MHA Board Nominees

For President-Elect: David Howlett

Born and raised in Independence, Missouri, David Howlett is the Mellon Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. He is the author of Kirtland Temple: The Biography of a Shared Mormon Sacred Space (University of Illinois Press, 2014; winner of MHA’s Best First Book Award) and co-author of Mormonism: The Basics (Routledge, 2017). An eighth-generation member of Community of Christ, he volunteers as one of the World Church Historians for the denomination, as well as on the advisory board for the Community of Christ Seminary, a graduate theological institution. 

A longtime MHA attendee and presenter, he has served as a conference program co-chair, a program committee member, a nominating committee member, and on the board of editors for the Journal of Mormon History. He also serves on the steering committee for the Global Mormon Studies Network and the advisory board for the Restoration Scripture Critical Editions Project. David is married to the Rev. Anna Woofenden, and they have a gloriously joyful nine-month-old daughter, Jarena. At the time of writing, Jarena was just beginning to attempt her first steps.

For Global Outreach Chair: Carter Charles

A native of Haiti, Carter Charles held a tenured position at University Bordeaux Montaigne (France), where he obtained all of his degrees, including his PhD, with a dissertation titled “The Political Integration of Mormons in the United States, from Reed Smoot to Mitt Romney.” He is since 2018 an assistant professor in the department of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University, where he also teaches Haitian Creole Grammar, Haitian Creole Literature, and Latter-day Saint history in France. He is the author of several articles, book chapters and reviews, and a book ambitiously titled Tout savoir sur la religion mormone (All You Need To Know About Mormonism, 2018). He’s currently working on several projects, including a socio-historical research with Pierre Vendassi on the religious itineraries of Latter-day Saints in French society. 

Carter has served on MHA’s Book Awards sub-committee since 2019, with his term ending this June. He has also served on the steering committee of the Global Mormon Studies Network, where he was lead organizer of the 2019 international conference “Decentered Mormonism: Assessing 180 Years of International Expansion,” in Bordeaux, France. Sponsored in part by MHA, participants hailed from Haiti, England, Ireland, Norway, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Italy, Brazil, France, and the United States. 

For Financial Chair: Heather J. Stone

Heather Stone is the President of TETON Sports, a sixteen-year-old outdoor gear company headquartered in Utah. She is on the Board of Governors of the Salt Lake Area Chamber of Commerce and co-chairs the Small Business Committee for that organization. She was formerly on the board and the credit committee of the Utah Microenterprise Loan Fund.

She holds a PhD from the University of Utah in Communication, with a dual emphasis in Writing and Rhetoric Studies, as well as an MBA from the University of Phoenix and a BA from Brigham Young University. Her work was awarded Dissertation of the Year by the Religious Communication Association and the CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award. She also received the Thomas Stockham Medal for Conspicuously Effective Teaching from the University of Utah. For her dissertation, she interviewed 55 women about their experiences growing up in the “Mormon corridor” in the 1980s/90s and then helped several narrators present their experiences for themselves in a public history exhibit at MHA 2018. She has been published in Digital Humanities Quarterly and the Journal of Communication and Religion. She and co-author Alecia Hart are working on a book for Latter-day Saint young adults who feel claustrophobic in their church communities. 

With a passion for public history, Heather and her historian husband Kelly helped envision and endow MHA’s Ardis E. Parshall Public History Award. Heather served as the first program committee chair for that award in 2021.

For Liaison Chair: John G. Turner

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 two books: Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (winner of MHA’s 2012 Best Biography Award) and The Mormon Jesus: A Biography (2016). 

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.