Melissa Deckman Editor & Author

Melissa Deckman is Chair and Associate Professor of Political Science and the Louis L. Goldstein Associate Professor of Public Affairs at Washington College. She earned her PhD in Political Science from American University. She is the author of School Board Battles (2004), which won the Hubert Morken Award, given biennially by the American Political Science Association for the best work on religion and politics. She is also a co-author of Women with a Mission: Religion, Gender and the Politics of Women Clergy (2005) and the textbook Women and Politics: Paths to Power and Political Influence, now in its second edition with Pearson/Prentice Hall (2011). She is the author or co-author of numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and is currently researching the intersection of gender and religion in the Tea Party movement.
Joseph Prud’homme is Assistant Professor of Political Science and director of the Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture at Washington College. He works in the areas of political philosophy, legal studies, and theoretical approaches to religion in public life. He received his PhD in the Interdepartmental Program in Political Philosophy at Princeton University.