About UVA Mormon Studies

Prof. Laurie Maffly-Kipp is the new director of our Mormon Studies program. She is a distinguished scholar of American religious history and holds a Ph.D. from Yale University. She has authored numerous influential works on Mormonism, religion in the American West, and African American religious history. Maffly-Kipp is also a former president of the American Society of Church History and the Mormon History Association.

Maffly-Kipp’s insightful research has earned her prestigious fellowships and accolades, including a research fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. As an educator, she has inspired countless students through her courses at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Washington University in St. Louis.

Maffly-Kipp’s interest in Mormon Studies grew out of early research into the history of American religion in the West. Over the past few decades, she has become an influential interpreter of Latter-day Saint history and participated in shaping the field of Mormon Studies. Her current work promises to expand the field into a much-needed exploration of 21st-century Mormonism outside of North America.

The University of Virginia established the Mormon Studies Professorship in honor of Professor Richard Lyman Bushman, an esteemed scholar of early American and Mormon history who led one of the first Mormon Studies programs in the country. He is currently Gouverneur Morris Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University and a National Advisory Board member for the Joseph Smith Papers project.

In the past, Prof. Bushman served as president of the Mormon History Association, a member of the board of editors of the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, a council member for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, and president of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. He chaired the advisory committee to the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History at Brigham Young University, 1999–2004; and he chaired the board of directors of the Mormon Scholars Foundation until 2016.

Prof. Bushman previously taught at Brigham Young University, Brown University, Boston University, Harvard University (as a visiting professor), and the University of Delaware. In addition, he occupied the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University in California from 2008 to 2011, the first graduate program of its kind.

UVA’s Mormon Studies program thrived under the leadership of Kathleen Flake, the first-ever occupant of the Richard Lyman Bushman Professorship. Kathleen Flake brought to the role a breadth of training in history, religious studies, law, and English literature.

Her research focused on the adaptive strategies of 19th and 20th century American religious communities, the affect of pluralism on religious identity, and the constructive function of text and ritual in maintaining and adapting religious identity.

Prior to her appointment at UVA, Prof. Flake taught at Vanderbilt University in both the Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion. Before becoming an academic, she litigated cases on behalf of the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Washington, D.C.

Professor Flake was granted the honorary rank of professor emeritus just prior to her retirement in May 2024.