Curriculum Vitae (436.54 KB)Religion, science, immigration, and culture
Elaine Howard Ecklund is the Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology, as well as founding director of the Religion and Public Life Program. Theoretically, Ecklund explores how individuals and small groups bring changes to larger institutions that constrain them. Substantively, her work explores this topic in relationship to religion, science, gender, race and immigration in different national contexts. Ecklund is the author of five books, over 70 peer-reviewed research articles, and numerous op-eds. She has received over 6 million dollars in grants and awards, including those from the Templeton Religion Trust, Lilly Endowment, Inc., Templeton World Charity Foundation, National Science Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, John Templeton Foundation, and Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Her research has been covered in national and international news media, including USA Today, Nature, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist. She received a PhD in 2004 from Cornell University, where she was the recipient of the Class of 2004 Graduate Student Baccalaureate Award for Academic Excellence and Community Service. In 2013 Ecklund was winner of the Charles O. Duncan Award for outstanding research and teaching achievement at Rice University, and in 2018 she gave the Gifford Lecture at the University of Edinburgh. Ecklund has previously served as chair of the American Sociological Association’s Section on the Sociology of Religion and as president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Over the past several years, Ecklund’s research has explored how scientists in different nations understand religion, ethics, and gender. Ecklund is currently leading (with Denise Daniels) a nation-wide research initiative entitled “Faith at Work: An Empirical Study.” Ecklund teaches classes at the graduate and undergraduate level on immigration, sociology of science, classical sociological theory, research methods, and religion in public life.
Books
Ecklund, Elaine Howard, David R. Johnson, Brandon Vaidyanathan, Kirstin R. W. Matthews, Steven W. Lewis, Robert A. Thomson Jr., and Di Di. 2019. Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the World Really Think About Religion. Oxford University Press.
Ecklund, Elaine Howard, and Christopher P. Scheitle. 2017. Religion Vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think. Oxford University Press.
Ecklund, Elaine Howard, and Anne E. Lincoln. 2016. Failing Families, Failing Science: Work-Family Conflict in Academic Science. New York University Press.
Articles
Sorrell, Katherine, and Elaine Howard Ecklund. 2019. “How UK Scientists Legitimize Religion and Science Through Boundary Work.” Sociology of Religion 80(3):350-371.
Ecklund, Elaine Howard, Sharan Kaur Mehta, and Daniel Bolger. 2019. “A Way Forward for Sociological Research on Science and Religion: A Review and A Riff.” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 54(3):634-647.
Sorrell, Katherine, Simranjit Khalsa, Elaine Howard Ecklund, and Michael O. Emerson. 2019. “Immigrant Identities and the Shaping of a Racialized American Self.” Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 5:1-12.
Bolger, Daniel, Robert A. Thomson Jr., and Elaine Howard Ecklund. 2019. “Selection Versus Socialization? Interrogating the Sources of Secularity in Global Science.” Sociological Perspectives 62(4):518-537.
Peifer, Jared L., David R. Johnson, and Elaine Howard Ecklund. 2019. “The Moral Limits of the Market: Science Commercialization and Religious Traditions.” Journal of Business Ethics 157(1):183-197.
Tinsley, Cleve IV, Pamela J. Prickett, and Elaine Howard Ecklund. 2018. “Black Protestant Views of Science.” Du Bois Review 15(2):533-546.
Ecklund, Elaine Howard, Christopher P. Scheitle, and Jared Peifer. 2018. “The Religiosity of Academic Scientists in the United Kingdom: Assessing the Role of Discipline and Department Status.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 57(4):743-757.
Scheitle, Christopher P., and Elaine Howard Ecklund. 2018. “Perceptions of Religious Discrimination among U.S. Scientists.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 57(1):139-155.
Vaidyanathan, Brandon, Simranjit Khalsa, and Elaine Howard Ecklund. 2018. “Naturally Ambivalent: Religion’s Role in Shaping Environmental Action.” Sociology of Religion 79(4):472-494.
Scheitle, Christopher P., David R. Johnson, and Elaine Howard Ecklund. 2018. “Scientists and Religious Leaders Compete for Cultural Authority of Science.” Public Understanding of Science 27(1):57-75.
