Mormonism and Society: Past and Present

Ben Peters

Hazel Rogers Associate Professor at Tulsa University

Benjamin Peters is a media scholar. The author and editor of three books with as many prizes, he is the Hazel Rogers Associate Professor and Chair of Media Studies at the University of Tulsa, an affiliated fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, and holds a PhD from Columbia University. The President of the Mormon Scholars in the Humanities and Associate Editor at Wayfare, he is currently writing books on Soviet prehistory to artificial intelligence, and Russian hackers. More at benjaminpeters.org

Makayla Bezzant

Makayla Bezzant recently graduated from Yale Divinity School with a Master of Arts in Religion, concentrating on the New Testament. With a background in Ancient Near Eastern Studies from Brigham Young University, her research interests include ancient material culture and its relationship with New Testament and early Christian texts. Makayla previously served as an officer for the Mormon Studies Society during her last year at YDS. 

Professor Kenneth Minkema

Executive Editor, Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University

Dr. Kenneth P. Minkema is the Editor of The Works of Jonathan Edwards and Director of The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, with an appointment as a Research Scholar at Yale Divinity School, where he offers courses on early American religious history.

Meredith Noorda

PhD Candidate at Princeton University

Meredith Hanna Noorda is a PhD student in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. Her research interests center on religious dress and textiles in the 17th and 18th centuries. During her MAR in Religion and the Arts at Yale Divinity School, she presented on Mormon participation in the nineteenth and twentieth-century women's dress reform movement at the Mormon History Association conference, and was co-president of the Mormon Studies Society in the 2022-2023 school year. 

Nicholas Shrum

PhD Candidate at University of Virginia

Nicholas B. Shrum is a Ph.D. Student in Religious Studies (American Religions) at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on the intersections of religious and state identity, nationalism, race, and sacred space in the United States. His most recent interests and projects concern American minority religious experience in the twentieth century, including Mormon-American nationalism, Jewish-American perceptions of the State of Israel, and Black-American religious experience. Before attending UVA, Nicholas received a BA in American Studies from Brigham Young University in 2018 and an MA in Religion from Yale Divinity School in 2022. 

Logan Packer

Adjunct Professor at Utah Valley University and Brigham Young University

Logan Packer is an Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at both Utah Valley University and Brigham Young University. He is a recent graduate of Yale Divinity School where he received his master's degree in philosophical theology and philosophy of religion. He is currently enrolled in the Counseling Psychology doctoral program at Brigham Young University where he studies existential therapy and the philosophical foundations of psychology. He is the founder of Yale University's Mormon Studies Society and a regular contributor to the Latter-day Saint Philosophical Theology Project. In his current academic positions, he regularly seeks to contribute to the growing conversation at the nexus of Western philosophy and Mormon thought.