Jack Shand Research Grants
A generous bequest from Jack Shand, a long–term member of SSSR until his death in 2001, has made it possible for SSSR to offer Jack Shand Research Grants to support research in the social scientific study of religion.
For 2025, SSSR Council allocated $55,000 to this program. While individual grants do not ordinarily exceed $5,000, it is possible to make a special request for more, to be considered at the committee's discretion. Applicants must have finished the Ph.D. degree and must be members of SSSR. In the case of co–authored requests, one author must be both an SSSR member and a Ph.D. Intellectual merit is the criterion by which proposals will be evaluated.
Individuals are expected to use the Jack Shand award for expenses connected with their research. SSSR prioritizes applications that support direct research expenses. Shand Award funding is transferred to the principal investigator’s university unless other arrangements are made. Please note that SSSR does not allow for any indirect cost recovery.
All applications must be submitted via the online submission form, which is accessible through the link at the top of this page. Applications emailed to the committee chair or executive office will not be accepted. A Shand Research Grant application must include a project proposal (up to 4 pages, single-spaced), budget (expenses with descriptions/justifications), and the principal investigator’s curriculum vitae in PDF format. The deadline is May 1, 2025.
Funding decisions will be made by August 1, 2025.
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Penny Edgell (University of Minnesota), Chair, 2025
Mark Mulder (Calvin University), 2025
Amy McDowell (University of Mississippi), 2025
Abimbola Adelakun (University of Texas, Austin), 2025
Brandon Vaidyanathan (The Catholic University of America), 2026
2025 GRANTEES
Brook Harmon (Appalachian State University), "Feeding All of God's Children: How Faith-Based Food Pantries Navigate LGBTQ Inclusion"
Laura Krull (St. Norbert College), "Politics, Sermons, and the 2024 Election: An Analysis of Clergy Speech"
Nicolette Manglos-Weber (Boston University), "Making the Church Practical: Decolonizing Theological Education in Africa"
Kelsy Burke (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), "White Evangelicals and Transgender Politics in the United States"
Güneş Murat Tezcür (Arizona State University), "What is Religious Violence? A Comparative and Multilingual Inquiry"
Andrea Stanton (University of Denver), "Muslim Self-Expression on TikTok and Instagram"
Grace Sintim Adasi (Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana), "Gender, Authority, and Media: Examining Prophetess Selina Baidoo's Leadership in Ghanaian Christianity"
Hannah Taylor-Abdulai (University of Cape Coast), "The Double-Edged Sword: Religious healing as a facilitator and barrier in the Care of Older Adults in Developing Countries"
Spencer Stewart (Purdue University), "The Multimodal Textures of Worship in Mormon America"
Di Di (Santa Clara University), "When Algorithms Preach: AI Scientists and the Making of Algorithmic Religion"
Ruth Firmin (Gordon College), "What do faith and spirituality have to do with mental health, according to Gen Z? Three studies among Christian young adults in the US"
Nazita Lajevardi (Michigan State University), "Examining how race and transnational solidarity with Palestine shaped the 2024 vote"
Fanhao Nie (University of Massachusetts, Lowell), "Faith, Race, and Borders: How Christian Nationalism Shapes US Asians' Views on Immigration During the Trump Era"
2024 GRANTEES
Nabil Tueme (Springtide Research Institute), "Religion and Perceptions of Risk in Latinx Youth Activism"
Chris Miller (University of Ottawa), "Green Burial: Reimagined Approaches to Death and Dying"
Orit Avishai (Fordham University), "Religious Freedom and the New Culture Wars: A Dataset of State Caselaw of Religious Freedom Cases"
Jason Wollschleger (Whitworth University), "Burning & Bombing of Black Churches"
