Ashleigh Elser

Ashleigh Elser is a Research Fellow at Valparaiso University through the Lilly Fellows Program. She completed her PhD in Religious Studies—Scripture Interpretation and Practice at the University of Virginia (2017) and holds an MA in Religion (concentration in Religion and the Arts) from Yale Divinity School (2011). Her research focuses on comparative approaches to sacred text reading practices, scriptural hermeneutics in Judaism and Christianity, and the impact of historical-critical methods on biblical scholarship.

Elser has extensive teaching experience as a Teaching Fellow and Assistant at the University of Virginia, leading courses on religious thought, biblical studies, and modern fiction. Notably, she served as sole instructor for courses like 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at an Ancient Text' and 'Speaking in Parables.'

She has received multiple prestigious fellowships, including the Louisville Dissertation Fellowship and Marc and Nancy Shrier Jefferson Fellowship. Her scholarly presentations include talks at international conferences such as the International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture (Glasgow, 2016) and the Conference of Christianity and Literature (Riverside, 2016).