MHA Board Members

Ben Park

President

Benjamin E. Park received his PhD from the University of Cambridge, as the inaugural postdoctoral fellow in constitutional democracy at the University of Missouri, and is currently an associate professor of history at Sam Houston State University. He is the editor of A Companion to American Religious History (Blackwell, 2021) and DNA Mormon: Perspectives on the Legacy of Historian D. Michael Quinn (Signature Books, 2022), co-editor of the journal Mormon Studies Review, and author of American Nationalisms: Imagining Union in the Age of Revolutions, 1783-1833 (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier(Liveright, 2020; winner of the MHA Best Book Award). He has published over fifty popular essays in various national venues, including Time Magazine, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, Slate, and Washington Post. His most recent book is American Zion: A New History of Mormonism(Liveright, 2024).

After attending his first MHA conference as an undergraduate student in 2008, Dr. Park has participated in every annual conference since then but one. The association is his home; its members are his favorite people. He has been honored to spend time on the board of directors, twice receive the association's "Article of Excellence" award, and is now deeply humbled yet excited to serve in another capacity.

Andrea Radke-Moss

Past President

Andrea G. Radke-Moss received her B.A. (1992) and M.A. (1995) in History from BYU, where she took classes from Tom Alexander, Ted Warner, Fred Gowans, Martha Bradley, Brian Cannon, and Bob Westover, emphasizing the history of the American West and Native American Studies, and with a smattering of Mormon history, but not enough to become a passion or even a hobby.

At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (PhD, 2002), Andrea focused on women’s history of the American West. Encouraged by mentors John Wunder and Charlene Porsild, she began dabbling in Mormon women’s history. Her first MHA paper on the Women of Zion’s Camp won the 1999 Juanita Brooks Award. At UNL, Andrea embraced the idea that Mormon women’s history is western women’s history. Her book, Bright Epoch: Women and Coeducation in the American West (2008) examined the experiences of female students at coeducational land-grant colleges, including the Utah Agricultural College. Andrea’s research covers topics in both western and Mormon women’s history, including homesteading, polygamy, suffrage, Relief Society/YWMIA leadership, and wartime violence. Her articles on women in the 1838 Mormon-Missouri War have earned the MHA Best Article Award (2015) and Best Article in Mormon Women’s History (2018). She currently researches western women’s participation at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, a project which first began with a study of Mormon/Utah women at the Chicago Fair.

Andrea has presented papers, chaired and commented on many MHA panels, and served on the MHA Board as Membership Committee Chair and as a Nominating Committee member. She is most proud to be one of the first active members of the Mormon Women’s History Initiative Team (2004). She teaches at BYU-Idaho and lives in Rexburg with her husband, Stephen, and their two children.

John G. Turner

President Elect

I am Professor of Religious Studies and History at George Mason University. For me, Mormon History is local history. I grew up just outside of Rochester, NY, not too far from Palmyra. One of my encounters with Latter-day Saint history came through the Hill Cumorah Pageant, my graduate studies in American religious history then kindled an abiding passion in the subject, and I remain captivated by its human drama, theological and social innovation, and archival richness. The fruits of this passion are three books: Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (winner of MHA's 2012 Best Biography Award); The Mormon Jesus: A Biography (2016); Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet (2025).

One of the things I love about MHA is its openness. It's not just for folks with PhDs. It's for anyone who takes an interest in the subject, and it's best when people from all sorts of backgrounds get involved, even people who have no current or past affiliation or connection with the churches that have their origin in Joseph Smith's visions and revelations. I'm Presbyterian, but when I attended my first MHA meeting back in 2007, I immediately felt welcome. My wish is that newcomers and oldtimers alike have that same experience.

Christine Blythe

Executive Director

Christine Elyse Blythe earned her MA in Folklore from Memorial University of Newfoundland and a BA in Religious Studies from Utah State University. Her Master's thesis "Vernacular theology: home birth and the Mormon tradition" examined the personal narratives and beliefs of Latter Saint women--home birthing mothers, midwives, and doulas. She is co-editor of the forthcoming collection, Open Canon: Scriptures of the Latter Day Saint Tradition (University of Utah, 2022).

Christine is the archivist of the William A. Wilson Folklore Archives at Brigham Young University's L. Tom Perry Special Collections. In 2020, she collected over six hundred narratives from members of the LDS and Restoration churches about their experiences navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. She has served as co-president of the Folklore Society of Utah and editor of the Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies housed at the Religious Studies Program at Utah State University.

Jenny Hale Pulsipher

Publications Chair

Jenny Hale Pulsipher is Professor of history at Brigham Young University, specializing in early American and Native American history. Her first book, "Subjects unto the Same King": Indians, English, and the Contest for Authority in Colonial New England (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), was selected as a Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title in 2006. Her second book, Swindler Sachem: The American Indian who Sold His Birthright, Dropped Out of Harvard, and Conned the King of England (Yale University Press, 2018), received the 2019 Norris and Carole Hundley award from the American Historical Association-Pacific Coast Branch for the best book on any historical subject. Pulsipher has also published articles in the William and Mary Quarterly, Early American Literature, The New England Quarterly, and The Massachusetts Historical Review. Her current project is a biography of her Shoshone ancestors, Sally Exervier and Adelaide Exervier Brown.