Prema Kurien (Syracuse University), "When Hindu Nationalism Shapes U.S. Politics: How Mobilization For and Against Hindutva Impacts Bay Area Democrats and Republicans"
Brooklyn Walker (Hutchinson Community College), "Complement to Power: How Complementarianism Shapes Anti-Democratic Attitudes"
Vineeta Yadav (Penn State University), "Political Consequences of Elite Religiosity"
Ilana Horwitz (Tulane University), "A Jew Who Coupons: The Socioeconomic Divide in Contemporary Jewish Life"
Yu Tao (The University of Western Australia), "Collaboration, Coexistence, or Compartmentalisation: Decoding the Modes of Interaction among Proximate Religious Groups in Multicultural Urban Neighborhoods"
Mirjam Kuenkler (IALS, London), "New Initiatives to promote muftiyãt (women issuing fatwas): A Survey
Rachel Rinaldo (University of Colorado Boulder), "Muslim Women, Work, and Family in Contemporary Indonesia"
Popy Begum (Saint Louis University), "Rituals, Routines and Religion in the Red-Light District in New Delhi, India"
2023 GRANTEES
Roger Baumann (Hope College), "American Evangelicals, Islam & the Competition for Religious Authority"
Esther Chan (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), "Religious and Racial Scripts Among Asian Americans"
Paul Djupe (Denison University), "Apocalypse Now: Testing End Times Mechanisms in American Politics"
Mansoor Moaddel (University of Maryland, College Park), "Understanding changes in religious values among Tunisians"
Susannah Crockford (University of Exeter), "Trusting the Plan: How Christian Nationalism and New Age Spirituality Intersect with Conspiracy Theories in the 2024 US Presidential Election"
Benjamin Milner (University of Alberta), "Investing in Angels, The Impacts of a Century of Randomized Grants to Clergy in 18th-Century Britain"
Jaeeun Kim (University of Michigan), "Repertoires of Redemption: Migration, Asylum, and Religion in the Era of Involuntary Immobility"
Joel Thiessen (Ambrose University), "Congregations at the Nexus of Faith Transmission and Spiritual Formation"
David Eagle (Duke University), "Politics and Polarization in the United Methodist Church: A Text Analysis of Sermons"
Rachel Stein (West Virginia University), "Vaccination decisions in a closed religious community"
Maro Youssef (University of Southern California), "The Power of Feminist Coalitions: Islamist and Secular Women Politicians' Cooperation in Tunisia (2011-2021)"
Jack Shand Research Grants
A generous bequest from Jack Shand, a long–term member of SSSR until his death in 2001, has made it possible for SSSR to offer Jack Shand Research Grants to support research in the social scientific study of religion.
For 2024, SSSR Council allocated $55,000 to this program. While individual grants do not ordinarily exceed $5,000, it is possible to make a special request for more, to be considered at the committee's discretion. Applicants must have finished the Ph.D. degree and must be members of SSSR. In the case of co–authored requests, one author must be both a member and a Ph.D. Intellectual merit is the criterion by which proposals will be evaluated.
Individuals are expected to use the Jack Shand award for expenses connected with their research. SSSR prioritizes applications that support direct research expenses. Shand Award funding is transferred to the principal investigator’s university unless other arrangements are made. Please note that SSSR does not allow for any indirect cost recovery.
All applications must be submitted via the online submission form, which is accessible through the link at the top of this page. Applications emailed to the committee chair or executive office will not be accepted. A Shand Research Grant application must include a project proposal (up to 4 pages, single-spaced), budget (expenses with descriptions/justifications), and the principal investigator’s curriculum vitae in PDF format. The deadline is May 1, 2025.
Funding decisions will be made by August 1, 2025.
