Contributors

Dr. Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi is professor of psychology at the University of Haifa,

Israel. His many books include The Psychology of Religious Behavior, Belief, and
Experience and Despair and Deliverance: Private Salvation in Contemporary Israel.

Dr. Nathalie Caron, a historian of the 18th century, is maître de conférence

(associate professor) in American Civilization in the Department of English and
American Studies at the Université de Paris 10-Nanterre. She is the author of Thomas
Paine contre l’imposture des prêtres (Thomas Paine against the imposition of priests).

Dr. Abby Day is Economic and Social Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow,
Department of Anthropology, University of Sussex, UK. Her current project, “Believing
in Belonging: exploring religious belief and identity” follows from her empirically based
doctoral research at Lancaster University, UK.

Dr. Lars Dencik is professor of social psychology at Roskilde University, Denmark,

and director of the Social and Cultural Psychology Program at the Danish Graduate
School of Psychology.

Dr. Ashgar Ali Engineer, a civil engineer, holds honorary doctorates from several
Indian universities. He is chairman of the Centre for the Study of Secularism in Society,
editor of the Indian Journal of Secularism, and director of the Institute of Islamic
Studies, Mumbai, India.

Dr. Ariela Keysar, a demographer, is associate director of the Institute for the Study of
Secularism in Society and Culture and associate research professor of public policy and
law at Trinity College. She was the study director of the American Religious Identification
Survey 2001 and is co-author of Religion in a Free Market.

Dr. Patricia O’Connell Killen, a religious historian, is professor of religion and

director of the Center for Religion, Cultures and Society in the Western United States
at Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, Washington.

Dr. Barry A. Kosmin, a sociologist, is founding director of the Institute for the Study
of Secularism in Society and Culture and research professor of public policy and law at
Trinity College. He was principal investigator of the CUNY National Survey of Religious
Identification 1990 and the American Religious Identification Survey 2001.

Nastaran Moossavi was the McGill Teaching Fellow in International Studies at Trinity
College in 2005-2006. Ms. Moossavi has been a member of the Board of the Iranian
Writers’ Association since 2001. She is also the editor of two readers in Persian on
women.

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Dr. Frank Pasquale, a cultural anthropologist, is a research associate of ISSSC engaged

in the study of the nonreligious population of the U.S. He has written and lectured
widely on humanism, morality and ethics, and church-state relations. He resides in
Portland, Oregon.

Dr. Bruce Phillips is a sociologist at the University of Southern California and

professor of Jewish Communal Service at Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles.
He has conducted research on inter-faith marraiges and local communities.

Dr. Andrew Singleton is a lecturer in the Sociology Program, School of Political

and Social Inquiry, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. His research interests
include youth spirituality, alternative religions, fatherhood, and men’s health. He is
co-author (with M.Mason and R.Webber) of the book The Spirit of Generation Y:
Young people’s spirituality in a changing Australia (John Garratt, forthcoming).

Dr. William A. Stahl is professor of sociology at Luther College, University of Regina,

Saskatchewan, Canada. He is author of God and the Chip: Religion and the Culture of
Technology and co-author of Webs of Reality: Social Perspectives on Science and Religion.

Dr. David Voas, a social statistician, is the Simon Research Fellow at the Cathy
Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research, University of Manchester, England.
He specializes in religious change in modern societies.