Michael O. Emerson

Michael O. Emerson is an American sociologist of religion and author whose known for his work on religion, race and ethnicity, urban sociology, and public policy. He is the Harry and Hazel Chavanne Fellow in Religion and Public Policy and Director of the Religion and Public Policy Program at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. At Rice University, Emerson was the founding director of the Center on Race, Religion, and Urban Life and co-founded the Kinder Institute for Urban Research with Stephen Klineberg in 2010. He was the President of the Association for the Sociology of Religion from 2015 to 2017. Emerson served as Professor of Sociology and Department Head at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 2020 to 2023. Since June 2023, he has held the Chavanne Fellowship at the Baker Institute at Rice University, where he directs the Religion and Public Policy Program (RP3).