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Penny Edgell (University of Minnesota), Chair, 2025
Mark Mulder (Calvin University), 2025
Amy McDowell (University of Mississippi), 2025
Abimbola Adelakun (University of Texas, Austin), 2025
Brandon Vaidyanathan (The Catholic University of America), 2026
2025 GRANTEES
Brook Harmon (Appalachian State University), "Feeding All of God's Children: How Faith-Based Food Pantries Navigate LGBTQ Inclusion"
Laura Krull (St. Norbert College), "Politics, Sermons, and the 2024 Election: An Analysis of Clergy Speech"
Nicolette Manglos-Weber (Boston University), "Making the Church Practical: Decolonizing Theological Education in Africa"
Kelsy Burke (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), "White Evangelicals and Transgender Politics in the United States"
Güneş Murat Tezcür (Arizona State University), "What is Religious Violence? A Comparative and Multilingual Inquiry"
Andrea Stanton (University of Denver), "Muslim Self-Expression on TikTok and Instagram"
Grace Sintim Adasi (Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana), "Gender, Authority, and Media: Examining Prophetess Selina Baidoo's Leadership in Ghanaian Christianity"
Hannah Taylor-Abdulai (University of Cape Coast), "The Double-Edged Sword: Religious healing as a facilitator and barrier in the Care of Older Adults in Developing Countries"
Spencer Stewart (Purdue University), "The Multimodal Textures of Worship in Mormon America"
Di Di (Santa Clara University), "When Algorithms Preach: AI Scientists and the Making of Algorithmic Religion"
Ruth Firmin (Gordon College), "What do faith and spirituality have to do with mental health, according to Gen Z? Three studies among Christian young adults in the US"
Nazita Lajevardi (Michigan State University), "Examining how race and transnational solidarity with Palestine shaped the 2024 vote"
Fanhao Nie (University of Massachusetts, Lowell), "Faith, Race, and Borders: How Christian Nationalism Shapes US Asians' Views on Immigration During the Trump Era"
2024 GRANTEES
Nabil Tueme (Springtide Research Institute), "Religion and Perceptions of Risk in Latinx Youth Activism"
Chris Miller (University of Ottawa), "Green Burial: Reimagined Approaches to Death and Dying"
Orit Avishai (Fordham University), "Religious Freedom and the New Culture Wars: A Dataset of State Caselaw of Religious Freedom Cases"
Jason Wollschleger (Whitworth University), "Burning & Bombing of Black Churches"
Prema Kurien (Syracuse University), "When Hindu Nationalism Shapes U.S. Politics: How Mobilization For and Against Hindutva Impacts Bay Area Democrats and Republicans"
Brooklyn Walker (Hutchinson Community College), "Complement to Power: How Complementarianism Shapes Anti-Democratic Attitudes"
Vineeta Yadav (Penn State University), "Political Consequences of Elite Religiosity"
Ilana Horwitz (Tulane University), "A Jew Who Coupons: The Socioeconomic Divide in Contemporary Jewish Life"
Yu Tao (The University of Western Australia), "Collaboration, Coexistence, or Compartmentalisation: Decoding the Modes of Interaction among Proximate Religious Groups in Multicultural Urban Neighborhoods"
Mirjam Kuenkler (IALS, London), "New Initiatives to promote muftiyãt (women issuing fatwas): A Survey
Rachel Rinaldo (University of Colorado Boulder), "Muslim Women, Work, and Family in Contemporary Indonesia"
Popy Begum (Saint Louis University), "Rituals, Routines and Religion in the Red-Light District in New Delhi, India"
2023 GRANTEES
Roger Baumann (Hope College), "American Evangelicals, Islam & the Competition for Religious Authority"
Esther Chan (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), "Religious and Racial Scripts Among Asian Americans"
Paul Djupe (Denison University), "Apocalypse Now: Testing End Times Mechanisms in American Politics"
Mansoor Moaddel (University of Maryland, College Park), "Understanding changes in religious values among Tunisians"
Susannah Crockford (University of Exeter), "Trusting the Plan: How Christian Nationalism and New Age Spirituality Intersect with Conspiracy Theories in the 2024 US Presidential Election"
Benjamin Milner (University of Alberta), "Investing in Angels, The Impacts of a Century of Randomized Grants to Clergy in 18th-Century Britain"
Jaeeun Kim (University of Michigan), "Repertoires of Redemption: Migration, Asylum, and Religion in the Era of Involuntary Immobility"
Joel Thiessen (Ambrose University), "Congregations at the Nexus of Faith Transmission and Spiritual Formation"
David Eagle (Duke University), "Politics and Polarization in the United Methodist Church: A Text Analysis of Sermons"
Rachel Stein (West Virginia University), "Vaccination decisions in a closed religious community"
Maro Youssef (University of Southern California), "The Power of Feminist Coalitions: Islamist and Secular Women Politicians' Cooperation in Tunisia (2011-2021)"