I am a historian of American religion working on the cultural politics of freedom, the formation of “religion” under settler colonial regimes, and the intersections of race, religion, and empire in U.S. history. My forthcoming book, How Settler Colonialism Made American Religion (University of North Carolina Press, 2026), argues that settler colonial encounters shaped both religious practices and the category of religion in the early national United States. A Guggenheim Fellowship for 2021-2022 provided generous support for this project.

My first two books are We Have a Religion: The 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance Controversy and American Religious Freedom (University of North Carolina Press, 2009) and Religious Freedom: The Contested History of an American Ideal (University of North Carolina Press, 2017). I co-edited Religion and U.S. Empire: Critical New Histories (New York University Press, 2022) with Sylvester Johson; and served as guest editor of a special issue of the Pacific Historical Review (summer 2023), on the topic of religion in the nineteenth-century American West.

With Mitsutoshi Horii (Shumei University/Chaucer College Canterbury), I co-edit the journal Method and Theory in the Study of Religion. With Laura Olson (Clemson University), I co-edit the University of Kansas Press book series Studies in US Religion, Politics, and Law. I also sit on the editorial board for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.

I have taught at Yale University since 2009. Before Yale I taught at the Department of Religious Studies at Arizona State University (2004-2009) and held a Bill and Rita Clements Research Fellowship at Southern Methodist University’s Clements Center for Southwest Studies (2002-2003). I hold a Ph.D. in Religion from Princeton University, an M.A. from Claremont Graduate University, and a B.A. from Eastern Mennonite University.

I live in Hamden, Connecticut with my husband Rod Groff and our three children, Jordan, Sophia, and Dylan. I enjoy gardening (vegetables, fruit, herbs, and all sorts of perennials) and the crafts of fermenting and seasonal cooking.