad, Tyrone earned a B.A. in English/Liberal Arts from Lincoln University (PA), a M.S. in Adult Education from Indiana University, a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning (M.U.R.P.) from Ball State University, and a Ph.D. in Philanthropic Studies from Indiana University.
Patricia Snell Herzog
Melvin Simon Chair and Associate Professor
IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
Sociology, Philanthropic Studies
Patricia Snell Herzog, PhD is a sociologist who serves as Melvin Simon Chair and Associate Professor in the IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and Affiliate Faculty in Informatics. Herzog is editor-in-chief of the interdisciplinary journal Review of Religious Research. Her interests include voluntary actions, religiosity, youth, and technological changes.
Gerardo Martí
William R. Kenan, Jr. Endowed Professor of Sociology
Davidson College
Gerardo Martí is William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology at Davidson College and President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. An award winning author, his current research is funded through Lilly Endowment Inc.’s Thriving Congregations Initiative and his next book is under contract with Oxford University Press.
Allison Youatt Schnable
Associate Professor, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs; Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Sociology; Affiliate Faculty, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy; Affiliate Faculty, African Studies Program; Director, Undergraduate Honors Program Professor
Indiana University Bloomington
Allison Schnable is Paul H. O’Neill Associate Professor in the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. She is the author of Amateurs without Borders (University of California, 2021).
