Sigrun Kahl

Sigrun Kahl is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Sociology at Yale University, based at 115 Prospect St, New Haven, CT 06511. She serves as co-director of the MacMillan Center Initiative on Religion, Politics, and Society and co-organizes the Yale Political Science Department's Comparative Politics Workshop.

Her research investigates how long-term historical and religious factors shape modern social institutions, with core expertise in welfare state development, moral economies of poverty, and church-state boundaries in public service provision. Current book projects include Just Deserts: The Moral Economy of Welfare in Europe and the United States, which analyzes cross-national welfare systems through the lens of deservingness, and Poverty and Eternity: How Religion Shapes Assistance to the Poor, tracing how Catholic, Calvinist, and Lutheran traditions influence contemporary poverty policies. A third project examines historical roots of nonprofit sector variations in education and healthcare.

Professor Kahl teaches specialized courses including Welfare States Across Nations, Religion and Politics, and Historical and Archival Methods, integrating her fieldwork across Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the UK, and US.