Catherine Wessinger

Catherine Wessinger is the Rev. H. James Yamauchi, S.J. Professor of the History of Religions at Loyola University New Orleans, where she teaches in the Department of Religious Studies within the College of Arts and Sciences. She serves as co-director of the Loyola Himalaya Adventure: Summer Study in Dharamsala, India program and director of the Religion and Media Minor.

Her educational background includes:

• Ph.D. in History of Religions from the University of Iowa (1985)

Dr. Wessinger's research spans several interconnected fields within religious studies. She is particularly known for her expertise in women in religions, new religious movements, millennialism, and religion and violence. Her work often examines the intersection of gender and religion, with special attention to women's leadership in both mainstream and marginal religious traditions. She has conducted extensive research on Tibetan and Indian religions, as well as the Branch Davidian movement and other new religious movements that have experienced conflict with authorities.

Her publications reveal a consistent focus on understanding religious movements that exist outside mainstream religious traditions, with particular attention to how these groups interact with society and authority structures. Over her career, she has traced the evolution of millennialist thought across different cultures and historical periods, while also documenting women's leadership roles in religious movements that have often provided more opportunities for female religious authority than mainstream traditions.

Dr. Wessinger serves as co-general editor of Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions published by University of California Press, and is editor of the Women in Religions series at New York University Press. She is also co-director of the Women in the World's Religions and Spirituality Project, part of the World Religions and Spirituality Project online encyclopedia.

Her advising work has been particularly notable in her oral history project with surviving Branch Davidians, which produced three autobiographies. She continues this work through her YouTube channel, documenting first-hand accounts from Branch Davidian survivors. Her current research includes writing books on the Branch Davidian-Federal Agents Conflict and Women in New Religious Movements for the Cambridge Elements Series.