Research Fellows

 

Allison K. Ralph, Ph.D. | Founder and Principal, Cohesion Strategy

Allison K. Ralph is a thought leader in religious pluralism and social cohesion with 20 years of experience in strategy, research, and nonprofit and philanthropic leadership. She served at The Aspen Institute`s Religion & Society Program as an Assistant, Associate, Interim Director, and Director of its Religion and Philanthropy Initiative. During her five-year tenure at Aspen, Allison edited Pluralism in Peril: Challenges to an American Ideal, developed a seven-component framework to understand the system of religious pluralism, published both academic and industry papers on religion and philanthropy, and contributed to a special journal issue on Religious Literacy in Education. She also previously managed events at the El-Hibri Foundation and The Catholic University of America. She has spoken from the main stage at the IRF Summit and the El-Hibri Peace Awards. She has given talks at the United Philanthropy Forum and the American Academy of Religion. Allison has a Ph.D. in church history from The Catholic University of America and an MPhil from Cambridge University. Her graduate research focused on how societies manage or fail to manage their internal diversity and how they create and maintain social boundaries.

James Shelton Nalley | Georgetown University, Theological and Religious Studies, Ph.D.`24

James Shelton Nalley is a Georgetown University Theological and Religious Studies doctoral student. His research focuses on philosophical theology as it relates to spiritual life and how the contemporary incarnation of comparative theology offers an opportunity to enrich our understanding of one another, our traditions, and ourselves. While Shelton is interested broadly in historical and contemporary encounters between Christianity and Islam, he is mainly engaged with the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and Ibn al-‘Arabī. Shelton seeks to reimagine the works of Aquinas through an encounter with Ibn al-‘Arabī’s intellectual mysticism, in the same way Aquinas reimagined Christianity due to his encounter with Greco-Arab philosophy. Shelton received an M.T.S. degree in Comparative Theology from Harvard Divinity School (2016) and a B.A. in Philosophy and Religious Studies from Christopher Newport University (2012). He worked as the Office Manager at the Christian Association and Muslim Life at UPenn.

 

Jordan Denari Duffner | Georgetown University, Theological and Religious Studies, Ph.D.`24

Jordan Denari Duffner is an author, educator, and scholar of Muslim-Christian relations, interreligious dialogue, and Islamophobia. She is a doctoral student in Theological and Religious Studies at Georgetown University. A former Fulbright scholar, Jordan is also an associate of the Bridge Initiative, where she previously worked from 2014 to 2017 as a research fellow. She is also a Catholic Advisory Council of Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) member, which advocates for justice for all in Israel-Palestine. Her award-winning books are Finding Jesus among Muslims: How Loving Islam Makes Me a Better Catholic (2017) and Islamophobia: What Christians Should Know (and Do) about Anti-Muslim Discrimination (2021). Jordan holds a Master’s in theological and religious studies and completed her bachelor’s degree at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. She is a former Fulbright scholar in Amman, Jordan, where she studied the impact of the media on Muslim-Christian relations. 

 

 

Kate Kelly Middleton | The Catholic University of America, Religion and Culture, Ph.D.`24

Kate Kelly Middleton is a Ph.D. candidate & Teaching Fellow in Religion & Culture at Catholic University of America’s School of Theology and Religious Studies. Her research interests focus on interreligious study and comparative theology, with her doctoral work applying a Muslim and Catholic comparative theological framework of hope and fear to analyze contemporary problem sets. As a 2021 FASPE Fellow, Middleton engaged in historical case studies of atrocity, studying religious actors and communities and the role religious traditions play in cultivating and operationalizing particular forms of hope and fear. Middleton also studied through the WTC, receiving a certificate in Muslim & Christian Studies, participating in the ICJS` “Emerging Muslim-Christian Leaders” inaugural cohort and 2022 Faculty Seminar on Genocide and Interreligious Studies, and training through Georgetown University’s interfaith Clinical Pastoral Education program. She is a former U.S. Naval Intelligence Officer and holds degrees from the U.S. Naval Academy (BS), Marquette University (MA), and Catholic University of America (MA).

Aisha Subhan | Chicago Theological Seminary, Islamic and Interreligious Studies, Ph.D.`25

Aisha Subhan is a Ph.D. candidate at the Chicago Theological Seminary in Islamic and Interreligious Studies. Her work largely engages mysticism within her tradition of Islam and others with special consideration of female mystics, the feminine element/divine feminine, and ways in which feminism(s)/womanism(s) may contribute to this study and in fostering peace and healing within and into the world. Previously, Aisha attended Bayan Islamic Graduate School where she received her Master’s of Arts in Islamic Studies, and the University of California, San Diego where she received her Bachelor’s of Arts in Political Science and the Study of Religion. Aisha enjoys traveling, writing poetry, and walking by the lake. In the future, Aisha hopes to become a professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies.

 

 

David Tassell | George Mason University, Religious Studies, Adjunct Faculty

David Tassell teaches courses in Religious Studies as adjunct faculty at GMU, including Religion and Literature, Religions of the West, and Human Religious Experience. His classes often focus on the connections between religion, politics, and culture, from ancient Near Eastern religions to modern developments like American civil religion. He holds a Master of Theological Studies with a concentration in Political Theology from Calvin Theological Seminary. He is continuing his Virginia Commonwealth University.