معرفی
Melissa J. Wilde is the Davidson Kennedy Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, affiliated with the School of Arts & Sciences. She joined the university in 2006, serving as undergraduate chair (2013–2017) and currently leading the Department of Sociology. Her work bridges religion, inequality, and historical sociology, with a focus on institutional responses to social change.
Education:
- Ph.D. Sociology, UC Berkeley (2002)
- M.A. Sociology, UC Berkeley (1998)
- B.A. Sociology, NYU (1996)
Research explores how religious institutions adapt to cultural and demographic shifts, including studies of the Vatican II Council, Protestant demographic transitions, and racialized debates over birth control. Current projects include a national election survey on religion and politics, historical archives of denominational periodicals, and digitizing century-long religious inequality data. She develops innovative methods, from archival analysis of Vatican records to statistical modeling of self-collected datasets.
Her book Birth Control Battles (2023) examines racial and class divides in religious groups’ stances on contraception. Another work, Vatican II: A Sociological Analysis of Religious Change, analyzes institutional transformation. Awards include recognition for articles in top journals like the American Sociological Review.
Methodological expertise spans qualitative archival research (e.g., Vatican Secret Archive analysis) and quantitative database construction (e.g., General Social Survey modules).