Michelle Graabek

Global Outreach Chair

Michelle Graabek earned her PhD in History and Civilisation from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Her research lies at the intersection of migration, gender, and religious history. Her current research focuses on Danish Latter-day Saint immigrant women in Utah during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Michelle also has a BA in Archaeology from the University of Reading, where she began her interest in Scandinavian migrant cultural identity, by writing her dissertation on Viking art and metalwork found in the Danelaw in England. She expanded her focus in cultural studies, and interest in public history, with an MA in Cultural Heritage Studies from University College London. Between her MA and PhD, Michelle worked for several years in public history, managing education and events programmes at historic houses in England. She continues to have a research interest in public history, particularly the representation of marginalised groups, and a passion for widening access to history and arts.

Michelle has since 2021 served on the Executive Committee of EuroSeminar, organising conferences and webinars for young Latter-day Saint scholars and professionals in Europe, and now serves on its advisory board. Since 2021 Michelle has also served on the steering committee of the Global Mormon Studies Network, where she was an organiser of the 2023 conference, sponsored in part by MHA.

Hovan Lawton

Student Representative

Hovan Lawton is a PhD student at Baylor University studying twentieth-century Latin American history. His research focuses on the experiences of Central American minority Christian religious groups during the Cold War era, including Latter-day Saints. He previously received a BA in history from Brigham Young University and an MA in history from Utah State University, where he held the Leonard J. Arrington Fellowship. His master's thesis, entitled "Central American Saints: The Formation and Preservation of Latter-day Saint Community and Identity in El Salvador and Guatemala, 1960-1992," won the Best Thesis Award from MHA in 2024. Hovan has also been an intern with the Joseph Smith Papers Project, and he has written and co-written published articles on nineteenth and twentieth century Latter-day Saint history. He has been attending MHA since 2021 and appreciates the vibrant and supportive scholarly community that exists within the organization.

Brittany "Bri" Romanello

Publicity Chair

Brittany “Bri” Romanello earned her Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology at ASU. Using mixed ethnographic methods, her research explores how race, ethnicity, legal status, and religion shape Mormon Latina immigrants' lives, social networks, families, parenting, and identity.

Bri is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Latin American/ Latino Studies at University of Arkansas-Fayettville. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology at ASU. Using mixed ethnographic methods, her research explores how race, ethnicity, legal status, and religion shape LDS and other religious community experiences. Utilizing sociocultural and ethnographic research methods, she focuses on developing community-based projects that connect the public to the richness of the historical and lived experiences in the borderlands and beyond.

Liaison

Kristine Haglund

Kristine Haglund holds degrees in German Studies and German Literature from Harvard and the University of Michigan. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in American Studies at St. Louis University, planning a dissertation on Mormon business history at the turn of the 20th century. She is the author of Eugene England: A Mormon Liberal, part of the series "Introductions to Mormon Thought," published by the University of Illinois Press. She was the editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought from 2009 to 2015. She has been active in the Mormon blogging community since its inception and currently blogs (very occasionally!) at By Common Consent. Haglund has served as Vice President of Mormon Scholars in the Humanities and on the board of Common Consent Press. She was Program Co-Chair with Richard Bushman for the 2022 Mormon History Association conference in Logan, Utah. A Southern girl who lived most of her adult life in Boston, where she raised three children, she is now trying to figure out whether her current hometown of St. Louis is in the South or the Midwest, and whether kittens are more destructive than toddlers.

Spencer McBride

Awards Chair

Spencer W. McBride, PhD, is Associate Managing Historian of the Joseph Smith Papers. In addition to working as co-editor of three volumes of the Joseph Smith Papers, he is the creator, writer, and host of the project's five podcast series. McBride has published multiple books on the history of religion and American political culture, including Pulpit and Nation (University of Virginia Press, 2016), Contingent Citizens (Cornell University Press, 2020), Joseph Smith for President (Oxford University Press, 2021), and New York's Burned-Over District (Cornell University Press, 2023). His writing has also been published in the Deseret News and the Washington Post.

Greg Kofford

Finance Chair

After growing up in the LDS publishing community, Greg Kofford founded Greg Kofford Books in 2000. As one of the preeminent independent publishers focusing on Mormon Studies, many of the titles have won book awards from MHA and other academically based organizations. Greg has an MBA degree from MIT. He is founder of Sorbie Bornholm LP, a London based investment partnership. Sorbie invests in small public companies listed in Australia, Canada, UK and US. As a lifelong passionate reader and book collector Greg has amassed one of the larger private collections of Mormon related material. Over the years some decent sized portions of the collection have been sold or donated to institutional libraries. In 2023 Greg was called to a service mission at the LDS Church Archives and is tasked with finding the “unknown unknowns,” items that the Archives are not looking for because they don’t know they exist. He spends 2 days per week at the LDS Church Archives going through mission records, financial records, journals, and other records seeking the undiscovered.

Caroline Kline

Membership Chair

Caroline Kline is the assistant director of the Center for Global Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University. She holds a PhD in religion from CGU, and her areas of interest include contemporary Latter-day Saint women's communities, feminist theory, and oral history. Kline is the author of a number of articles or book chapters that center on Mormonism and gender, including "The Mormon Conception of Women's Nature and Role: A Feminist Analysis," (Feminist Theology, 2014) and "Saying Goodbye to the Final Say: The Softening and Reimagining of Mormon Male Headship Ideologies," (Out of Obscurity: Mormonism Since 1945, 2016). Her book, Mormon Women at the Crossroads: Global Narratives and the Power of Connectedness (2022), explores Latter-day Saint women's lived experiences in Botswana, Mexico, and the United States.