The Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University generates research for the education field, develops technical and organizational capacity within education agencies and convenes a network of schools and systems dedicated to using evidence for educational progress. Christina Grant is executive director.

The Lutheran Education Association is a national network of Lutheran educators, which trains, assists and offers support to its members through conferences and other resources. Jonathan Laabs is executive director.

The National Catholic Educational Association works with Catholic educators to support ongoing faith formation and the teaching mission of the Catholic Church. Its membership includes nearly 140,000 educators serving 1.6 million students in Catholic education. Steven Cheeseman is the NCEA president/CEO. BeeJae Visitacion is director of communications.

This edition of ReligionLink is dedicated to stories that could possibly top the lists in 2025, providing background, resources and expert sources for you to turn to in the year ahead.

Liz Bucar’s research and writing covers a wide range of topics — from sexual reassignment surgery to the politics of religious clothing — but generally focuses on how a deeper understanding of religious difference can change our sense of what is right and good. She is the author of four books, including Stealing My Religion: […]

Alina Kokoschka is a researcher in Islamic studies, specializing in the aesthetics of Islamization, with a focus on the material worlds of Islam and Arabic script in the digital space. She also has interest in the relationship between people and things as well as criticism of representations of Islam and “Islamic art.”

Noam Sienna is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto. He is a scholar of Jewish culture and history, a Jewish educator and a Hebrew calligrapher and book artist. His academic work has focused on Jewish communities in the Islamic world, from the Middle Ages to the present, including their domestic practices.

Patricia Cecil is a specialist curator at the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri. Her work focuses on enhancing insight into the ways faith and religion shaped and were shaped by World War I and its aftermath. 

Sam Kestenbaum is a journalist covering religion in America. He has written about religious life during and in response to the pandemic, including a profile of Clay Clark, the frontman of a prophecy-and-politics roadshow; New Age author Christiane Northrup’s conspiracy makeover; a faith-healing TikToker whose fandom grew during lockdown months; and a Pentecostal church that […]